Quotations: Mao Zedong and Chinese communism

This page contains a collection of Chinese Revolution quotations about Mao Zedong and Chinese communism, made by prominent leaders, figures, observers and historians. These quotations have been selected and compiled by Alpha History authors. If you would like to suggest a quotation for these pages, please contact Alpha History.

“A revolution is not a dinner party, nor a literary composition, nor painting nor embroidering. It cannot be done so delicately, so leisurely, so gentlemanly and gently, kindly, politely and modestly. Revolution is insurrection, the violent action of one class overthrowing the power of another. An agrarian revolution is a revolution by the peasantry to overthrow the power of the feudal landlord class. If the peasants do not apply great force, the power of the landlords, built up over thousands of years, can never be uprooted.”
Mao Zedong, communist revolutionary and leader

“I stand alone in the cold autumn, where the Hsiang River flows north. I see the Orange Island at the river’s end and see the thousands of mountains, red everywhere… My great many friends used to come here to recall times past, and raise anew the fullness of the years when we were young students, blooming and bright…”
A poem by Mao Zedong, 1925

“Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution.”
Mao Zedong, 1926

“The officers do not beat the men; the officers and men receive equal treatment. Soldiers are free to hold meetings and speak out. Trivial formalities have been done away with and the accounts are open for all to inspect.”
Mao Zedong on the Red Army

“Three simple rules of discipline: prompt obedience to orders, no confiscations whatsoever from the poor peasantry, and prompt delivery to the government of all goods confiscated from landlords.”
Three Rules of Discipline, a directive to the CCP Red Army, 1928

“The Red Army is like a furnace in which all captured soldiers are melted down and transformed the moment they come over.”
Mao Zedong on the Red Army

“The most effective method of propaganda directed at the enemy forces is to release captured soldiers and give the wounded medical treatment… Whenever soldiers of enemy forces are captured, we immediately conduct propaganda among them…This immediately knocks the bottom out of the enemy’s slander that the Communist bandits kill everyone on sight.”
Mao Zedong, 1928

“We encountered untold difficulties and great obstacles [during the Long March] but by keeping our two feet going, we swept… through the length and breadth of eleven provinces. Well, has there ever been in history a long march like ours? No, never. The Long March is… a manifesto. It proclaims to the world that the Red Army is an army of heroes… The Long March is also an agitation corps. It declares to approximately 200 million people of 11 provinces that only the road of the Red Army leads to their liberation… The Long March is also a seeding machine, it has sown seeds in eleven provinces which will sprout, grow leaves, blossom into flowers, bear fruit and yield a crop in the future. [It was] a victory for us and defeat for the enemy.”
Mao Zedong, 1935

“It is impossible not to recognise the Long March as one of the great triumphs of men against odds and men against nature. While the Red Army was unquestionably in forced retreat, its toughened veterans reached their planned objective with moral and political will as strong as ever… Their conviction had helped turn what might have been a terrible defeat into an arrival in triumph.”
Edgar Snow, 1937

“Adventure, exploration, discovery, human courage and cowardice, ecstasy and triumph, suffering, sacrifice and loyalty, and then through it all, like a flame, this undimmed ardour and undying hope and amazing revolutionary optimism… an Odyssey unequalled in modern times.”
Edgar Snow on the Long March, 1937

“Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long behind enemy lines. Such a belief shows a lack of understanding of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How may it be said that these two cannot exist together?”
Mao Zedong, 1937

“Communists should be the most farsighted, the most self-sacrificing, the most resolute and the least prejudiced in sizing up situations, and should rely on the majority of the masses and win their support.”
Mao Zedong, 1937

“Liberal ideas are extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. They are a corrosive that eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organisation and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the party structure from the masses.”
Mao Zedong, 1937

“There is no such thing as abstract Marxism, only concrete Marxism… The Sinofication of Marxism – that is, making certain that its manifestation is imbued with Chinese peculiarities – is a problem that must be understood and solved by the party without delay.”
Mao Zedong, 1938

“At no time and in no circumstances should a Communist place his personal interests first; he should subordinate them to the interests of the nation and of the masses. Hence selfishness, slacking, corruption, seeking the limelight and so on are most contemptible, while selflessness, working with all one’s energy, wholehearted devotion to public duty and quiet hard work will command respect.”
Mao Zedong, 1938

“Only after victory in the anti-Japanese war and the success of democracy can Chinese science have a garden in which it can flourish and develop… Colonies are the grave, not the greenhouse of science… It is inconceivable that science can have any future under a dark dictatorship.”
Zhu De

“The arrow of Marxist-Leninism must be used to hit the target of the Chinese Revolution.”
Mao Zedong, 1942

“It is good that since the outbreak of the war with Japan, more and more revolutionary writers have been coming to Yan’an… But it does not necessarily follow that… they have integrated themselves completely with the masses here. The two must be completely integrated if we are to push ahead with our revolutionary work.”
Mao Zedong, 1942

“The poor peasants have conquered the country; the poor peasants should now sit on the country.”
Mao Zedong, 1949


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