In March 1949, Mao left for Beiping, where last-minute peace negotiations were taking place between the Communists and the Nanjing regime.
He told Zhou Enlai, “Today we are going to the capital to take the imperial exam.” Zhou replied, “We should be able to pass it. We cannot step back.”
Mao smiled and said, “No. We won’t be another Li Zicheng.” (P 25 Dilemmas of Victory).
This exchange reveals the intellectual Mao. Li Zicheng overthrew the last Ming emperor, but his peasant troops could not adjust to the urban elites and culture of the capital.
Mao was steeped in Chinese history, literature, and classics.
He, in fact, had worked as a librarian’s assistant at Peking University, a position that exposed him to Marxist literature.
The best one-volume work on Mao is Philip Short’s Mao (2017).
LWH, 28 August 2025
