Rights do not feature prominently in the writings of Mao Zedong (1893–1976). Mao did not view rights as innate or natural; they were instead merited on the basis of one’s class position and political views. Whether rights should be given to any group of people was also determined by an analysis of the demands of the political situation. At the time Mao wrote the essay translated here, the CCP and the GMD had nominally joined in a United Front against the Japanese, who controlled large parts of China. The Communists were prepared to acknowledge the civil and political rights of all people, including landlords and capitalists, provided that they used these rights and freedoms to fight the Japanese. Although the language of human rights did not play an important role in the revolutionary rhetoric of the CCP, the Communists would nonetheless frequently refer to it throughout the 1940s when they criticized the GMD’s repression of dissenting views.
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