Chinese political leader, poet and statesman, founder of People's Republic of China. Mao Zedong's ideas varied between flexible pragmatism and utopian visions, exemplified in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. His literary production contains mainly speeches, essays and poems. Mao published some 40 poems written in classical tradition with political message. Worshiped by millions, Mao is also considered one of the 20th century most brutal dictators. It has been estimated that he was responsile for well over 70 million deaths.

At bluegreen twilight I see the rough pines
serene under the rioting clouds.
The cave of the gods was born in heaven,
a vast wind-ray beauty on the dangerous peak.
(1961, Written on a Photograph of the Cave of the Gods)

As a poet Mao continued the tradition, in which educated people composed poetry simply as an accomplishment. His texts showed talent, and he did not use the most banal idioms familiar from the works of Communist writers of his own generation. However, it is possible that Mao did not write all the poems credited to him. Much the same could be said of many of his political publications. In his early verse, Mao showed the influence of Tang (618-907) and Sung (960-1127) poets. On his walk across the Middle Kingdom, he recorded its modern history and used the mystical past to to illuminate the present. Several of his poems depicted the first battles of the peasant army and national events. After 1949 the the content became more meditative. Mao's best-known poem is the 'Snow', written in 1936, but published after he went in 1945 on a plane trip to Chongging. "North country scene: / A hundred leagues locked in ice, / A thousand leagues of whirling snow. / Both side of the Great Wall / One single white immensity."

Mao was born in the village of Shaoshan in the Hunan Province of China. At the age of six he began to work on his parents' farm. His father, Mao Jen-sheng, was a peasant farmer, who beat his sons regularly. Mao's mother, Wen Chi-mei, was a devout Buddhist. After graduating from a teacher's training in Changsha, Mao continued his studies at the University of Beijing, where he worked as an assistant at the library. During this period he discovered Marx, but also began to hate books and all things highly cultivated. Under the influence of Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, China's first major Marxist figures, Mao turned to Marxism. In 1921 Mao became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party. During Bertrand Russell's visit to Hunan, he argued for the legitimacy of seizing power by force against Russell's reformist views. In the 1920s he concentrated on political work in his native Province and Jianxi Province. His highly pragmatic strategy was one of the main influences on Fidel Castro, when in 1959 he was able to take over Cuba with Che Guevara.

"The people are like water and the army is like fish," Mao wrote in Aspects of China's Anti-Japanese Struggle (1948). He recognized the revolutionary potential of the peasantry. Marx and Lenin had seen in their urban doctrine the working class as the leading revolutionary force. However, when first articulated, Mao's views were rejected by the Party in favor of orthodox policy. Mao himself was also an exception to the rule: he was one of only three peasants to gain control of his country throughout its long history - the others were the founders of the Han and Ming dynasties.

Mountain.
Peaks pierce the green sky, unblunted.
The sky would fall
but for the columns of mountains.
(1934-35)

Under Comitern policy of cooperating with the Nationalists, Mao held important posts with the Guomingdang. Following the Guomindang massacre of Communist in 1927, Mao established a base in Jiangxi Province. There he directed his first major purge against dissidents.

Mao's fourth wife Chiang Ch'ing (1914-1991) was an actor. She gained first fame in Shanghai among others in Ibsen's play A Doll's House. In 1933 she joined the Communist Party, meeting Mao in Yenan and marrying him. Mao was more than twenty years older than she and had eight children. During Cultural Revolution she became an enormous force, but after Mao's death she was imprisoned with her three radical associates Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan. The group was called the Gang of Four. It is told, that on the day of their arrest every wine shop in Beijing was sold out of alcohol. Chiang Ch'ing committed suicide in 1991.

After the break with the Nationalist Party, Mao started the guerrilla tactics, stating later that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." In 1934 the Nationalist government destroyed the Jiangxi Soviet, and the Communist forces started the legendary retreat and the Long March, an anabasis of 6,000 miles which has been compared to the march of Alexander the Great. In 1935 Mao's political power increased when he was elected Chairman of the Politburo. Mao's rural based guerrilla warfare led to the fall of the government. To fund the Red Army, Mao grew opium.

