Ian McMahan reads from The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Li Zhisui at the 2009 Human Rights Book Fair.

Li Zhisui was born to a family of doctors. He received his degree in medicine in 1945, and was appointed as Mao Zedong’s private doctor in 1954, a position he served until Mao’s death in 1976. Li moved to the U.S. in 1988, and published The Private Life of Chairman Mao in 1996. The book provides intimate details of Mao’s personal life, including his sexual intrigue and indifference to the suffering of others. 

From The Private Life of Chairman Mao

In 1960, China Youth magazine contacted me through Tian Jiaying, one of Mao Zedong’s secretaries. Tian asked if I would write articles for the magazine.

Tian was a neighbor of mine in Zhongnanhai, and was aware of my habit of keeping a journal of my daily activities. In fact, he had read some of my writing; this is why he suggested that I select a few of my journal entries for publication.

I had started writing a journal in 1954, when I was appointed Mao’s personal physician, and soon writing became a hobby. It helped while away the time, and served as a record of my experience. Initially I took notes only on major episodes, but after a while I wrote down many other things I happened to observe. Still, I had never intended to publish my writings, and I turned down the magazine’s request.

By 1966, I had compiled more than forty volumes of notes. In the latter half of that year, the Red Guards began to search the houses of their political enemies. At that time I lived in a residence complex in Gongxian Lane in Beijing, where three vice-ministers of the Ministry of Public Health also lived. As victims of the Cultural Revolution, they were under constant attack by the Red Guards, and their living quarters were frequently raided by the young rebels. Sometimes the Red Guards knocked at the wrong door and entered my residence by mistake. My wife, Lillian, was alarmed, for she was afraid that they might accidentally get hold of my notes, which contained many candid observations on Mao’s public and private activities.

Unable to find a safe place for these notes, we made the painful decision to bum them. But we could not do this at home because we were afraid that our neighbors might observe us and suspect that we were destroying criminal materials. Ultimately, I thought of the incineratorat Zhongnanhai that was used to burn the unneeded documents and letters of Mao Zedong and his wife, Jiang Qing.

I took my notes there and fed them into the incinerator. As I reached the last dozen or so volumes, Wang Dongxing, director of the Central Bureau of Guards, phoned and asked to see me immediately. He said that Jiang Qing’s chef had reported to him that I was destroying documents in the incinerator. I promptly assured him that I was burning only my personal notes, not official documents. He asked me what was wrong with the notes. I said that they touched on Mao’s activities and that it would be risky to keep them. He said that if I burned them I would be inviting trouble, and that if the chef reported the matter to Jiang Qing, it would be disastrous. Still, I figured that since I had already burned a major portion of the notes, I might as well finish the lot. So I went back to the incinerator and burned what was left.


And yet I did not want my memory of those 22 years to fade away without a trace. I decided to rewrite my life story. Beginning in 1977 I wrote intermittently for some time, eventually producing more than twenty volumes of notes. Because Mao’s language was so colorful and vivid and deeply etched in my brain, I was able to recall verbatim much of what he had said. My survival and that of my family had always depended on Mao’s words; I could not forget them. Still, I had no intention of having my recollections published; I knew that no publisher in China would print this type of work, and I did not want to get into trouble by publishing it myself. I kept the notes simply as a remembrance of the life that Lillian and I had shared in those bygone days.


In December, Lillian caught a severe cold, and her condition worsened sharply. Though we had her admitted to a hospital and did everything possible to save her, she was to die on January 12, 1989. Before she went into a coma, she urged me again and again to write down the events of the previous forty years. She said, “You must do it, for yourself, for me, for our posterity, for our grandson who will soon be born. I am sorry I cannot help you anymore.” In March 1989, I unpacked the volumes of notes from my luggage and began work on the present book. I consider this publication a permanent tribute to Lillian.

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