Chairman Mao Tse-tung is a brilliant example of wholehearted devotion to the interests of the people of China and the world. Chairman Mao dedicated all his energies throughout his life till his last breath to the liberation of the Chinese people, to the emancipation of the oppressed nations and oppressed people the world over and to the cause of communism. A great proletarian revolutionary like Chairman Mao, who weathers all kinds of revolutionary storms, overcomes every difficulty and hardship, and always identifies himself with the workers, peasants and other labouring people and stands in the van of the revolutionary movement to guide it forward, is rare indeed in the annals of the proletarian revolutionary movement. The magnificent contributions Chairman Mao made in revolutionary theory and practice are immortal. Chairman Mao has passed away. This is a loss beyond measure to our Party, our army and the people of all nationalities of our country, to the international proletariat and the revolutionary people of all countries and to the international communist movement.

Over the last few days, the whole party, the whole army and the people of all nationalities throughout the country have been immersed in boundless sorrow at the passing of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. The cause that our great leader devoted his whole life to is linked by flesh-and-blood ties with the masses of the people. It was under Chairman Mao’s leadership that the Chinese people who had long suffered oppression and exploitation won emancipation and became masters of the country. It was under Chairman Mao’s leadership that the disaster-plagued Chinese nation rose to its feet. The Chinese people love, trust and esteem Chairman Mao from the bottom of their hearts. The international proletariat and progressive mankind all deeply mourn the death of Chairman Mao.

Had a long talk to the Chinese First Secretary at the embassy — a very charming man called Liao Dong — and said how much I admired Mao Tse tung or Zedong, the greatest man of the twentieth century. He said that I couldn't admire Mao more than he did. I asked him how Mao was viewed now. He said Mao was 70 per cent right and 30 per cent wrong; the Cultural Revolution didn't work. He said he had been named after Mao — it was amusing.

Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s great merit lies in the fact that he has succeeded in integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution and has enriched and developed Marxism-Leninism by his masterly generalization and summation the experience gained during the Chinese people’s protracted revolutionary struggle.

Chairman Mao Tse-tung was the greatest Marxist of the contemporary era. With the great boldness and vision of a proletarian revolutionary, he launched the great struggle in the international Communist movement to criticize modern revisionism with the Soviet revisionist renegade clique at the core, brought about by the vigorous development of the cause of the world proletarian revolution and the cause of the people of all countries against imperialism and hegemonism, and pushed the history of mankind forward.

The constant defeat of subversion and sabotage by imperialism, revisionism and reaction, the upholding of socialism and the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the People’s Republic of China, a populous country with a vast territory--this is a great contribution of world historic significance made by chairman Mao Tse-tung to the present era and has at the same time provided the international national Communist movement with new experience in combating and preventing revisionism, consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and building socialism.

Mao Zedong was a great leader of the Chinese Revolution and as a result enjoyed an enormous amount of prestige among he ordinary Chinese people. However, Mao, as a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist, had always worked with and relied upon other Party leaders as well had always worked with and relied upon either Party leaders as well as the grass-roots Part members and masses to accomplish political, economic and social goals. Mao never relied upon and never believed in a command hierarchy imposed form above. Within the Chinese Communist Party, Mao had never gained that kind of absolute control that Stalin had over the Soviet Communist Party (and even Stalin could not simply impose his will without the cooperation of much of the Party and state bureaucracy). ON the contrary, on many historical occasions, Mao often found himself in the minority (as Lenin did within the Part leadership. If Mai's intention had eventually become the will of the Party, that took place only after patient and sustained persuasion, difficult and sometimes intense intra-Party struggle, criticism and self-criticisms, and most importantly, after the Party leaders and members had learnt from practice themselves.

With the brilliant leadership of Chairman Mao and having mastered Mao Tse-tung’s thought which is the keenest weapon, we will be invincible and all-conquering and will achieve complete victory in the great proletarian cultural revolution!

Mao had died 13 years earlier. This gave China the chance to develop differently. And China had taken a different path in the 13 years since Mao's death. The students wanted the shadow of Mao to be left entirely behind so that China could become a democracy and corruption be ended. So the Chinese would have a better life and more freedom. Officially, it was said that a riot had to be prevented. The army was supposed to restore peace and order. But there was no turmoil. The only problem was that Deng disagreed with the students. At first, I thought Deng Xiaoping only wanted to intimidate the students and civilians with the army. I never would have believed that he - a Communist Party member who described himself as a revolutionary - would actually order to shoot. Soldiers from your own army shooting at students! That is incredible. "

When Mao Zedong in his later years described himself as "a combination of First Emperor Qin and Marx," his ideology had already leapfrogged the Great Wall and touched the universal brotherhood of Communism.

The simple fact is that Chairman Mao was a pretty perceptive political thinker. You can deplore what he did in China and still realize that not everything he wrote was the sheer embodiment of evil. [...] Is this really how you want to start judging politicians -- by their favorite philosophers? [...] Actually thinking about issues has gone way out of style on the right. It's much easier to march in lockstep with populist goons like Glenn Beck. [...] It's appalling that so many LGF readers are buying into this insanity. What's wrong with you people?

But… look, Chairman Mao made mistakes, yes. Nonetheless, he was one of the principal founders of the Communist Party of China and the People’s Republic of China. Thus, when we look at his merits together with his mistakes, we think that his mistakes take second place, while his merits take first. And this means that the contribution he made to the Chinese revolution cannot be forgotten and that the Chinese people will always cherish his memory; they will always think of him as one of the founders of the party and of the republic.'''

The course of the Chinese revolution has not been plain sailing, for in the course of the advance we have had to vanquish many enemies at home at abroad and both inside and outside the Party, overcome various erroneous tendencies within our ranks and solve many new problems that our predecessors never met with. The victories won by our Party during the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution should be all attributed to Chairman Mao’s leadership. History proves that the banner of Chairman Mao is a great banner under which the proletariat leads the people in the united struggle to victory.

In fact, as I said before, North Korea is a far-right ultra-nationalist state and therefore its personality cult is very different from the personality cult that you had in the Soviet Union or in China. The cult of Mao Zedong; Stalin and Mao were essentially teacher figures because the whole point of Marxism-Leninism is to instill political consciousnesses into the spontaneous masses. As you as you may know, Marx believed that revolution was pretty much preordained, that it was going to come about as a result of the contradictions in capitalism and Lenin came along and said "No, that's not really so easy. That's not how it happens because when the proletariat starts to get angry, the capitalists fob them off with raises and, and they strike and they get an increase in their wages and they call back into the capitalist trap." So the whole point of a communist party was to basically turn the childlike proletariat into thinking adults, politically conscious adults. So Stalin and Mao Zedong were both teacher figures and Stalin was of course a smiling figure but he wasn't a particularly approachable one and the focus of his personality cult were his eyes because his eyes seen as the windows to his perfect grasp of this omnipotent science of dialectical materialism.