During World War II Mao did not fight the Japanese, but planned to divide China with Japan. The new People's Republic of China was proclaimed in 1949. The Communists were headed by Mao, who gained the upper hand over his Russian-backed adversaries. In 1949 Mao met Stalin, but after Nikita Khrushchev in his famous speech denounced Stalinism in 1956, China broke with Moscow. Stalin held Mao's son Anying hostage for for years. The "thaw" period in the Soviet Union (1955-64) was noted also in China and in 1956 Mao launched the slogan "let a hundred flowers bloom".

Mao's prestige was reinforced by his "Thought." He labelled the ideas of his opponents as "mechanical" or "dogmatic." "Be resourceful, look at all sides of a problem, test ideas by experiment, and work hard for the common good," Mao said. The basis of his ideology was Marxism-Leninism, but he adapted it to Chinese conditions, and partly he followed such CCP's theoreticians as Chen Boda and Ai Siqi. The support of the Communists among intellectuals also was rising. Zhang Dongsun, who was the most perceptive philosopher of the modern China, saw that Communists were China's only practical way out.

In his 'Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art' (1942, Tsai Yenan wen-i tso-t'an hui shang it chiang-hua) Mao issued a set of perspective guidelines for literature, in which he emphasized the status folk tradition and oral and performing literature. The novel of land reform were followed by novels on agricultural collectivization, the central theme of art at that time. Novelists also praised the Party, the revolution, and the people. Some writers dealt with the heroism of soldiers during the Korean war. In 1958 Mao started the "Great Leap Forward", industrial and agricultural program, which did not have the success he expected. He urged to construct backyard steel furnaces to gain the Western steel production. This unrealistic project was not without a certain good will, although results were tragic: about 30 million people died in the famine (in some sources 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death), when ill-trained peasants were forced to carry out the gigantic industrialization plan. Mao was  aware of the consequences of the policy, saying that "it is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill."

Following the disaster of the "Great Leap Forward", a new series of novels on communization appeared by authors with peasant backgrounds, among them Liu Quing and Hao Ran. The reading public was more drawn to a wave of historical novels celebrating the history of the communist revolution. Most notable were Luo Guangbin's and Yang Yiyan's works. Nevertheless, none of the new novels of socialist realism proved sufficiently politically correct to survive the censorship during the power struggle of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

By 1965 Mao feared that he was losing control. He appealed to the populace against the Party apparatus and consolidated again his power by the Cultural Revolution. Red Guards were formed in 1966 and sent into the countryside to force bureaucrats, professors, technicians, intellectuals, and other nonpeasants into rural work. In the vengeful outburst of hatred and ignorance, tens of thousands were murdered or forced to give up their jobs, and China's economy suffered. "A revolution is not the same as inviting people to dinner, or writing as essay, or painting a picture... A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another." Mao had said (in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, 1965) The publishing of new books and the introduction of new ideas virtually stopped. Except for the works of the deceased Lu Xun, all modern works were banned. From 1966 for the following six years publication of art journals was suspended. Art schools were closed and artists disbanded. Large numbers of old temples and monuments were smashed or vandalized. In the end, the disorder was so bad that the army was called in to repress the Red Guards and other fractions. After the chaos, Mao decided open doors to the West. China's Relationship with the United States were strained, but in 1972 President Richard Nixon journeyed to China, and broke the ice. All practical negotiations were handled by Zhou Enlai and Henry Kissinger; at the meeting with Nixon, Mao kept the discussion on a fairly abstract level.

According to Mao's personal physician Zhisui Li (in The Private Life of Chairman Mao), the leader of China used heavily barbiturates although otherwise he was in excellent health. Later in life Mao developed paranoia; Li Zhisui mentions also Mao's aversion to bathing. His personal life became secretive and in many ways morally corrupt. Lin Biao, who was designated by Mao as his successor, died under mysterious circumstances in 1969. After Lin's fall, the prime minister Zhou Enlai was a moderator between the opposing camps of Liu Shaoqi and Mao. Zhou died in 1975, and the leadership of the moderates was taken over by Deng Xiaoping. Mao's death in 1976 broke his wife's hold on power. Mao had smoked cigarettes his whole life, and he had also suffered from bronchitis, pneumonia, and emphysema. Aaccording to some sources, Mao's last words were: "I feel ill; call the doctors."

Mao's ”The Little red Book” or Mao Zedong on People's War (1967) became in the 1960s the ultimate authority for political correctness. It was carried about by millions during "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" of 1968. The plastic-bound work, edited by the minister of defense, Lin Piao, consisted of quotations from several Mao's writings, among them Significance of Agrarian Reforms in China, Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War, On the Rectification of Incorrect Ideas in the Party, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People. Another compendium, also edited by Lin Piao, was entitled Long Live Mao Tse-Tung Thought.

Mao's conception of democracy was based on the leading role of the Communist party. Its the tightly disciplined organization would lead the masses. Though Confucianism emphasized submission to authorities and bureaucratic centralization, He was hostile to the philosophy, which he saw as the central ideology of China's past. Later in his career "The Great Helmsman" compared himself with Chin Shih-huang, the first Emperor, who unified China in 221 B.C.

For the most part, Mao's own philosophical work in the 1930s was summaries of Soviet texts. Two essays, 'On practice' and 'On contradiction' were printed in revised form in 1950 and 1952. These works, which could have been  written in 1937, were studied and emulated throughout China. Like Lenin, Mao made a distinction between antagonist and non-antagonist contradictions, but Mao's thought was partly derived from the Chinese system of yin and yang. He stated that contradictions would continue to arise in society even after socialist revolution. With this claim he supported his doctrine of permanent revolution, which was earlier launched by Trotsky. His success in guerrilla warfare led him to declare in 1947, that "the atom bomb is a paper tiger".

Mao's thoughts were also popular among Western intellectuals and radicals, who opposed "Soviet revisionism." American journalist E.P. Snow made Chinese Communist movement known already in the 1930s with his book Red Star Over China (1937). Snow's personal relationships with the leaders of China continued decades. He was granted permission travel in 1960 around the country. In his book The Other Side of the River Snow failed to report of China's 1959-61 famine, possibly the worst in history. Much of the grain which was produced in China during this period was traded for the Soviet weapons-technology. However, Mao's popularity has been enduring even after his death.

For further reading: Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62 by Frank Dikotter (2010); Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (2005); Chinese Marxism by Adrian Chan (2003); Children's Literature in China: From Lu Xun to Mao Zedong by Mary Ann Farquhar (1999); Mao Zedong by Jonathan D. Spence (1999); China's Road to Disaster by Frederick C. Teiwes and Warren Sun (1998); The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written by Martin Seymour-Smith (1998); Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States by Michael M. Sheng (1998); Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine by Jasper Becker (1997); The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Zhisui Li (1996, paperback); Mao Zedong by Rebecca Stefoff (1996, for young adults); No Tears for Mao by Niu-Niu et al (1995); Burying Mao by Richard Baum (1994); China Without Mao by Immanuel C.Y. Hsu (1990); The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung by Stuart Schram (1989, paperback); Inheriting Tradition by K. Louie (1986); Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism by Maurice J. Meisner (1982); Chinese Thought, From Confucius to Mao Ts-E-Tung by Herrlee Glessner Glee (1971, paperback); Red Star over China by E.P. Snow (1937, rev. ed. 1968) - See also: Mao Tun - Suom.: Maolta on julkaistu runosuomennoksia mm. antologiassa Itä on punainen, toim. Markku Rautonen (1967). Muita käännöksiä: Kansalaissodasta (1971); Järjestämme opiskelun uudella tavalla: Vastustakaa kirjojen palvontaa (1971); Neljä filosofista teosta (1972); Kolme alati luettavaa kirjoitusta (1972); Kirjoituksia ja puheita yhteisrintamasta (1972); Kirjallisuuden ja taiteen kysymyksiä käsittelevässä neuvottelukokouksessa Jenanissa pidetyt puheet (1972); Joitakin johtamismenetelmiä koskevia kysymyksiä (1972); Mao Tse-tung: runot, suom. Pertti Nieminen (1973); Mao Tse-tungin teoksia 1-2, suom. Tuure Lehén (1958),  Otteita puheenjohtaja Mao Tse-tungin teoksista (1967)

Selected works:

• Dialectical Materialism (Lecture Notes), Dalian: Dazhong Bookshop (n.d.)
• Zhongguo she hui ge jie ji de fen xi, 1927
• A Report of an Investigation into the Peasant Movement of Hunan, 1927 - Selostus talonpoikaisliikkeen tutkimuksesta Hunanin maakunnassa (suom. Tuure Lehén, Mao Tse-tungin teoksia 1, 1958)
  
• Wind Sand Poems (written in the 1930s, published years later)
• Gendankai ni okeru konichi minzoku toitsu sensen no nimmu, 1937
• Kang zhan bi sheng lun, 1937
• China: The March Toward Unity, 1937 (with others)
• Jiyu dokuritsu no shina kensetsu o mezashite, 1938
• Lun chi jiu zhan, 1938
• Kang Ri you ji zhan zheng di zhan shu wen ti, 1938 - Aspects of China’s Anti-Japanese Struggle (tr. 1948) / Strategic Problems in the Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War (tr. 1954) - Japanin hyökkäystä vastaan käytävän taistelun poliittinen linjaus, käytännölliset toimenpiteet ja näköalat  (suom. Tuure Lehén, Mao Tse-tungin teoksia 1, 1958)
• The New Stage, by Mao Tse-tung. Report to the Sixth Enlarged Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist party of China, 1938
• Zhongguo kang zhan de qian tu, 1938
• You ji zhan zheng de zhan lue wen ti, 1938 - On Guerrilla Warfare (translated and with an introd. by Samuel B. Griffith II, 1961; introduction to 2nd ed. by Arthur Waldron and Edward O'Dowd; introduction and translation by Samuel B. Griffith II; bibliographical essay by Edward O'Dowd, 1992)
  
