Mao’s poem for Wang Hongwen

 

(Translator’s preface:  This poem is not widely available in China, for reasons that will be obvious on reading it.  Nor do I know of any English translation. I have included the Chinese original in the hope that someone more conversant in Chinese than me might put a better translation in the Comments box below. I have added a few footnotes. The poem appears to express Mao’s confidence that the people will follow the socialist path and that the heavy tasks he sees before the revolutionary forces can be entrusted to comrades like Wang Hongwen, a relatively youthful member of the leadership. Having come from the ranks of the PLA and the working class, Wang Hongwen was only 37-years old when he was elected Party vice-Chairman at the 10^th National Party Congress in 1973.  In his report to that Congress on the revision of the Party Constitution, Wang stressed the revolutionary principle of “going against the tide”, and had this expression of Mao’s written into the Constitution. When the capitalist-roaders seized power after Mao’s death in 1976, Wang Hongwen and three other members of the Gang of Four were seized by the military and placed under arrest. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1981 as the Dengists took their revenge, and died in 1992.)

Presented to Comrade Hongwen August 1974

Zhongnanhai is green and moist. Deep in its midst I am not alone. Hundreds of millions of people are going against the tide. They are all my soldiers.

Today we are at the beginning[1]. The 800 million people are happy to see the militia become a new army[2].  Only to the long-standing love of fish and water[3] can the heavy mission be entrusted[4].

.........................

浪淘沙 赠洪文同志 1974年8月 

分类： 毛主席

中南海色青，碧碧盈盈。深居其间非一人。民众亿万反潮流，皆是我兵。

今日从头行。八亿群众，喜见民兵成新军。唯有经久鱼水情，堪托重命。

 

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[1] In March 1949, on the eve of nation-wide victory, Mao wrote: “To win countrywide victory is only the first step in a long march of ten thousand li.... The Chinese revolution is great, but the road after the revolution will be longer, the work greater and more arduous. This must be made clear now in the Party. The comrades must be helped to remain modest, prudent and free from arrogance and rashness in their style of work. The comrades must be helped to preserve the style of plain living and hard struggle.”

[2] In 1971, suspecting that Lin Biao was plotting against him and might use use the army, Mao said he did not think the army would go against him, but if it did, he would go back to Jinggangshan and start another guerrilla war. (This is where Mao had launched his war against Chiang-Kai Shek in 1927).

[3] Mao uses the expression 鱼水情, which means that fish cannot be separated from water, and water cannot be separated from fish. The deep friendship between fish and water is used to describe the close relationship and deep affection between the armed revolutionaries and the people. It is a metaphor that he had used to describe the conduct of people’s war.

[4] As the end of his life approached, Mao’s determination to ensure that there were trusted successors to the revolutionary cause became a major focus of his deliberations.