Apter examines Mao’s process of transforming Chinese society into what he calls a ‘Mao’s Republic’. He starts off by saying that Mao was a great storyteller, especially during his Yan’an days when he and his associates combined storytelling with truth telling. By doing this, Mao was able to persuade many people to follow the communist path, becoming very decimated to him as their true leader. Apter gives readers a narration of the Yan’an period and its importance as a symbolic capital that helped to show how Mao clever storytelling gained him the followers he needed to rise to power, without having to alternatively use other conventional modes of power. As Apter explains that within the boundary of Yan’an, individual self-interest was broken
