Chairman Mao was the most famous "bookworm" in the history of New China, and he was so fond of books that he said to his wife, He Zizhen, on the long march: I want to defeat Chiang Kai-shek with the four treasures of the study room, he not only reads but also writes books, and books seem to have become his most powerful weapon.
From 1902 to his death in 1976, Chairman Mao's career of reading and learning lasted for 74 years, and through reading he not only changed his own destiny, but also indirectly changed the fate of China.
When he was studying at a private school, he was praised by Mr. Private School as a genius in reading because he came to prominence in reading, and was recommended to go out of the poor Shaoshan Chong and go to the wider world outside;
When he was studying in Xiangxiang County, he used a 500-word "Treatise on Shangmartin Migration and Wood Lixin" to impress the principal Fu Dingyi, and was personally recommended to study in Changsha;
When he was studying at changsha provincial first normal school, he studied hard and wrote the famous "Research on Sports", which was well received for his novel views, and was later recommended to Beiping by his mentor Yang Changji, where he met Li Dazhao, Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and other famous teachers;
Later, through two trips north (1918 and 1920), under the influence of Li Dazhao, he read a large number of Marxist-Leninist works, established his belief in Marxism, and finally persisted for a lifetime.
Looking at Chairman Mao's 74-year career of reading and seeking knowledge, at different stages he actually had different reading emphases, some books he read all his life, some books he only read at a certain stage, and each book reflected what he thought, thought, and did at that stage.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms: 8 to 17 years old
Before leaving Shaoshan in 1910, due to his father's high-pressure management and the strict education of private school teachers, the young Mao Zedong rarely read "extracurricular books", and basically came into contact with Confucian classics such as the Four Books and Five Classics, such as the Book of Poetry, the Book of Shang, the Zhou Yi, the Book of Rites, and the Thirteen Classics.
In an interview with the American journalist Snow in 1936, Mao Zedong said that during that time, "I worked in the fields in the morning and in the evening, and during the day I read the Confucian Analects and other four books." ”
Later, it was not until he left Shaoshan and mao Zedong was studying at the Xiangxiang County Higher Primary School that he began to read in-depth classical novels and biographies at home and abroad, such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", and "Biography of World Hero Haojie", and cultivated a deep personal heroism complex in his heart.
During this period, among the many domestic and foreign novel biographies, the young Mao Zedong read the most "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", he called himself a "fan of the Three Kingdoms" and admired the heroes in it very much.
Later, he would turn over the book from time to time, and in 1942 he issued an appeal to the whole party: "Comrades who do cadre work should read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin." ”
The four masterpieces represented by the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" are the books that the young Mao Zedong gained the greatest harvest and the deepest understanding under very difficult educational conditions.
Principles of Ethics: Youth from the age of 18 to 25
In the spring of 1912, at the age of 18, Mao Zedong was admitted to the Provincial No. 1 Middle School with the first place, and came to the provincial capital Changsha for the first time, thus beginning the most critical period of his reading career.
This period was the period when he read most frequently, not only reading a lot but also reading widely, as he himself said, "Like a cow running into a vegetable garden, seeing fresh greens everywhere, and eating them non-stop!" ”、
Beginning in the autumn of 1912, he first studied for half a year in the Hunan Provincial Library, reading from morning to night every day, and reading a large number of domestic and foreign social science and natural science masterpieces, such as Darwin's "Origin of Species", Adam Smith's "Original Wealth", Montesquieu's "Law and Intention", Huxley's "Heavenly Evolution" and so on.
Since 1913, he has studied at the Provincial First Normal School, the highest institution in Hunan, and has read a large number of professional books, including ethics and literature, and has a thorough understanding of Chinese and Western ideological theories.
One of the most representative is the "Principles of Ethics" that he read at the Provincial First Normal School, which is a representative work of the German philosopher Paulson, translated by the famous educator Cai Yuanpei, and published by the Commercial Press in 1913.
The reason why this book was chosen as a representative of the young Mao Zedong's reading career is because Mao Zedong made a great effort to this book, just 100,000 words of books, he wrote 12,000 words of reading notes, densely marked in the book, indicating that Mao Zedong was very fond of this book at that time, and had repeatedly read and thought about it many times.
Second, because this book is completely different from his future thinking, this is a book of partial idealism, which is very different from the Marxism he believed in in the future, which shows that the development of Mao Zedong's thinking was not smooth sailing, and he also walked through many "detours" during the period.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, many people returned to Chairman Mao's side, and after 30 years, I saw my notes on the fly-headed Xiaokai of that year, and Chairman Mao said affectionately: "I liked to read this book at that time, and any opinions and feelings I had were written in the book at any time. ”
After that, after the staff carried out anti-embalming, moisture-proof and other treatments, the book was shelved by Chairman Mao, never opened again in his later years, and is now preserved in the Central Archives.
The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto: Prime-age period from 26 to 41 years old
After the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement in 1919, Mao Zedong also threw himself into the huge anti-imperialist patriotic struggle, and under the influence of Li Dazhao, he initially came into contact with Marxism.
In 1920, the 27-year-old Mao Zedong first read the Communist Manifesto, a huge work by Marx and Engels, when he read a translation by Chen Wangdao, which, although poorly packaged, became the most important Marxist-Leninist work of his life, and in the 57 years since, he has read it at least 100 times, and he can even memorize some classic chapters verbatim.
Since 1920, Chairman Mao has been adhering to and practicing the theories of the Communist Manifesto, which is both a beacon of his life and a beacon of the Chinese revolution.
