“What is the Commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?” asked Marx as he began to offer his answer to the riddle his question implied. From the plethora of discussion evoked over the course of the ensuing century by the events in Paris during the 72 days from 18 March until 29 May 1871, it seems clear that Marx's explanation notwithstanding, the Commune has proven sphinx-like and tantalizing not only to the bourgeois mind, but to the socialist and communist minds as well.

The decadence of the state, the sufferings of humanity, and the darkness of society have all reached an extreme. Where is the method of improvement and reform? Education, industrialization, strenuous efforts, rapid progress, destruction and construction are, to be sure, all right, but there is a basic method for carrying out all these undertakings, which is that of the great union of the popular masses.

One of the most frequent questions one is asked on returning from a visit to China is whether the tour was guided or whether one could do what one liked and forage for oneself. The question worries both academics and non-academics, whatever their particular interests. The assumptions behind the question would appear to be that one can only really discover anything of value by working as an individual and that a guided tour is only a propaganda exercise. While both assumptions contain an element of truth, they certainly do not express the full reality. The academic aim of extended field work in China is a practical impossibility at the moment and, even were it possible, it would require the assistance and guidance of large numbers of Chinese. The interpretation may belong to the academic but his data depend on the co-operation of others. Similarly, the extent to which a guided tour is a propaganda exercise is a function of one's previous experience and knowledge. The more Chinese one can speak and read, for example, the less likely it is that one can be misled.

The main purpose of this article is to serve as an introduction to the foregoing translation of Mao Tse-tung's essay, “The Great Union of the Popular Masses,” written during the summer of 1919. As suggested by the title, however, while focusing primarily on Mao Tse-tung's thought at the time of the May Fourth Movement, I have chosen to develop also certain parallels with the ideas he has put forward more recently, especially during the Cultural Revolution. That there are elements of continuity between these two epochs has been recognized by everyone from the very beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Indeed, Mao himself not only stressed these links, but, for a time at least, sought to exaggerate them. The Cultural Revolution was (among many other things) an attempt to re-create, for the benefit of today's youth, an experience analogous to that of Mao's generation of young Chinese half a century ago. None the less, the juxtaposition, for purposes of analysis, of two such episodes widely separated in time may at first glance appear somewhat arbitrary. Such an approach can, in my view, be justified by the fact that the Mao Tse-tung of 1919 had not yet seriously begun to assimilate Marxism, whereas the Mao Tse-tung of the Cultural Revolution had already moved beyond Marxism to conceptions not altogether compatible with the logic of Marxism or of Leninism. The intervening years, during which he mastered, applied and then to some extent discarded the principles of revolution developed by Lenin and Stalin are, of course, vitally important to an understanding of the genesis and present significance of his thought. But by looking directly from 1919 to 1969, and leaping over the intervening period, one can perhaps see the problem in a perspective which reveals points that would otherwise be obscured. In particular, one can note the persistence of traits and ideas not derived from Marxism, and which therefore belong to an earlier and deeper stratum of Mao's thinking and feeling about the problems of Chinese society.

The visit of the Australian Labour Party (ALP) delegation to China in July this year provided an interesting and representative example of Chinese diplomacy in action.* Although the ALP is in opposition, the delegation was dealt with by China as the representatives of a possible future Australian government, and its leader, Gough Whitlam, as the alternative Australian Prime Minister. The discussions were pitched accordingly. The visit also had some general relevance because of the importance China now attaches to relations with “small” powers, including countries like Australia (which see themselves rather as middle powers); indeed, China's new diplomatic contacts with such powers illustrate the whole thrust of China's global diplomacy in 1971. The Australian case is interesting also because in Australia, as in the United States and a number of other countries, the “China problem” has been such a central issue in foreign policy that it has spilled over into a complex involvement in domestic politics.