For those people wanting to discuss Mao Zedong, I recommend using this thread not the unrelated Shrine threads.
I don't think that he starved people to death intentionally though. In my mind that makes a difference. Just like there is a difference between a drunk driver who kills versus someone who intentionally runs someone down to kill him. Don't you think so?
I think so...similar to terrorists using human shields, and unfortunately civilians getting killed without that being the final intention, rather than terrorists whose final intention is death to innocent civilians... I agree with the assessment, but a counter view is a death is a death but the reasoning of cause is always relative...To discount this aspect is to be ignorant...
Like assessing most historical figures, I agree it is rarely black and white but some shade of gray. Its clear that Mao's policies caused a lot of suffering but he was also crucial in rebuilding China after nearly a century of turmoil and backwardness. I think he is not quite the hero some make him out to be nor is he the total evil villain either. I think that a comparison to Castro is probably a reasonable one.
Lack of term limits and his inherent egomania got the best of him. On top of that (or underneath of it) is his feudalistic upbringing -- never visited a foreign country other than Soviet Union. Yeah, Gang of Four had everthing to do with Mao. Some of his quotes are classic and quite enlightening, though, I have to admit. Among other things Mao did, liberation of women is something I think Deckard likes. Expellling all imperialist and colonialist powers from China, unification of the country, and standing up to foreign threats -- be it the U.S. or USSR -- are undoubtedly his top achievements.
Wasn't Mao an educated man? He wasn't a C student was he? Ironic that the communist got rid of the priviledged class back in the day. It's coming full circle now with the emergence of new money and the wealth divide is getting larger between the coastal population and the poor country folk. Mao did the right thing for women in China. You can't have only half the population working to build your country. Those ME countries need to recognize the benefit of giving women equal status.
There seem to be a large range for the number of deaths of the various events so it may not be too accurate. It is also not clear how responsible Mao was for some of these things. But even so I don't know that I would compare Mao or Stalin to Hitler. The one thing that stands out for Hitler is the Holocaust. I don't think Mao or Stalin ever rounded up people in mass for extermination solely because of their ethnicity/religion. To me that is more evil than anything else. I would say Mao is comparable to a Pinochet, Castro, Franco and perhaps Stalin. But few in modern history can compare to Hitler except mayber the Hutu leaders of the Rwandan genocide.
Mao was very idealistic in his youth. He had some great ideas, and some greatly flawed ideas. He didn't trust establishment (and rightly so, because when the young peaceful idealistic commies were helping out the Nationalists rebuild China after the age of warlordism, the Nationalists totally massacred the commies so they could claim sole power), and many of Mao's philosophies were chaotic and anti-establishment. So when he came to power, he needed to have a stabilized government...but all he knew was that revolution is good....sigh...so misguided...once you get the revolution, you got to settle down Mao!...but he did not understand this. He was also real stupid with stuff like, "hey everyone, take all your metal posessions and melt them so we can sell iron". Mao was charismatic, dedicated, and truly wanted the best for China. There were systematic flaws (seriously, Mao alone didn't know how bad it was...a lot of was due to the stupid Chinese system where no one wanted to report bad news, bad crops, no money, etc...so reports from the bottom up were ALWAYS everything is hunky dory)...but also even when some people did speak out that the system was flawed, Mao would kill them, rid them, banish them etc... So he really screwed up a lot (most of it totally unintentional), but before Mao, China was in real deep doodoo too.
The danger though is getting so relative that deaths can be excused as long as one believes one's cause is just. Almost anything can be justified.
This is an interesting question. Did Mao create much of the misery that China experienced in the 20th C or was he a product of it? I think that Mao did a lot of the things that were terrible to China which may not have been intentional I would still say his megalomania was the cause and that was evil. I can also see how coming to power in a period of great upheaval for China may have created who Mao was.
I would hardly say Mao wanted what was best for China. He was a wartime leader who had no idea how to run a country in the peace time. He only want him self to be the "emperor" of China, when someone in the party threatens his position as the leader of the country(Liu), he started the cultural revolution. He may not have always wanted to damage the country, but he put himself at the forefront of everything. He had some of the truely stupid ideas which he implemented because everyone was afraid of telling him he was wrong and he would not listen to the good ideas from other party leaders. Does that remind us of a certain president?
I think he worked well for the country during war time periods and gave people a lot of hope, but there was clearly some type of break down, I would put it around the Hundred Flowers campaign when he started to get paranoid about losing his status. After that it was just all down hill. There is a really good biography out there written by Mao's personal physician who was with him for a long time who said that signs of senility were there around this time. Like most believers in communism, everyone has good intentions when it starts out, but when they actually start getting power, the chance to abuse it becomes way too easy. Can't deny that the man was an absolutely brilliant tactition in taking back China from the much more powerful and well funded Nationalists, and uniting a huge country that very few people have been able to do in thousands of years. I'm more of a Deng Xiaoping and Zhou En Lai, guy, they were better leaders (although Deng got a little senile at the end, too).
Mao took a country ruled by emperors and kings to a new stage. Kiang, after fled to Taiwan, put his son in charge after he died. In that sense, I'd say Mao was in love with power, but not as much as the guy he overthrew. Don't impose an absolute standard when judging everyone. Otherwise, the first dozen or so US presidents were all disgrace because they allowed slavery system exist and they allowed the massacres of native indians.
I wouldn't say Mao put himself over China as much as he put his ideas before the welfare of China. And Mao didn't take over a country of Kings and Emperors...the fall of the last dynasty (the Qing) was followed by a terribly dark period of Somalia like Warlordism. Foreign powers used to treat China as their biotches starting with the Opium Wars and on through the ear of "great humiliations" ..but even during warlordism, foreign powers were thinking like "so who the heck runs this country...we have no idea who to bully around or make unfair treaties with because it's all mixed up gang territories"... Anyhow, so after Mao overcame tremendous obstacles (i think the Giounmindoung sp? Nationalists killed one of his wives, and another of his wives died on the Long March)...he really brought this 3rd world country to prominence. Look, Mao was ignorant of a lot of things and a lot of people in China suffered for it...but before Mao, a lot of people in China were suffering too. He just didn't know how to efficiently run a country. But who the hell did in China back then? All the other leaders were power hungry dictators for the most part...some of them had ideology, but most were just power hungy. I'm not saying that Mao wasn't power hungry...but he did start off preaching ideas and promoting the welfare of the peasants after failing at trying to copy from Russia's city communism. And even though Mao came back with a vengence in the end to through China into upheaval after the commies were doing somewhat okay...(this was when he became senile already), Mao did recognize the failure of his earlier plans and totally got embarassed and stepped back from leadership for many years...so you see, he wasn't that power hungry.... Yeah, but most of these answers were right. Mao was a good leader in wartime because he rallied people he were dirt poor. He got them to believe in something. Good ideas and stupid ideas....people were dirt poor and in a 3rd world country that's in shambles, and Mao came around and against many odds (Warlords, Japan, the Nationalists, no money), unified the country and spread revolution. And Mao only felt that the way to get things right was to revolt all the time..."constant turmoil" is a good underlying theme is his philosophy...problem is once you ascend to power you need to adjust.
Great post Kim. Mao was a very complicated figure who came to power at a very complicated time for China and the World. Its too easy to get caught up in the cartoonish figure of him as he is often portrayed in the west or the heroic figure he is often portrayed in the PRC.
