that ‘‘Communism is about struggling to serve and benefit the people,
for 10 thousand years, whole-heartedly, not half-heartedly, not even
with 2/3 of your heart. Those sagging in their spirit to serve the people
should be re-invigorated through rectification’’ (Mao, 1957 : 400).
Mao continued by asserting that to serve the people well, the cadres
must commingle with and keep in close contact with the masses, and
must be open and receptive to criticism from the masses (Mao, 1957 :
401). Evidently, although Mao did not couch his thoughts in terms
of democracy, his leadership philosophy of ‘‘serving the people’’ is
quintessentially democratic, and congruent with his mass line, as will
be explained later in the chapter.
A prominent motivation (at least ostensibly so as a slogan) for Mao
to initiate the Cultural Revolution was to rid China of any privileged
class so as to achieve equality for the masses (particularly the peas-
antry). Millions of ‘‘educated youths’’ in the cities and even high
governmental officials were sent to rural China to understand, to
appreciate, and ‘‘to learn from the peasants.’’ During this time, privil-
eged individuals (e.g. those privileged in education or wealth) may have
suffered from criticism and persecution; it was the common people,
the impoverished, and the underprivileged that were gloried (Li, 1994 ).
To practice his own principle of ‘‘serving the people,’’ Mao sent his son
to the Korean War, where he was killed in action (Li, 1994 ).
Origin of Mao’s leadership philosophy
Knight ( 2005 ) argues that the Thoughts of Mao Zedong are clearly
and exclusively influenced by a limited number of texts of the New
Philosophy, which was Marxism as rendered by Soviet philosophers
and by Chinese philosophers converted to the New Philosophy (espe-
cially Ai Siqi,^2 Qu Qiubai,^3 and Li Da^4 ). Li’s narration attests that
Mao was an avid reader of two main subjects, Marxism and Chinese
history (Li, 1994 : 440). The most heavily annotated philosophical
texts by Mao include Mark Mitin’s A dialectical and historical
materialism(1936) and M. Shirokov, A. Aizenberget al.’sA course
on dialectical materialism(see also Mao, 1988 ). There exists close
intertextual congruence between Mao’s elaboration of Marxism and
the ‘‘relatively closed body of texts’’ (Knight, 2005 : 195).^5 Mao used
the above two texts as sources for his two most famous essays on
philosophy – ‘‘On contradiction’’ and ‘‘On practice,’’ which were part
Leadership theories and practices of Mao and Deng 215