The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Personal Physician is a memoir by Li Zhisui, one of the physicians to Mao Zedong, former Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, which was first published in 1994. Li had emigrated to the United States in the years after Mao's death. The book describes the time during which Li was Mao's physician, beginning with his return to China after training in Australia, through the height of Mao's power to his death in 1976 including the diverse details of Mao's personality, sexual proclivities, party politics and personal habits.
The book was controversial and ultimately banned in the People's Republic of China. The archive about Mao is strictly confidential and controlled by the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party.
Background and publication Li Zhisui was Mao Zedong's personal physician for twenty-two years, and Li claimed that during this time he became a close confidant of the Chinese leader. After emigrating to the United States, Li wrote The Private Life of Chairman Mao based on his memories of his time with Mao. The biography was based on his recollection of journals he had kept, which he had burned during the Cultural Revolution.
The original manuscript was written by Li, translated from his native Chinese into English by Professor Tai Hung-chao, then edited by Anne F. Thurston. The foreword to the book was written by Professor Andrew J. Nathan of Columbia University, and the book was published by Random House in 1994. Along with the Random House publication, a Chinese language edition was released by the Chinese Times Publishing Company of Tapei. The book was banned by the government in the People's Republic of China, as have many works criticizing Mao on a personal level, and they subsequently also publicly denounced both the book and a BBC documentary that used it as a basis.
After publication, several people criticized the publication process. Tai claimed that the English-language publisher, Random House, wanted more sensationalist elements to the book than Li had provided, in particular requesting more information about Mao's sexual relationships. Despite Li's own protestations, they overruled him, and put such claims in the published text.Tai 2000. Li claimed that Thurston cut substantial parts of his original manuscript without his knowledge.Li 1996. Alterations to the Chinese version of the book included the removal of controversial statements about the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who was still alive and in power of the People's Republic at the time of publication.
Li believed that the Chinese language edition of the book was not directly based upon his original Chinese manuscript, but that it was instead a translation based upon the English version.
Synopsis
The book discusses the 22 years for which Li maintains he was Mao's personal physician. After a brief summary of his family and personal history, Li discusses how he came to treat first the senior Chinese communist officials, then in 1954 Mao himself until Mao's death in 1976. Much of the text discusses the difficulties and frustrations faced by Li attempting to deal with the politics, infighting and personal conflicts of the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the difficulties dealing with both Mao as a patient and other high-ranking officials, such as Mao's wife, the hypochondriac Jiang Qing, Mao's complaining daughter Li Na, and Lin Biao, who the book says was mentally unstable.
The book also discusses the political climate and events of China in the same period. These include Mao's role in orchestrating events such as the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and various purges of members of the Communist Party. A significant portion of the narrative involves treatment of Mao's physical and mental health complaints and Li's personal assessments of how Mao handled the personalities and disputes of the party members that surrounded him. Li also details his disgust and frustrations towards the sycophancy and opportunism of high-ranking officials, such as Zhou Enlai, Deng Yingchao, Yang Shangkun, Lin Biao, Chen Boda, and Zhang Yufeng in carrying out Mao and Jiang Qing's orders against their better judgement, and the effect their actions had on Li's ability to provide medical treatment for Mao. He does however have praise for Wang Dongxing, Luo Ruiqing, Hua Guofeng, Marshals Ye Jianying and Peng Dehuai as the few honest individuals within the system who were willing to challenge Mao, albeit with varying degrees of success.
A significant theme in the book is Li's gradual transition from his initial sincere admiration for Mao as a leader of the country to his eventual disgust, contempt, and personal dislike of the leader due to Mao's manipulation of people and events, odd sexual habits, abuses of power, substitution of slogans, and cult of personality for knowledge of modern science or administrative ability, and above all Mao's indifference to the suffering of the general population due to his failed policies. Throughout the book, Li compares Mao to the historical Chinese Emperors in the tactics he used to control people around him, noting Mao's frequent references to and reading of the histories of Imperial China.
