by Edgar Snow
“There had been a severe famine that year, and in Changsha thousands were without food. The starving sent a delegation to the civil governor to beg for relief, but he replied to them haughtily, ‘Why haven’t you food? There is plenty in the city. I always have enough.’ When the people were told the governor’s reply, they became very angry. They held mass meetings and organized a demonstration. They attacked the Manchu yamen, cut down the flagpole, the symbol of office, and drove out the governor. Following this, the Commissioner of Internal Affairs, a man named Chang, came out on his horse and told the people that the government would take measures to help them. Chang was evidently sincere in his promise, but the Emperor disliked him and accused him of having intimate connections with ‘the mob.’ He was removed. A new governor arrived, and at once ordered the arrest of the leaders of the uprising. Many of them were beheaded and their heads displayed on poles as a warning to future ‘rebels.’
“This incident was discussed in my school for many days. It made a deep impression on me. Most of the other students sympathized with the ‘insurrectionists,’ but only from an observer’s point of view. They did not understand that it had any relation to their own lives. They were merely interested in it as an exciting incident. I never forgot it. I felt that there with the rebels were ordinary people like my own family and I deeply resented the injustice of the treatment given to them.
“Not long afterward, in Shao Shan, there was a conflict between members of the Ke Lao Hui,* a secret society, and a local landlord. He sued them in court, and as he was a powerful landlord he easily bought a decision favorable to himself. The Ke Lao Hui members were defeated. But instead of submitting, they rebelled against the landlord and the government and withdrew to a local mountain called Liu Shan, where they built a stronghold. Troops were sent against them and the landlord spread a story that they had sacrificed a child when they raised the banner of revolt. The leader of the rebels was called P’ang the Millstone Maker. They were finally suppressed and P’ang was forced to flee. He was eventually captured and beheaded. In the eyes of the students, however, he was a hero, for all sympathized with the revolt.
“Next year, when the new rice was not yet harvested and the winter rice was exhausted, there was a food shortage in our district. The poor demanded help from the rich farmers and they began a movement called ‘Eat Rice Without Charge.’* My father was a rice merchant and was exporting much grain to the city from our district, despite the shortage. One of his consignments was seized by the poor villagers and his wrath was boundless. I did not sympathize with him. At the same time I thought the villagers’ method was wrong also.
“Another influence on me at this time was the presence in a local primary school of a ‘radical’ teacher. He was ‘radical’ because he was opposed to Buddhism and wanted to get rid of the gods. He urged people to convert their temples into schools. He was a widely discussed personality. I admired him and agreed with his views.
“These incidents, occurring close together, made lasting impressions on my young mind, already rebellious. In this period also I began to have a certain amount of political consciousness, especially after I read a pamphlet telling of the dismemberment of China. I remember even now that this pamphlet opened with the sentence: ‘Alas, China will be subjugated!’ It told of Japan’s occupation of Korea and Taiwan, of the loss of suzerainty in Indochina, Burma, and elsewhere. After I read this I felt depressed about the future of my country and began to realize that it was the duty of all the people to help save it.
“My father had decided to apprentice me to a rice shop in Hsiang Tan, with which he had connections. I was not opposed to it at first, thinking it might be interesting. But about this time I heard of an unusual new school and made up my mind to go there, despite my father’s opposition. This school was in Hsiang Hsiang hsien, where my mother’s family lived. A cousin of mine was a student there and he told me of the new school and of the changing conditions in ‘modem education.’ There was less emphasis on the Classics, and more was taught of the ‘new knowledge’ of the West. The educational methods, also, were quite ‘radical.’
“I went to the school with my cousin and registered. I claimed to be a Hsiang Hsiang man, because I understood that the school was open only to natives of Hsiang Hsiang. Later on I took my true status as a Hsiang T’an native when I discovered that the place was open to all. I paid 1,400 coppers here for five months’ board, lodging, and all materials necessary for study. My father finally agreed to let me enter, after friends had argued to him that this ‘advanced’ education would increase my earning powers. This was the first time I had been as far away from home as fifty li. I was sixteen years old.
