Selected Works of Mao Zedong

The writings of Chairman Mao are classic! If you want to expand your understanding of Marxism, read this!

Deserves 10 stars! Love it!!!

A nice, informative collection of Mao's central works that really helps one understand the development and background for the rise of the People's Republic of China. There are several grammatical errors in the book, some more annoying than others, but nonetheless it is a pleasant book to read.

Mao wrote with a fluid style where ambiguity was the primary factor in determining how his philosophy was applied. Having the original Communist Chinese English language printing of his works, I found it relatively easy to understand although Mao wasn’t quite as good at writing in a Western style.These essays contain the essence of controlling, not liberating the Chinese people. Hence the emphasis on ‘Mao Zedong Thought’. It was to replace centuries of Chinese history with the Soviet method of Marxism, which believed in advancement through industrialization. Mao originated the concept of starting from the peasant revolution against bourgeois society. In the process he is responsible for the deaths of an estimated 50 million Chinese.Mao left a legacy of centralized hero worship which his later followers have used to their advantage. Democracy is not only condemned, but must be eradicated for the future of the Party’s vision of a better society. This book plausibly explains how the world should be conquered for the sake of a Communist ideology where the individual is intrusive to the Party’s power. [I possess the 1967 second printing of the 1965 First Edition four volume set; Foreign Language Press, Peking. “Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung”; FLP, Peking 1971 is the condensed version of this set.]

So limited articles, just some random nonsense, nothing about his best articles. Who is afraid of Communism?

My rating is not about the content of the book but about the publishing. The text is full of grammatical errors and typos. You could at least give the book a read over before publishing it …. Mao’s writing is fantastic though.