Mao’s childhood was one of unusual drudgery. His father was a peasant and a domestic tyrant. Understandably, the boy’s thoughts were turned, at an early age, to revolution against authority and oppression. He chopped off his pigtail in defiance of the Manchus and joined other restless youths who had a hand in the formation of the Chinese Communist Party. A few years later, largely through his help, this party was joined briefly to the revolutionary party of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, which Russia was then aiding. Years of civil war had taught Mao the technique of guerilla warfare, as well as the qualities necessary for leadership. He likens his guerilla tactics to the behavior of fleas. “We attack by night,” he says, “and wear out strong men.” In 1927 he became President of the first Chinese Peasants Union and has never lost his standing with it. The ignorant peasants are always impressed not only by his rugged and often ruthless qualities, but also by his great learning and his ability to write Chinese poetry in the classic style. In the early days, he won their further applause by moving freely among the people, organizing rickshaw boys into labor unions, and sometimes pulling them about in rickshaws himself, while he talked intimately of the glories of Communism. Most of the activities of the Communist Party in the early days were carried on in the South, especially around Canton. By 1934, however, the Nationalists had gained such power that the Communists were forced to leave the Southern province of Kiangsi for the Northern caves of Yenan. This, the “Long March,” was a journey of thousands of miles, travelled on foot, partly over almost impassable trails and some of the highest mountains and largest rivers in Asia. In three hundred and sixty-eight days, eighteen major mountain passes were crossed, five of them snow-capped, and twenty-four rivers were forded. At each stop that was made, the marchers ravaged villages, impoverished the well-to-do, and persuaded the poorer peasants to join them. They whipped up such a frenzied crusade that their ranks were swelled by thousands. So strenuous was the journey, however, that at its end only twenty thousand men and women were left, ten thousand having fallen by the way. Those who survived were tough, one may be sure. A much-quoted legend has grown up about Mao, the stalwart leader, which tells how he stumbled along barefooted, refusing a wounded soldier’s offer to share a pony’s back. “No,” said Mao to the soldier, “your wounds are worse than mine. We shall suffer and fight together. That is what makes us comrades.”