Chairman Mao later said that whenever he encountered problems when he was young, he would go through Marx's "Communist Manifesto", sometimes reading a paragraph or two, sometimes reading the whole text, and each time he would have new gains, and many of his articles were inspired by the "Communist Manifesto" and written.
Later, in order to have a deeper understanding of the Communist Manifesto, Chairman Mao also specially hired an English teacher to study the English version of the Communist Manifesto from scratch, to which he jokingly said to the teacher: "I have to study one day a day in my life, as much as possible, otherwise, what should I do when I see Marx?" ”
The Communist Manifesto is one of the most influential, long-term and profound books in Mao Zedong's intellectual career, and even after suffering from cataracts in his later years, he still did not give up reading, and customized the "Communist Manifesto" in large characters, which shows how much he loves and attaches importance to this book.
Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism
Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism: Middle age from the age of 42 to 55
From 1935 to 1946, collectively known as the Northern Shaanxi Period or the Yan'an Period, according to Xu Zhongyuan, who served as a collator of Mao Zedong's library, Mao Zedong read the most philosophical books during this period, such as "Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism" by Midin, as well as "Dialectical Materialism Course", "Philosophy and Life", "Outline of Sociology" and so on.
Mao Zedong wrote a large number of annotations and marks in these books, including horizontal lines, vertical lines, diagonal lines, triangles, boxes, dots, hooks, forks, etc., and the longest paragraph of annotations was more than 1200 words long.
In his later years, Hu Yaobang happened to see these annotations and once lamented: "In Yan'an, we all know that Chairman Mao reads books every day, but we don't know that we have written so many long reading annotations... The chairman made great efforts to read philosophy in Yan'an, and his old man also formed a reading group to study philosophy at that time. ”
During the Yan'an period, Chairman Mao wrote famous philosophical works, such as "The Theory of Contradictions" and "Theory of Practice", which were articles that "worked for great purpose" in Chinese history, and could even be said to have influenced the trend of the Chinese revolution.
The Economic Problem of Socialism in the USSR
The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR: Old Age from 56 to 65 Years
After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Chairman Mao's reading focus began to shift to the country's economic construction, and he read many Soviet economic works, such as "Critique of Political Economy", "Outline of Economics", "Capital", "Socialist Economic Problems in the Soviet Union" and so on.
Among them, Chairman Mao has worked the most on two books, and "The Economic Problems of Socialism in the Soviet Union" is one of them (the other is "Political Economy Textbook").
"The Economic Problems of Socialism in the Soviet Union" was written by Stalin, in which he summed up the experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union for more than thirty years, and was a representative work of Stalin's economic thought.
In 1958, when he saw Chen Boda's absurd move to abolish commodity production, he angrily said at the meeting that he would teach everyone a lesson, and the textbook was Stalin's "The Economic Problems of Socialism in the Soviet Union."
On how to develop socialist production, Stalin wrote many lessons worth learning, which Mao Zedong attached great importance to, and deliberately added this book to the list of books read in the party many times.
It was not until 1961, during the country's three years of economic difficulties, that Chairman Mao publicly mentioned the book, pointing out that although there were some defects in the book, it was generally objective, saying that "I have recently read it three times."
In short, from the founding of the People's Republic of China to the resignation of the president in 1958, Chairman Mao's reading focus was basically on national economic construction, when the Soviet Union was the best developed in socialist countries, so the economic works published by the Soviet Union were Chairman Mao's first choice.
The Twenty-Four Histories
Twenty-Four History: The Late Years from the Ages of 66 to 83
Among the many historical books in our country, Chairman Mao's most annotated characters and circle symbols are the Twenty-Four Histories, including:
"History", "Book of Han", "Book of Later Han", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Book of Jin", "Book of Song", "Book of Southern Song", "Book of Liang", "Book of Chen", "Book of Wei", "Book of Northern Qi", "Book of Zhou", "Book of Sui", "History of the South", "History of the North", "Book of Tang (Old Book of Tang)", "New Book of Tang", "History of the Five Dynasties (History of the Old Five Dynasties)", "History of the New Five Dynasties", "History of the Song Dynasty", "History of Liao", "History of Jin", "History of Yuan", "History of Ming".
From 1952 to 1976, Chairman Mao read the Twenty-Four Histories anytime, anywhere, whether in his study, on a business trip, on a train, or at night before going to bed.
Especially since he stepped down as president in 1959, Chairman Mao has a lot of time to study his hobbies, such as poetry and calligraphy, the most important of which is reading, and among all the books, Chairman Mao's favorite thing to read in his life is history books, whether it is historical jokes or classical novels, he likes to read them repeatedly, take history as a mirror, and explore the past and the present.
At that time, in order to thoroughly understand the twenty-four histories, he also specially invited the teacher of the Chinese Department of Peking University to Zhongnanhai to give a lecture, and many of the famous battles, historical figures, and historical stories were all cherished.
Until the 1970s, Chairman Mao's physique began to deteriorate, especially after suffering from cataracts, his eyesight was greatly affected, the doctor suggested that he did not read or read less, he changed the way he read, changed to the staff to read to him, although the efficiency was not as high as before, but he still insisted on reading every day, sometimes reading for ten minutes, sometimes reading for an hour or two.
Chairman Mao loves to read, from the age of 8 to private school, he read all his life, even in the war-torn 30s of the last century, still carry books and four treasures of the study room, in Chairman Mao's view, a day of not reading is a disadvantage, three days of not reading is to make a mistake, is the real "book idiot", so that posterity admires.