那時，毛澤東已經天天讀二份大參考，讀了15年之多，還不懂，人權的權是權利，他手裡的權是權力。完全是二會事。毛澤東怎麼沒有想一想，人權的定義是什麼，我們這些人的權是什麼，權這個字有幾種解釋，普通智慧的人都會想到的。由此可見，毛澤東讀書是興致所至的，不求甚解，懶求甚解的。曾經在延安和毛澤東談過一整天的美國記者 Theodore H. White 早就看出，毛澤東的個性是君權的，而且嚇人的，不許反對和分歧的。他的知識是歪斜的，他讀書是心血來潮和由興趣決定的。為什麼中國人民過了這麼多年還看不到呢？
A. M. Ludwig 的研究發現，現代政治領袖裡有15-30% 的人，有持續一周以上的沮喪精神病，而美國民眾只有6%。病表現在睡眠混亂，不要見人，病態的思想，心裡總想着自殺等等。毛澤東有很多的病，都在保密中。現在只知道他中年時看到陌生人會很緊張，他睡眠很混亂，有時賴在床上一個星期不起來。他多疑到病態的程度。 一句話，中國人民的這個領袖是有精神病的。
We walked up the main street and I was surprised to find Mao Tse-tung did not live in a cave up the mountain, but within the city wall a little to the west. We went down a narrow alley and came to a gate. A small tap and it shot open, and a soldier stood inside the gate with what looked like a Thompson sub-machine gun. There was a square walled piece of ground with a well in the middle. We walked towards a raised brick platform and there, outside a doorway, stood a soldier in a great sheepskin coat. Pressed against his side was the biggest naked sword I had ever seen in my life – it looked terrifying. We walked in and Mao Tse-tung came forward holding out his hand.
He was short, his ears were different from any man’s I have ever seen – quite flat on top – and his thick black hair was parted in the middle. His fingers were thin and his hands nicely shaped. He had a quiet manner and voice. I had expected to see a man who would have given outwardly the appearance of fire and strength. […]
He: Are you a Communist?I: No, I am not.He: Why do you want all these questions answered about us?I: Having heard so much about you and what the guerillas are doing, I wanted to see for myself, and the questions are those that I can’t get answered by anyone or anywhere except by you here.He: What have you heard about me?I: Only, of course, propaganda for and against.He: What in favour of me?I: That you are wonderfully good, that you are improving the lives of thousands in China and that you can do no wrong.He: And what have you heard against me?I: That you have killed, in some towns, all the inhabitants over forty and under eight, that you are a robber and a rogue.
Everyone in the room remained very still, but the man standing behind my sword moved a little as my words were translated. Mao Tse-tung had not moved a muscle while I was speaking, but he kept his eyes on mine. Then with a sudden smile he said: “No, I don’t eat babies for tiffin,” and the ice was broken.
(From Violet Cressy-Marcks, Journey into China, 1940, p. 163) ——引自 維奧莉特·克雷西·馬克斯著《中國之旅》第163頁
When Edgar Snow claimed what has been called “the journalistic coup of the century” by becoming the first foreigner to publish an interview Mao Zedong he drew ire from many corners. China Hands were indignant that a non-Sinophone should claim the glory and other competitive wayfaring souls, like his compatriotAgnes Smedley, were piqued to have been beaten. Smedley, perhaps in retaliation, established her own fastness at Yan’an, pounding out as much copy as she could on her portable typewriter even as paper and spare ribbons were scarce. Her ensuing friendship with Zhu De was seen as an exemplar of cross-cultural friendship among “fellow travellers,” while her proximity to the Chairman himself was the subject of not a little contemporary speculation. Journalists of various nationalities braved the hazardous track across the loess to the Revolutionary Capital as the Communist encampment in Northern Shaanxi stretched onto a dozen years.
By and large their accounts rehashed Mao’s pronouncements on ideology and reflections upon his adversaries, both foreign and fellow Chinese. On the other hand, these pieces of reportage still glisten with interest. When Mao Zedong met with his motley visitors there was not infrequently a sense of frisson arising from the contrast between their personalities. Some were struck by the apprehension of greatness on his part and that he may be about to reshape the destiny of the nation, if not the world. For others, like the above-quoted Violet Cressy-Marcks, the strain of intractable struggle was written plainly on his face and they felt as though they were encountering a mortal, not a deity.
The following essay will elaborate upon the circumstances behind Cressy-Marcks’s visit to Yan’an, which culminated in her spending five hours in Mao’s company. Her experience will be compared with that of another Englishwoman of considerable social standing, Lady Isobel Cripps, the wife of the then President of the Board of Trade, Sir Stafford Cripps. For the former, the lure of travel proved never less than intoxicating and despite being a married mother she trekked right across the globe several times, questing after whatever unplumbed and exotic corners she heard mention of. Cripps, meanwhile, a stalwart socialist and internationalist with more than a little in common ideologically with both Bertrand Russell and Joseph Needham, undertook her journey several years later under the auspices of the charitable body “British United Aid to China.” Offering support to a war-riven nation was her manifest purpose, yet the bonhomie which the Communists were eager to extend and the British guests were just as keen to reciprocate tells us much about the mutually-perceived need to form an alliance between an incumbent Labour government of the West and a revolutionary Party on the brink of seizing power in the East.
