Let me add two more phrases for you, namely: “Better to be a counterrevolutionary than to merely keep out of the revolution.” ...Don’t think you
deserve preferential treatment because of your achievements in war. You must
know that one democratic personage is possibly worth an army. By winning
one Li Jishen44 over to our side, we probably saved the lives of twenty or thirty

thousand comrades and won the military victory one or two years ahead of
time... Now we will simply do it this way; this is also the only way we can do
it, whether you approve of it or not.
Source: An excerpt, reproduced from Mao Zedong Shengping Ziliao Jianbian (A
Brief Compilation of Materials on the Life of Mao Zedong) pp. 288-289. Hong
Kong: Union Research Institute, 1970.
Conversation with a Painter from the Soviet Union
(Excerpts)
[The Soviet painter inquires of Mao whether or not it would be too exhausting if they worked, i.e., if Mao posed for the portrait, from nine to eleven pm
each day]
I usually work in the nighttime as well. This is a habit cultivated through
many years of working underground. Let me now accompany you for breakfast, and then we shall start.
We need a portfolio of this type of drawings about People’s China, or a
series of paintings…
That is correct. In terms of their nature, the Chinese people are diligent,
hardworking, and persevering However, in addition [to the fact that it is in
their nature] this diligence and perseverance is also linked to the most cruel
exploitation and extreme deprivation of rights suffered by the Chinese people
for so many centuries. The hard life itself has forced them to pay the price, in
every kind of work, of giving it their greatest labor, just so that they can feed
themselves and continue to live. As for culture, we the Chinese people consider
ourselves to be the most backward. Our culture is in this state because in the
past there has not been in China an organized force or thought which has been
able to unite the whole people and to direct their energy toward the correct
path [of development]. Today, the Chinese Communist Party has taken this
expelled from the KMT for the last time, and in January 1948 he became the chairman of
the newly constituted Revolutionary Committee of the KMT. He went to Beijing in early
1949 and was appointed to the Preparatory Committee for the CPPCC. In September
1949 he became a vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC and in October on the founding of the PRC, he became one of six vice-chairmen of the Central People’s
Government and vice-president of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association.

responsibility upon its shoulders. The Chinese people, under its leadership,
and learning from the people of the Soviet Union, have finally discovered a
correct path for themselves.
Source: Dagong Daily, Shanghai, May 10, 1950.


Inscription for First Issue of Renmin Haijun45
January 1, 1950
We must build a navy. This navy must be able to secure our coastal defense
and effectively protect us against possible aggression by the imperialists.
Source: People’s Daily, January 4, 1950.