A competentent physician and a true gentleman

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	• The Private Life of Chairman Mao Li Zhi-Sui Random House, 1996 - 736 pages average customer review:based on 82 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Incredible.

As far as historical testimony goes, the confessions and remembrances of Mao's physician, Dr. Li, add immeasurably to our estimation of who precisely "The Great Helmsman" was. The saying, "no man is a hero to his valet," does not begin to describe the disdain with which an old school gentleman like Dr. Li felt in regards to the harem mastering Mao; a man who made use of whatever and whoever was put before him. The doctor's realistic view of Mao was in striking contrast to the one held by the masses. Unfortunately, the narrative starts after the revolution is finished so Li is not able to inform us as to the way in which power actually corrupted the Chairman. How much the negative attributes of his personality were on display before he became the supreme leader is not evident. The difficulty of Mao's personality and his sadism cannot be questioned, however. Life, and daily interaction with people, was simply a way in which Mao could fulfill his need to play with the fate of others. Dr. Li's portrait of Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, resonates strongly...and horrifically. She truly was a white boned demon. I cannot imagine how one could deal with so vile a person on a regular basis. The suffering which she put China through causes one to shudder. It's a wonder why Mao tolerated her behavior and actions. As for Dr. Li, he truly led a terrible existence which was consumed by fright, anxiety, and having to deal with minds so irrational it is astonishing he was able to survive as long as he did. He was nothing but an indentured servant to Mao. The narrator could not do what he wanted, think what he wanted, or even spend much time with his family. His decision to return to China from Australia was personally disastrous, but this tome is a wonderful gift to man on the whole. We remain forever indebted to Dr. Li for his sacrifice and taking the time to record the nightmare which he experienced.

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Interesting, but over rated!

I have not yet finished reading this rather interesting account by Chairman Mao's doctor. Though it is interesting it is rather one sided, and rather biased in the narrative. The previous reviews rave about it. Well I think that though this book will help you to understand modern China, Chairman Mao and the Chinese people, but it is over rated good , but not that brilliant or wonderful. Read other books about Mao, such as Philip Short's Mao a life and the unknown Mao by Jiang Chang to get a deeper and more balanced perspective.

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Fascinating socio-medical memoir

Dr. Li Zhisui was Mao Zedong's personal physician for the last twenty-two years of the Chairman's life. The subject of his recollection is not the vigorous, charismatic visionary of The Long March, but an unappetizing codger who refuses to bathe, except in the vaginal fluids of females. Mao apparently subscribed to a Daoist belief that having sex with a succession of young women would increase his longevity. And he did, nightly, in apartments blocked from public view by the walls of the Forbidden City. His conquests gave him a sense of immortality; he, in turn, gave them venereal disease. The Great Helmsman, Dr. Li concludes, "lived an appalling private life."

Mao, Li asserts, did not have the intellectual equipment to lead China into the modern world. While cunning, he possessed the mind of a peasant rooted in the Nineteenth Century. When his naïve economic theories caused mass starvation, his response was periodic depression during which he would take to bed, rethink his position and come back refreshed -- though not necessarily with better ideas. Mao seems to have ruled with a Yoda-like vagueness. Like FDR, whom he admired, he never worried about contradicting himself. While publicly reviling capitalist roaders, he was nonetheless charmed by President Richard Nixon whose right-wing bluntness he preferred to Leftist waffling.

Li saves some of his most scathing criticism for Madame Mao, Jiang Qing, whose behavior he describes as "nearly psychotic." A woman of ravenous ambition with no constructive outlet, she exerted her will through hypochondria and hysteria, alternatively manipulating and terrorizing Mao's domestic staff. (She demanded her husband's bodyguards iron her silk underwear.) Li's name was linked with hers romantically for a time, but he managed to persuade the Chairman that the rumor was baseless. During her destructive political ascent, Li attests, Jiang made arrangements to extend her own longevity with transfusions of blood from healthy young males. She tried, without success, to have the doctor purged; he finally succeeded, plotting with others, to have her arrested.

On balance, Li presents himself as a patriot disillusioned by the Communist revolution and bitter since catering to Mao ultimately thwarted his dreams of practicing neurosurgery. (He expatriated to the U.S. in 1988.) The reader has to accept this at face value since, it seems, all traces of Li's name and service have been wiped out of the official record in Beijing. (He restores it in part with photos of his own taken with Mao and his inner circle.) I also found myself wondering about the passages of dialogue that would seem impossible to recreate without benefit of a tape recorder. Dr. Li kept detailed notes, forty volumes of them, which he burned in 1966 for fear of discovery. Ten years later, he proceeded to reconstruct them. But is anyone's memory that reliable? And what of medical confidentiality? Is that a concept unknown in China, or are all bets off if your patient was a head of state? The fact is, we all love tell-alls and in this instance, the teller sheds light on this convulsive chapter in Chinese history. The cast of characters is so large that only a Sinologist could fully appreciate their significance, but for the rest of us, The Private Life of Chairman Mao is a lively and engrossing read.

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Let's Stuff the Great Helmsman

When Dr. Li's account of Chairman Mao and his private life came out, about a decade ago, it was an eye-opening shock to most in the west,especially a certain segment of the intelligencia that actually believed that the Great Helmsman's reforms out weighed his atrocities.

This biography of Mao, by his personal physician, gives a an accurate insider's account of what a filthy person Mao was,in every sense: a rotten-toothed, unbathed, mass-murdering, VD infectee who deflowered maidens and indulged his fantasies at every turn. A cruel and capricious man surrounded by sycophants and neurotics.

The picture painted in this very readable history is disgusting--but accurate.

I lived for many years in Communist China and found this book a refreshing bit of honesty and a splendid reproach to the still-adhered to party line that Mao was "70% right."

A splendid counterpoint to the hagiographies and, surprisingly, better-written and with less grudge than Jung Chang's newer opus.

A must-read for any China hand, sinophile, or historian!

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A competentent physician and a true gentleman

Dr. Li Zhisui was an American educated doctor who became Chairman Mao's personal physician for over twenty years. The book he has written does not purport to be Mao's biography, but a simple and honest account of the years Dr. Li spent at the "court" of the "last Chinese Emperor." I totally agree with a previous reviewer who after finishing the book felt he had left a friend. Dr. Li comes across as a gentleman, a competent preofessional, an unrepented intellectual who learned to integrate his knowledge of medicine with the Byzantine politics of Mao's court. The poor doctor had to put up with a lot of distress and suffering. He was not able to spend time with his family; he was not allowed to quit his job in Group One (the President's entourage); he had to fend off Jiang Qing relentless attacks; he had to care for Mao, who did not believe in medicine and was most uncooperative when it came to being treated. In the early years he admired Mao, but following the purge of Marshal Peng Dehuai and the Chairman's numerous sexual indisgressions, he "felt onlt revulsion for the man I had once revered." (p.331)
The book offers interesting information about the many purges launched by Mao against the rightists, the intellectuals, the capitalist roaders; the relationship betwen Mao and his cronies (Chou Enlai, Lin Biao and the most evil and messed up woman in human history: his wife Jiang Qing). After reading about all the "palace wars" that took place in Communist China (complete with imprisonment, demotion, hard labor and even death) many readers will feel overwhelmed and disgusted with the evil ideology of Communism and with the morally bankrupt Mr. and Mrs. Mao tze Tung. By the way, I have read an online English version of the essay "On Practice" which Mao regarded as one of his masterpieces (Dr. Li believes that he fell in Mao's good graces after telling him he had read it and enjoyed it) and I am not ashamed to say that I found it absolutely common sensical, simplistic and un-imaginative.

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reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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