“In the new school I could study natural science and new subjects of Western learning. Another notable thing was that one of the teachers was a returned student from Japan, and he wore a false queue. It was quite easy to tell that his queue was false. Everyone laughed at him and called him the ‘False Foreign Devil.’
“I had never before seen so many children together. Most of them were sons of landlords, wearing expensive clothes; very few peasants could afford to send their children to such a school. I was more poorly dressed than the others. I owned only one decent coat-and-trousers suit. Gowns were not worn by students, but only by the teachers, and none but ‘foreign devils’ wore foreign clothes. Many of the richer students despised me because usually I was wearing my ragged coat and trousers. However, among them I had friends, and two especially were my good comrades. One of those is now a writer, living in Soviet Russia.*
“I was also disliked because I was not a native of Hsiang Hsiang. It was very important to be a native of Hsiang Hsiang and also important to be from a certain district of Hsiang Hsiang. There was an upper, lower, and middle district, and lower and upper were continually fighting, purely on a regional basis. Neither could become reconciled to the existence of the other. I took a neutral position in this war, because I was not a native at all. Consequently all three factions despised me. I felt spiritually very depressed.
“I made good progress at this school. The teachers liked me, especially those who taught the Classics, because I wrote good essays in the Classical manner. But my mind was not on the Classics. I was reading two books sent to me by my cousin, telling of the reform movement of K’ang Yu-wei. One was by Liang Ch’i-ch’ao,† editor of the Hsin-min Ts’ung-pao [New People’s Miscellony]. I read and reread those books until I knew them by heart. I worshiped K’ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, and was very grateful to my cousin, whom I then thought very progressive, but who later became a counterrevolutionary, a member of the gentry, and joined the reactionaries in the period of the Great Revolution of 1925–27.
“Many of the students disliked the False Foreign Devil because of his inhuman queue, but I liked hearing him talk about Japan. He taught music and English. One of his songs was Japanese and was called ‘The Battle on the Yellow Sea.’ I still remember some charming words from it:
The sparrow sings,
The nightingale dances,
And the green fields are lovely in the spring.
The pomegranate flowers crimson,
The willows are green-leaved,
And there is a new picture.
At that time I knew and felt the beauty of Japan, and felt something of her pride and might, in this song of her victory over Russia.* I did not think there was also a barbarous Japan—the Japan we know today.
“This is all I learned from the False Foreign Devil.
“I recall also that at about this time I first heard that the Emperor and Tzu Hsi, the Empress Dowager, were both dead, although the new Emperor, Hsuan Tung [P’u Yi], had already been ruling for two years. I was not yet an antimonarchist; indeed, I considered the Emperor as well as most officials to be honest, good, and clever men. They only needed the help of K’ang Yu-wei’s reforms. I was fascinated by accounts of the rulers of ancient China: Yao, Shun, Ch’in Shih Huang Ti, and Han Wu Ti, and read many
books about them.† I also learned something of foreign history at this time, and of geography. I had first heard of America in an article which told of the American Revolution and contained a sentence like this: ‘After eight years of difficult war, Washington won victory and built up his nation.’ In a book called Great Heroes of the World, I read also of Napoleon, Catherine of Russia, Peter the Great, Wellington, Gladstone, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Lincoln.”
2
Days in Changsha
Mao Tse-tung continued:
“I began to long to go to Changsha, the great city, the capital of the province, which was 120 li from my home. It was said that this city was very big, contained many, many people, numerous schools, and the yamen of the governor. It was a magnificent place altogether. I wanted very much to go there at this time, and enter the middle school for Hsiang Hsiang people. That winter I asked one of my teachers in the higher primary school to introduce me there. The teacher agreed, and I walked to Changsha, exceedingly excited, half fearing that I would be refused entrance, hardly daring to hope that I could actually become a student in this great school. To my astonishment, I was admitted without difficulty. But political events were moving rapidly and I was to remain there only half a year.