• Lun chi jiu zhan, 1938 - On Protracted War (Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Volume II, 1965) - Pitkällisestä sodasta (suom. Tuure Lehén, Mao Tse-tungin teoksia 1, 1958)
• Hsin-min chu-i lun, 1940 On New Democracy (Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Volume II, 1965) - Uudesta demokratiasta (suom. Tuure Lehén, Mao Tse-tungin teoksia 2, 1958)
• Zai Yan’an wen yi zuo tan hui shang de jiang hua, 1943 - Problems of Art and Literature (tr. 1950) / Talks at the Yenan Forum on Art and Literature (tr. 1956) / A Definitive Translation of Mao Tse-tung on Literature and Art (edited by Thomas N. White, 1967) / Mao Zedong's "Talks at the Yan'an Conference on Literature and Art" (a translation of the 1943 text with commentary, 1980) - Kirjallisuuden ja taiteen kysymyksiä käsittelevässä neuvottelukokouksessa Jenanissa pidetyt puheet (suom. Tuure Lehén, Mao Tse-tungin teoksia 2, 1958)
• China’s "New Democracy," 1944
• Our Task in 1945, 1945
• The Fight for a New China, 1945
• Lun lian he zheng fu, 1945 - On Coalition Government (tr. 1945; (Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Volume III, 1965) - Kokoomushallituksesta (suom. Tuure Lehén, Mao Tse-tungin teoksia 2, 1958)
• Jing ji wen ti yu cai zheng wen ti, 1947 - Mao Zedong and the Political Economy of the Border Region (translated by Andrew Watson, 1980)
• Mao Tse-tung’s "Democracy"; A Digest of the Bible of Chinese Communism, 1947 (commentary by Lin Yutang, with expurgated passages restored)
• Zhongguo ge ming zhan zheng de zhan lue, 1947
• Turning point in China, 1948
• Zhongguo ge ming he Zhongguo gong chan dang, 1948 - Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China (tr. 1950) / The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party (tr. 1954) - Kiinan vallankumous ja Kiinan kommunistinen puolue (suom. Tuure Lehén, Mao Tse-tungin teoksia 2, 1958)
• Mao Zedong tong zhi lun xin min zhu zhu yi, 1948
• The Autobiography of Mao Tse-tung, 1949 (2nd rev. ed.)
• Hunan nong min yun dong kao cha bao gao, 1949
• Lun ren min min zhu zhuan zheng, 1949 - On People’s Democratic Dictatorship (tr. 1949)  / On People’s Democratic Rule (tr. 1950)
• Lessons of the Chinese Revolution, 1950  (with Liu Shao-chi)
• Significance of Agrarian Reforms in China, 1950
• Mao Tse-tung hsuan chi, 1951
• Shi jian lun, 1951 - On Practice: On the Relation Between Knowledge and Practice-Between Knowing and Doing, 1951
• Strategic Problems of China’s Revolutionary War, 1951
• Maoism, a Sourcebook: Selection from the Writings of Mao Tse-tung, 1952
• Maodun lun, 1952 - On Contradiction, 1952
• Gong chan dang ren fa kan zi, 1952 - Introductory Remarks to "The Communist" (tr. 1953)
• Guan yu jiu zheng dang nei de cuo wu si xiang, 1952 - On the Rectification of Incorrect Ideas in the Party (tr. 1953)
• Mind the Living Conditions of the Masses and Attend to the Methods of Work, 1953
• On the Tactics of Fighting Japanese Imperialism, 1953
• Report of an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan, 1953
• A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, 1953  
• Why Can China’s Red Political Power Exist, 1953
• On the Protracted War, 1954
• The Policies, Measures and Perspectives of Combating Japanese Invasion, 1954
• Selected Works, 1954-62 (5 vols.)
• Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society, 1956
• The Question of Agricultural Co-operation, 1956
• On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, 1957
• Imperialism and all Reactionaries Are Paper Tigers, 1958
• Mao chu-hsi shih-tz'u san-shih chiu shou, 1958 [Poems of Mao Tse-tung]
• On "Imperialism and All Reactionaries Are Paper Tigers", 1958
• Lun wen xue yu yi shu, 1958 - On literature and art (3d ed., 1967)
• Nineteen Poems, 1958 (with notes by Chou Chen-fu and an appreciation by Tsang Keh-chia) 
• Mao Zedong xuan ji suo yin, 1960
• Mao Tse-tung on Art and Literature, 1960 (2nd ed.)
• Comrade Mao Zedong on Marxist Philosophy, 1960 (extracts)
• Mao Zedong's Philosophical Thought, 1960
• New-Democratic Constitutionalism, 1960
• Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, 1960-65, 1977 (5 vols.)
• Chinese Communist Revolutionary Strategy, 1945-1949, 1961
• Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, 1961 (5 vols.)
• Mao Tse-tung: An Anthology of his Writings, 1962 (edited with an introd. by Anne Fremantle)
• The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, 1963 (ed. Stuart R. Schram)
• Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung, 1963
