This is John Batchelor, a conversation with the author Joseph Tarigian, the new book, The Party's Interest Come First,

a biography, a very detailed telling of the People's Republic of China's birth from the revolutions of the 1920s

until the purging, the exit of Mao, and the rise of Xi Jinping. Mao and the rise of Xi Jinping.

This is the story of Xi Jinping's father.

His name, Xi, of course, last name, Zhang Shun, born in the early part of the century,

so that he was able to join the party in 1926 and fought through the 20s, the 30s, the 40s,

and then had a very revolutionary worthy position in the 50s until in the 60s he was purged,

many purges in the 60s. And Josephged. Many purges in the 60s.

And Joseph Tarragian speaks to that here,

and why did Mao turn on his own party?

He was thinking of a novel,

a novel in China, Leo Jeanne,

a novel of the man who ran the Shanxi province where Mao took refuge after the long march.

But he was mostly thinking of a novel written by a man named Arthur Kessler, Darkness at Noon,

the Shotriles of Moscow.

What did Mao take from that?

What did he take from all of the drift of the Soviet Union since Stalin's death, 53? And therein lies the explanation for the brutality, the viciousness

of the cultural revolution, if I read Joseph Tarigian correctly.

Much more of this coming in June.

Joseph Tarigian commenting on Mao watching the failure in Russia in the Soviet Union and turning on his own party.

You know, what's very interesting is that one of the reasons Mao reacted so strongly to that

novel was because he was thinking about the Soviet Union. And he believed that the Soviet

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