“In Changsha I read my first newspaper, Min-li-pao [People’s Strength], a nationalist revolutionary journal which told of the Canton Uprising against the Manchu Dynasty and the death of the Seventy-two Heroes, under the leadership of a Hunanese named Huang Hsing. I was most impressed with this story and found the Min-li-pao full of stimulating material. It was edited by Yu Yu-jen, who later became a famous leader of the Kuomintang. I learned also of Sun Yat-sen at this time, and of the program of the T’ung Meng Hui.* The country was on the eve of the First Revolution. I was so agitated that I wrote an article, which I posted on the school wall. It was my first expression of a political opinion, and it was somewhat muddled. I had not yet given up my admiration of K’ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao. I did not clearly understand the differences between them. Therefore in my article I advocated that Sun Yat-sen must be called back from Japan to become president of the new government, that K’ang Yu-wei be made premier, and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao minister of foreign affairs!*
“The anti-foreign-capital movement began in connection with the building of the Szechuan-Hankow railway, and a popular demand for a parliament became widespread. In reply to it the Emperor decreed merely that an advisory council be created. The students in my school became more and more agitated. They demonstrated their anti-Manchu sentiments by a rebellion against the pigtail, † One friend and I clipped off our pigtails, but others, who had promised to do so, afterward failed to keep their word. My friend and I therefore assaulted them in secret and forcibly removed their queues, a total of more than ten falling victim to our shears. Thus in a short space of time I had progressed from ridiculing the False Foreign Devil’s imitation queue to demanding the general abolition of queues. How a political idea can change a point of view!
“I got into a dispute with a friend in a law school over the pigtail episode, and we each advanced opposing theories on the subject. The law student held that the body, skin, hair, and nails are heritages from one’s parents and must not be destroyed, quoting the Classics to clinch his argument. But I myself and the antipigtailers developed a countertheory, on an anti-Manchu political basis, and thoroughly silenced him.
“After the Wuhan Uprising occurred, ‡ led by Li Yuan-hung, martial law was declared in Hunan. The political scene rapidly altered. One day a revolutionary appeared in the middle school and made a stirring speech, with the permission of the principal. Seven or eight students arose in the assembly and supported him with vigorous denunciation of the Manchus, and calls for action to establish the Republic. Everyone listened with complete attention. Not a sound was heard as the orator of the revolution, one of the officials of Li Yuan-hung, spoke before the excited students.
“Four or five days after hearing this speech I determined to join the revolutionary army of Li Yuan-hung. I decided to go to Hankow with several other friends, and we collected some money from our classmates. Having heard that the streets of Hankow were very wet, and that it was necessary to wear rain shoes, I went to borrow some from a friend in the army, who was quartered outside the city. I was stopped by the garrison guards. The place had become very active, the soldiers had for the first time been furnished with bullets, and they were pouring into the streets.
“Rebels were approaching the city along the Canton-Hankow railway, and fighting had begun. A big battle occurred outside the city walls of Changsha. There was at the same time an insurrection within the city, and the gates were stormed and taken by Chinese laborers. Through one of the gates I re-entered the city. Then I stood on a high place and watched the battle, until at last I saw the Han* flag raised over the yamen. It was a white banner with the character Han in it. I returned to my school, to find it under military guard.
“On the following day, a tutu † government was organized. Two prominent members of the Ke Lao Hui [Elder Brother Society] were made tutu and vice-tutu. These were Chiao Ta-feng and Chen Tso-hsing, respectively. The new government was established in the former buildings of the provincial advisory council, whose chief had been T’an Yen-k’ai, who was dismissed. The council itself was abolished. Among the Manchu documents found by the revolutionaries were some copies of a petition begging for the opening of parliament. The original had been written in blood by Hsu Teh-li, who is now commissioner of education in the Soviet Government. Hsu had cut off the end of his finger, as a demonstration of sincerity and determination, and his petition began, ‘Begging that parliament be opened, I bid farewell [to the provincial delegates to Peking] by cutting my finger.’
