Free Mao Zedong by Jonathan Spence

circles. He also knew the Yangs and a fairly wide circle of influential Hunanese. But he had virtually no formal knowledge of socialist ideology, and it was not until January 1921 that he even mentioned “the materialist conception of history” in his writings. Mao derived his new interest in Marxism partly from corresponding with his friends in France, some of whom had joined the Communist Youth League there, and from reading a new magazine, The Communist, developed by Li Da and the Communist small group in Shanghai, and published as a monthly underground Party journal for seven issues between November 1920 and July 1921. Mao stated that he admired the journal for its “clear-cut stand,” but as far as we can tell from the surviving records he did not sell it in the Cultural Book Society’s store. Mao knew little about the proletariat, though he had spoken vaguely of doing some industrial work in a ship-building yard or factory, and at a meeting of the Society in January 1921 he had mentioned that he wanted to “learn to do some form of manual labor, such as knitting socks or baking bread.” Otherwise he would continue to be a teacher, and perhaps a reporter as well.
    Basically, though, Mao’s proven strength was as a businessman. The operations of the Cultural Book Society had grown prodigiously, with sales from a vastly expanded list of titles reaching 4,049 Chinese dollars and expenses of 3,942 dollars for the seven months from September 1920 to the end of March 1921. The business had expanded to encompass seven full county branches of the store, with their own staffs (Mao hoped to have one in each of the seventy-five Hunan counties before too long) and there were also four smaller outlets in local schools, as well as three run by individuals in their own homes. The main office of the company was still in the rented Hunan-Yale building, though the premises had grown too cramped, and Mao was seeking a larger and more central location in Changsha. Mao now called himself by the unusual title of “special negotiator” for the bookstore, and a friend of his from Xiangtan was listed as “manager.” Besides these entrepreneurial skills, there was the fact that Mao clearly had remarkable energy and initiative, and a good deal of physical courage. He was handsome too: lean, tall, and with large, mournful eyes. Photos of the time show him with long hair swept dramatically back from his brow. Apparently, Mao was also never at a loss for words. Perhaps the Beijing and Shanghai intellectuals, with their sophisticated knowledge of the world, found something refreshing in this untutored youth from the Hunan backlands.
    The July 1921 First Communist Party Congress in Shanghai was tense. The Comintern agent Maring aroused instant dislike among many of the Chinese, and his doctrinaire plans for their future—especially the need to ally with the bourgeoisie—were hotly contested: two of the Chinese present flatly rejected Maring’s request that they give him a “work report.” Neither Li Dazhao nor Chen Duxiu even attended the Congress, and the proceedings were further disrupted when on July 30 a stranger wandered right into the private house where they were meeting, explaining lamely that he had come to the wrong place. Experienced in holding clandestine meetings and in police procedures, Maring at once suggested the members scatter, which they did, and shortly after that the police arrived. One advantage of this for the Chinese was that they could now state that the presence of two Westerners made their group too conspicuous. Accordingly the last session of the congress was held in a boat on a nearby Zhejiang lake, and Maring and Nikolsky did not attend.
    The documents of this first congress were never published, even for internal distribution within the Party, and no record of the exact nature of Mao’s participation has been preserved. A brief summary of the congress was filed in the Comintern archives, though its