An army of the people is invincible!

~ Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong Chinese Commie Communism Mao People Prolitariat Red Army Revolution Soviet

We were meant to survive because of our minds' ability to reason, our ability to live with frustration in order to maintain our virtue. We wore smiling masks while dying inside.

~ Anchee Min

Anchee Min China History Mao Pork

Jung Chang said that Mao ruled by getting people to hate each other: ‘Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship. That was why under him there was no real equivalent of the KGB in China. There was no need. In bringing out and nourishing the worst in people, Mao had created a moral wasteland and a land of hatred.

~ Jonathan Glover

Jonathan Glover Hatred Kgb Mao Maoism Maoist China Morality

Part of the Maoist project was the deliberate construction of a new moral identity. To do this it was necessary to destroy people’s previous sense of who they were and to make sure there was no room for it grow back.

~ Jonathan Glover

Jonathan Glover China Mao Maoism Maoist China Morality

But it also had many large posters with messages of a more peaceful nature. These extolled the country’s economic achievement since the Cultural Revolution, which was supposed to have liberated the forces of production and increased productivity. Of course, the Cultural Revolution had done just the opposite. Official lies like this, habitually indulged in and frequently displayed by the authorities, served no purpose except to create the impression that truth was unimportant. Pg. 400

~ Nien Cheng

Nien Cheng China Communism Lies Mao

Make criticism in good time, don't get into the habit of criticizing only after the event.

~ Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong Agriculture Communism Criticism Mao Revolution

I’m using Mao as my inspiration. “Cast away illusions. Prepare for struggle.” I’m back in business, baby. You don’t know you’re stuck until you get moving.

~ Hanif Kureishi

Hanif Kureishi Mao Struggle

I would say, if you like, that the party is like an out-moded mathematics...that is to say, the mathematics of Euclid. We need to invent a non-Euclidian mathematics with respect to political discipline.

~ Alain Badiou

Alain Badiou Badiou Communism Euclid Geometry Mao Maoism Mathematics Party

One of the most ugly aspects of life in Communist China during the Mao Zedong era was the Party’s demand that people inform on each other routinely and denounce each other during political campaigns. This practice had a profoundly destructive effect on human relationships. Husbands and wives became guarded with each other, and parents were alienated from their children. The practice inhibited all forms of human contact, so that people no longer wanted to have friends. It also encouraged secretiveness and hypocrisy. To protect himself, a man had to keep his thoughts to himself. When he was compelled to speak, often lying was the only way to protect himself and his family.

~ Nien Cheng

Nien Cheng China Communism Cultural Revolution Mao

For so many years, the official propaganda machinery had denounced humanitarianism as sentimental trash and advocated human relations based entirely on class allegiance. But my personal experience had shown me that most of the Chinese people remained kind, sensitive, and compassionate even though the cruel reality of the system under which they had to live compelled them to lie and pretend. Pg. 409

~ Nien Cheng

Nien Cheng China Communism Humanitarianism Mao

As I stood in the room looking at it for the last time, I felt again the cold metal of the handcuffs on my wrists and remembered the physical suffering and mental anguish I had endured while fighting with all the willpower and intellect God had given me for that rare and elusive thing in a Communist country called justice. Pg. 351

~ Nien Cheng

Nien Cheng China Communism Mao Prison