“The new tutu and vice-tutu did not last long. They were not bad men, and had some revolutionary intentions, but they were poor and represented the interests of the oppressed. The landlords and merchants were dissatisfied with them. Not many days later, when I went to call on a friend, I saw their corpses lying in the street. T’an Yen-k’ai had organized a revolt against them, as representative of the Hunan landlords and militarists.
“Many students were now joining the army. A student army had been organized and among these students was T’ang Sheng-chih.* I did not like the student army; I considered the basis of it too confused. I decided to join the regular army instead, and help complete the revolution. The Ch’ing Emperor had not yet abdicated, and there was a period of struggle.
“My salary was seven yuan a month—which is more than I get in the Red Army now, however—and of this I spent two yuan a month on food. I also had to buy water. The soldiers had to carry water in from outside the city, but I, being a student, could not condescend to carrying, and bought it from the water peddlers. The rest of my wages were spent on newspapers, of which I became an avid reader. Among journals then dealing with the revolution was the Hsiang Chiang Jih-pao [Hsiang River Daily News]. Socialism was discussed in it, and in these columns I first learned the term. I also discussed socialism, really social-reformism, with other students and soldiers. I read some pamphlets written by Kiang K’ang-hu about socialism and its principles. I wrote enthusiastically to several of my classmates on this subject, but only one of them responded in agreement.
“There was a Hunan miner in my squad, and an ironsmith, whom I liked very much. The rest were mediocre, and one was a rascal. I persuaded two more students to join the army, and came to be on friendly terms with the platoon commander and most of the soldiers. I could write, I knew something about books, and they respected my ‘great learning.’ I could help by writing letters for them or in other such ways.
“The outcome of the revolution was not yet decided. The Ch’ing had not wholly given up power, and there was a struggle within the Kuomintang concerning the leadership. It was said in Hunan that further war was inevitable. Several armies were organized against the Manchus and against Yuan Shih-k’ai.† Among these was the Hunan army. But
just as the Hunanese were preparing to move into action, Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shih-k’ai came to an agreement, the scheduled war was called off, North and South were ‘unified,’ and the Nanking Government was dissolved. Thinking the revolution was over, I resigned from the army and decided to return to my books. I had been a soldier for half a year.
“I began to read advertisements in the papers. Many schools were then being opened and used this medium to attract new students. I had no special standard for judging schools; I did not know exactly what I wanted to do. An advertisement for a police school caught my eye and I registered for entrance to it. Before I was examined, however, I read an advertisement of a soap-making ‘school.’ No tuition was required, board was furnished and a small salary was promised. It was an attractive and inspiring advertisement. It told of the great social benefits of soap making, how it would enrich the country and enrich the people. I changed my mind about the police school and decided to become a soap maker. I paid my dollar registration fee here also.
“Meanwhile a friend of mine had become a law student and he urged me to enter his school. I also read an alluring advertisement of this law school, which promised many wonderful things. It promised to teach students all about law in three years and guaranteed that at the end of this period they would instantly become mandarins. My friend kept praising the school to me, until finally I wrote to my family, repeated all the promises of the advertisement, and asked them to send me tuition money. I painted a bright picture for them of my future as a jurist and mandarin. Then I paid a dollar to register in the law school and waited to hear from my parents.
“Fate again intervened in the form of an advertisement for a commercial school. Another friend counseled me that the country was in economic war, and that what was most needed were economists who could build up the nation’s economy. His argument prevailed and I spent another dollar to register in this commercial middle school. I actually enrolled there and was accepted. Meanwhile, however, I continued to read advertisements, and one day I read one describing the charms of a higher commercial public school. It was operated by the government, it offered a wide curriculum, and I heard that its instructors were very able men. I decided it would be better to become a commercial expert there, paid my dollar and registered, then wrote my father of my decision. He was pleased. My father readily appreciated the advantages of commercial cleverness. I entered this school and remained—for one month.