Mao: The Unknown Story

During 1950–51, 20,00 °Chinese Communist troops forced their way into Tibet. But Mao realized he was unable to send in larger numbers to occupy the whole place. There were no proper roads to supply a large army, and Mao’s soldiers were not used to the altitude, while the Tibetan army was not a negligible force. So Mao played the negotiation game, pretending that he would allow the area virtual autonomy. Acting the benign moderate, he recognized the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual and governmental leader, as the head of Tibet, sent him gifts like a 16mm film projector, and said reassuring things to Tibetan delegations. Meanwhile he pressed ahead with building two roads into Tibet.

In September 1954, the nineteen-year-old Dalai Lama went to Peking to attend the rubber-stamp National Assembly, of which he had been appointed a member. Mao met him at least a dozen times during his stay, which lasted half a year, and set out to charm — and disarm — him. Mao knew about his interest in science: “I know you are a reform-minded man, like myself,” Mao said. “We have a lot of things in common,” citing education reform. “That was the danger with Mao,” the Dalai Lama told us, “everything he said—half true! Half true!” But along with the lulling, Mao was also patronizing and bullying, berating the Dalai Lama for not accepting that “religion is poison.”

In an effort to do the best he could for his people, the Dalai Lama applied to join the CCP. His application was turned down. He tried to keep Mao in a good mood, and after returning to Lhasa, wrote to him in summer 1955 enclosing a Tibetan flower. Mao responded in almost sentimental language:

Dear Dalai Lama, I was very happy to receive your letter … I often miss you, missing the happy times when you were in Peking. When can I see you again?… I was very happy to see the Tibetan flower which you enclosed … I’m here enclosing one flower to you …

Early in 1956, once the two major roads had been completed into Tibet, Mao set about requisitioning food, attacking religion and confiscating arms in a region called Kham, adjacent to Tibet and inhabited by some half a million Tibetans. The people rebelled, and by the end of March had mustered an armed force of over 60,000 men with more than 50,000 guns. Rebellions spread like wildfire in other regions where Tibetans formed a majority. Mao found himself with major wars on his hands covering huge areas of the interior; he resorted to using heavy artillery and aerial bombardment.

The mass participation and the combativeness of the rebels brought home to Mao what kind of resistance he would face in Tibet itself. In September he suspended his plans to “Maoise” Tibet.

However, two years later, with the Great Leap in 1958, food requisitioning was drastically stepped up nationwide. This encountered tenacious resistance in Tibet and the four large provinces in Western China with sizable Tibetan populations — Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan. Many Tibetans had managed to retain their firearms, which for herdsmen were essential for their livelihood. They also had horses, which gave them mobility. But above all they had their own separate identity, language and religion, which enabled them to organize in secret.

In Qinghai, which is larger than France, the rebellion spread through the province. Mao gave instant orders to quell it, on 24 June. At the same time, he told his army chiefs to “be ready to deal with an all-out rebellion in Tibet” itself. He made it explicit that he positively wanted a violent, crushing solution. “In Tibet,” he wrote on 22 January the following year, “there has to be a general decisive war before we can solve the problem thoroughly. The Tibetan rulers … now have a 10,000-strong rebelling armed force with high morale, and they are our serious enemies. But this is … a good thing. Because this makes it possible to solve our problems through war.” Mao was saying: They have given me an excuse to start a war. A month later, he wrote: “The bigger the upheaval the better.”

On 10 March 1959, an uprising broke out in Lhasa, after word spread that the Chinese planned to kidnap the Dalai Lama. Thousands paraded in front of his palace and through Lhasa, shouting “Chinese get out!” Next day, Mao cabled an order to let the Dalai Lama escape. His calculation was that if the Dalai Lama was killed it would inflame world opinion, particularly in the Buddhist countries and India, which Mao was courting. On the night of the 17th the Dalai Lama made his way out of Lhasa and set off for India. Once his escape was confirmed, Mao told his men: “Do all you can to hold the enemies in Lhasa … so when our main force arrives we can surround them and wipe them out.”