Encounter with a member of Communist Party USA
One day in 1980s, I stopped by a used bookstore nearby a university and found a section full of communism books. I was interested and excited about those books because many of the book titles looked very familiar to me. I pulled out a book and started briefly reading it. Then, a young lady approached me and asked me whether I came from People’s Republic of China or not. I said “Yes”. She then told me that China now had become a revisionism country. She happened to be a member of Communist Party USA. “Deng, Xiaoping was a traitor to the communism movement. Jiang, Qing was Chairman Mao’s good student and she was the loyal follower of Chairman Mao and communism,...” she said. I told her that I lived all my life in China and knew much better than her about China. I said I thanked Deng for him to start economic reform in China and I also thanked Deng for him to give me an opportunity to enter the college and finally also to come to USA. China and Chinese people were certainly much better than before as I could recall when Mao was in power. We had a long and friendly conversation about communism movement. When I left, I bought the following books from her bookstore and these books are still on my bookshelves today:
* “Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels”, edited by Lewis S. Feuer, published by Anchor Books, 1959, 497 pages.
* “Karl Marx – His Life and Thought”, by David McLellan, published by Harper Colophon Books, 1977, 498 pages.
* “Critique of the Gotha Programme”, by Karl Marx, with Appendices by Marx, Engels, and Lenin
* “The Poverty of Philosophy”, by Karl Marx, with an Introduction by Frederick Engels
* “Wage-Labour and Capital Value, Price and Profit”, by Karl Marx
* “Imperialism – The Highest Stage of Capitalism”, by V. I. Lenin
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Of course, I also bought the well-known, or at least well-known to Chinese people, little red book from the same bookstore:
* “Quotations From Chairman Mao Tsetung”, Published by Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1976, 312 pages.
Many paragraphs in the little red book look so familiar to me even today. The first two paragraphs read:
The force at the core leading our cause forward is the Chinese Communist Party. The theoretical basis guiding our thinking is Marxism-Leninism.
- Opening address at the First Session of the First National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China (September 15, 1954).
If there is to be revolution, there must be a revolutionary party. Without a revolutionary party, without a party built on the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style, it is impossible to lead the working class and the broad masses of the people in defeating imperialism and its running dogs.
- "Revolutionary Forces of the World Unite, Fight Against Imperialist Aggression!" (November 1948), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 284.
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