Reception Media reaction The book was reviewed by The New York Times, which described it as "an extraordinarily intimate portrait" containing many details about Mao's time of rule and associations with other major figures in the government, but one that presented few new revelations about the political or diplomatic history of Maoist China. The review stated that though there may never be absolute corroboration of the book and its many anecdotes, its contents are supported by the numerous pictures of Li with Mao on his many trips, as well as the consistency of the details with the information known by specialists of Chinese history and politics. The book also highlighted the hypocritical, often decadent lifestyle Mao experienced, while enforcing strict political and secular restrictions, as well as harmful ideological changes on the population.
The book was also reviewed by the Council on Foreign Relations magazine Foreign Affairs. Criticized for being based on Li's memory and a recreation of his journals in 1977 (the originals were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution out of fear for their possible impact on Li or his family), the review stated that despite this weakness there is "no obvious reason to doubt that Dr. Li is genuine and that his book represents a reasonable effort to record his experiences" and its credibility was enhanced for being edited and reviewed by scholars of Chinese history. The book was praised for probably being the best, or only source for information about larger Chinese political events, disputes within the Chinese high command, and Mao's private life and character. The review highlighted criticisms of Mao's indifference and lack of awareness of the general suffering within the general population of the country, his sexual excesses and intolerance to criticism or challenge, while cautioning against using the personal details of the book to draw general lessons on the nation and revolution.
Writing for The Christian Science Monitor, reviewer Ann Tyson described Li's role as trapped dealing with a man he learned to despise, sacrificing his family life, professional goals, and personal convictions. Tyson also pointed out the threats made by Chinese authorities to confiscate his house upon learning he was writing a memoir, following through with their threat in 1992.
Reviewing the book for the Daily News of Bowling Green, Kentucky, historian Robert Antony described it as an "intimate, candid account of one of the most powerful men in the modern world" and "a haunting tale of intrigue and debauchery in the court of Mao Zedong, as could only be told by a member of the inner circle" and described Li's journey from an idealized patriot who idolized Mao, to a critic disillusioned by Mao's hypocrisy and philandering.
In 2009 Wasafiri magazine included The Private Life of Chairman Mao on its list of 25 Most Influential Books published in the previous quarter-century.
Academic reactions Positive According to Lorenz M. Lüthi, The Private Life of Chairman Mao "turned out to be a relatively reliable source" that he could verify through comparisons with other documents. Historian Frank Dikötter, wrote in his book, Mao's Great Famine, that Li is "a very reliable guide whose recollections can be verified, sometimes almost verbatim, in the party archives", although he notes that he has also been much maligned by some sinologists.
Negative Several people have questioned the authenticity of the book. Li's memoirs were not based on original records or personal diaries. During the Cultural Revolution, he burnt all of his original diaries and, as such, the book was based on restructured memories which might be wrong or fallible as Li's collaborator, Anne Thurston, admitted. Historian Frederick Teiwes accused Li of being "anti-Mao". According to Tai Hung-chao, who was the translator of the book, Random House, the company which published the book, wanted to add more "juicy bits" to the book such as Mao's sex life in order to attract a larger readership. Li disagreed with this line of approach, but eventually gave in to it. A statement protesting that many of the claims made in Li's book were false was issued soon after its publication, signed by 150 people who had personally known or worked with Mao, including Wang Dongxing, Li Yinqiao and Ye Zilong.
Inconsistencies between Chinese and English versions Li, in one of his letters which appeared posthumously (1996), admitted that the Chinese edition of the book was not his original Chinese version but a translation from English and that substantial parts of the original Chinese manuscript were cut by the editor, Anne Thurston. Historian Mobo Gao wonders to what extent the English version of the book was written by Li himself. In the Chinese version, claims such as that the memoirs were based on Li's diaries, that Li was the best doctor in China, and that Li could recall Mao's words verbatim are absent. Absent in the Chinese version are also claims about Mao's womanizing behaviour spreading venereal disease, statements like "I [Mao] wash myself inside the bodies of my women" or Mao was "devoid of human feelings", as well as some of Thurston's notes. Gao notes that such omissions are an indication that these outrageous claims would've been appealing to Western readers, however they couldn't be included in the Chinese version because they would've been seen as obviously false to Chinese insiders. Other outrageous claims, such as "Deng Xiaoping made a nurse pregnant and the nurse was forced to have an abortion", were omitted for political reasons and also because the publisher assumed that the Chinese readers couldn't be fooled so easily with such an unsubstantiated claim.
Lin, Xu and Wu rebuttal