People's History of Ideas Podcast · Matthew Rothwell

Two Letters and “On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party” (November to December 1929)

December 28, 2024·30 min

Episode 122 of People's History of Ideas presents two letters Mao Zedong wrote on November 28, 1929, from Chongqing, offering rare documentary evidence of his personal and political concerns during a critical revolutionary period. The first letter to Li Lisan, addressed as 'Brother' rather than 'Comrade,' reveals Mao's isolation, three-month illness, and desperation for reading materials and news of his first wife Yang Kai Hui (living underground) and son An Ying. The second letter to the Central Committee reports military movements, requests party publications (Bolshevik, Red Flag, Leninism texts), and criticizes former party secretary Chen Du Xu for Trotskyist sympathies. The host contextualizes these letters within broader party dynamics: Mao's two-year struggle against Zhu De over army politicization, efforts to eliminate feudal military practices (corporal punishment, execution of deserters), and the upcoming Ninth Congress that will institutionalize Mao's control. The episode reveals Mao's intellectual hunger, political ruthlessness, and the tragic irony that his letter about family members would soon be separated by Yang Kai Hui's 1930 execution.

As heard by us

Small letters, larger political context.

The episode tracks Mao's return to the Front Committee through two letters dated November 28, 1929, one personal and one brief note to the Central Committee.

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Why you'd press play

You want Mao's 1929 politics through letters, discipline, and the road to Gutian.

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