Letter to Li Jinxi (June 7,1920)
Dear Mr. Shaoxi:
After I left Beijing, I spent some time on the way visiting Tianjin, Jinan, Taishan,
Qufu, and Nanjing, and did not reach Shanghai until twenty-five days later.112 I am
now staying at 29 South Minhou Lane, Hatong Road. There are four us living here.113
Since we were really unsure of the Work-Study Society,114 we have decided to cancel our
sponsorship of it and instead to set up a separate self-study society to work half-time
and study half-time. All of my housemates want to go to Russia, and I have also decided
112 Zhang Shizhao. For a detailed note, see the text of July 14, 1919, “The Arrest and Rescue of
Chen Duxiu.”
114 This address is the present-day No.63 Anyi Road, Shanghai, where Mao lived when he was
involved with the Association for Promoting Reform in Hunan, and in organizing the campaign against
Zhang Jingyao. The other three people staying there were Li Fengchi, Li Si’an, and Chen Shunong. Mao
also helped with editorial work for Tianwen (The Tianwen Weekly), founded in February 1920, the
organ of the Hunan Student Delegation for the Expulsion of Zhang Jingyao in Shanghai.

to go. For the moment, I will study on my own, and go when the road to Russia opens
up in a year and a half or two. I would like to find a Russian with whom to study the
Russian language, but I have not found one yet. I have always had an intense hatred
for school, so I have decided never to go to school again. It is not at all impossible to
study freely, so long as you have discipline and proper methods. Foreign languages are
truly doors which we must open. I am now studying a little English every day. If I can
keep at it, I will be able to gain some small benefit. I do not intend to concentrate on
any specific subject as yet. I would like to use the X-ray method, reading cursorily in
every field. I am inclined to feel that I do not have enough general knowledge, so it is
hard to concentrate on attacking one subject. By accumulating general knowledge and
organizing it, it will be easier to reach depths. [Herbert] Spencer hated to be confined
by national boundaries, and I feel that the boundaries between fields of study are also
very harmful. I admire you and the late Mr. Huaizhong115 the most, for you have both
read widely. Unfortunately, I am too emotional and
have the weakness of being vehement. I cannot calm my mind down, and I have
difficulty in persevering. It is also very hard for me to change. This is truly a most
regrettable circumstance! I would very much like to study philology, linguistics, and
Buddhism, but I have neither the books nor the leisure to study them, so I slack off
and procrastinate, and am reduced to saying: “If I fail to study today, there is always
tomorrow.” If you come across any books in these two fields, linguistics and philology,
and Buddhism, I hope you will send me the titles. If you have any extra printed
materials, please send them on to me too. Since I have gathered some books, I should set
aside a certain time and really devote it to this. Recently I have been concentrating on
the study of three subjects only: English, philosophy, and newspapers. For philosophy,
I have started from the “three great contemporary philosophers,”116 and will gradually
learn about the other schools of thought. In English I am reading one short lesson from
the simplest primer each day. As for newspapers, I read them very carefully every day
and clip the good materials. Since I am still at a child’s level in foreign languages and
cannot read any original works, I plan to use the tool I already possess, Chinese, during
the next two or three years before I go abroad, to read current newspapers, magazines,
series of books, and all the translations. Thus I will seek to learn about the outline
and main themes of Eastern and world thought and scholarship, to lay a foundation
for studying abroad. The latest trend everywhere in China has been putting out series
of books. Quite apart from their motivations and contents, this has a certain value for
a person like myself who is “hungry and thirsty for knowledge.” Is it really possible for
the Association of Scholars Resident in Beijing117 to publish a journal? It is very hard
for such a mixed group to work together. We had better find something else concrete,
115 The Shanghai Work-Study Mutual Aid Society, for which Mao had signed, only three months
earlier, the fund-raising notice dated March 5, 1920, which appears above.
116 Yang Changji, zi Huaizhong, Mao’s teacher and (by this time) posthumous fatherin-law. See in
particular the notes to the “Classroom Notes” of 1913, and to the tribute to Yang dated January 22,1920.