• Mao chu-hsi shih-tz'u san-shih-ch'i shou, 1964 - Poems of Mao Tse-tung (translated by Wong Man, 1966) / The Poems of Mao Tse-tung (translation, introd., notes by Willis Barnstone in collaboration with Ko Ching-po, 1972) / Poems of Mao Tse-tung (translated by Nieh Engle and Paul Engle, 1972) / Reverberations: A New Translation of Complete Poems of Mao Tse-tung (with notes by Nancy T. Lin, 1980)  / Mao Zedong Poems (translated by Zhao Zhentao, 1980) / Snow Glistens on the Great Wall (translation, notes & historical commentary by Ma Wen-yee, 1986) / Poems of Mao Tsetung (translated by Kim Unsong, 1994)
• Mao Zedong zhu zuo xuan du, 1964 (2 vols.)
• Mao Zhu Xi Yu Lu, 1966 [Quotations of Chairman Mao, with  Lin Biao] - "The Little Red Book" (first version, 1964)
• Basic Tactics, 1966 (translated and with an introd. by Stuart R. Schram,  foreword by Samuel B. Griffith, II)
• Four Essays on Philosophy, 1966
• Quotations From Chairman Mao, 1966
• Mao Tse-tung on War, 1966
• Mao Zedong lun wen yi, 1966
• Poems, 1966
• Ten More Poems of Mao Tse-tung, 1967
• Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, 1967 (edited and with an introductory essay and notes by Stuart R. Schram, foreword by A. Doak Barnett)
• Selected Readings, 1967
• Mao Tse-tung’s Quotations: The Red Guard’s Handbook, 1967
• Mao zhu xi yu lu = Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, 1967
• Selected Readings of Mao Zedong's Writings, 1968 (2 vols.)
• The Thoughts of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, 1967
• Mao zhu xi de wu pian zhu zuo, 1968 - Five Articles by Chairman Mao Tse-tung (tr. 1968)
• Mao zhu xi lun ren min zhan zheng = Chairman Mao Tse-tung on People’s War, 1968
• The Wisdom of Mao Tse-tung, 1968
• On Revolution and War, 1969 (edited with an introd. and notes by M. Rejai)
• Supplement to Quotations from Chairman Mao, 1969
• Mao Papers, Anthology and Bibliography, 1970  (edited by Jerome Ch?en)
• Mao Zedong xuan ji  = Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, 1970 (2 vols.)
• Selected Works, 1970 (abridged by Bruno Shaw)
• Quan shi jie ren min tuan jie qi lai = People of the World Unite and Defend the U. S. Agressors and All their Running Dogs!, 1971  
• Six Essays on Military Affairs, 1972
• Wei ren min fu wu = Serve the People, in Memory of Norman Bethune, The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains, 1972
• The Writings of Mao Zedong, 1949-1976, 1986 (Mao Zedong et al)
• What Peking Keeps Silent About, 1972
• Zhongguo ren min jie fang jun zong bu guan yu chong xing ban bu san da ji lu ba xiang zhu yi de xun ling = On the Reissue of the Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention, 1972
• Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed: Talks and Letters, 1956-71, 1974  (edited and introduced by Stuart Schram; translated by John Chinnery and Tieyun)
• Annotated Quotations from Chairman Mao, 1975  (annotated by John DeFrancis)
• Ten Poems and Lyrics, 1975  (translation and woodcuts by Wang Hui-Ming)
• A Critique of Soviet Economics, 1977 (translated by Moss Roberts)  
• Maoism As It Really Is: Pronouncements of Mao Zedong, Some Already Known to the Public and Others Hitherto Not Published in the Chinese Press, 1981 (translated by Cynthia Carlile, ed.  O.E. Vladimirov et al.)
• Mao Zedong shu xin shou ji xuan = A Selection of Letters by Mao Zedong with Reproductions of the Original Calligraphy, 1983  
• Mao Zedong ji. Bu juan = Supplements to Collected Writings of Mao Tse-tung, 1983-86 (10 vols.)    
• The Writings of Mao Zedong, 1949-1976, 1986-1992 (2 vols., edited by Michael Y.M. Kau, John K. Leung)
• Mao Zedong's Collected Annotations on Philosophy, 1988
• Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao: From the Hundred Flowers to the Great Leap Forward, 1989 (edited by Roderick MacFarquhar et al.)
• Mao zhu wei kan gao, "Mao Zedong si xiang wan sui" bie ji ji qi ta = Maozhu weikan gao, "Mao Zedong sixiang wansui" beiji ji qita = Unofficially Published Works of Mao Zedong, Additional Volumes of "Long live Mao Zedong’s thought" and Other Secret Speeches of Mao, 1989 (15 vols.)
• Mao Zedong on Dialectical Materialism: Writings on Philosophy, 1937, 1990 (edited by Nick Knight)
• Report from Xunwu, 1990  (Xunwu diao cha, translated, and with an introduction and notes by Roger R. Thompson)
• Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949, 1992-2005 (7 vols., ed. Stuart R. Schram)
• Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, 1998  (compiled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China and the Party Literature Research Center under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China)
• Mao Zedong shi ci = Mao Zedong Poems, 2001
• On Practice and Contradiction, 2007  (introduction by Slavoj Zizek)
• Mao Zedong shu fa da zi dian, 2010 (3 vols.)