Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

by Jung Chang

When I bumped into them in the mornings, they always gave me a very kind smile which told me they were happy. I realized then that when people are happy they become kind.

But there were kind people as well, or people who were more courageous than others in showing their kindness.

I began to see that it was the very tolerance of oppositions, of protesters, that kept the West progressing.

He understood ugly human instincts such as envy and resentment, and knew how to mobilize them for his ends. He ruled by getting people to hate each other. In doing so, he got ordinary Chinese to carry out many of the tasks undertaken in other dictatorships by professional elites. Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship.