Inspired by the ww2 thread, usually Hitler is considered a monster while some people look up to mao and stalin. Mao according to wikipedia is responsible for 50-70 million deaths, and most of his policies were questionable in terms of impact. I mean the reason for china's current success is capitalism. Stalin killed 20 million people, for no good reason many times, and brutalized his people. Hitler killed 10 million people, but he did get his country out of a depression and turned it into one of the most powerful war machines the world had seen. I don't see how his killing was any worse than what the other two guys did. Its just shocking that mao and stalin get any admiration at all. They should really be on the same level as hitler.
King Leopold II of Belgium belongs on any list of tyrants. He was responsible for the deaths of 10-15 million people in the Congo.
Mao, though, never ordered any mass killing. Most of those deaths are due to his crazy policies. He placed his ideology above people, who were his subjects.
China at that point in time, needed a figure like Mao to get the country in order. People don't understand that China was incredibly poor and weak after many decades of war and imperialism. They practically had nothing. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Yes Mao made many mistakes but ultimately the country was put back on track. Mao was given credit even before the recent economic success in the past 20 years. Stalin does get alot of criticism for his massive purges. He did it more because he was paranoid and crazy, not out of hate and racism, which makes him not as bad as Hitler. Talking to some of my friends who grew up in the Soviet Union, they agree that the USSR needed an iron-fisted ruler like Stalin at that time in order to keep the people in order and to mobilize them (similar to China's situation). I'm not saying Stalin was a good guy but he was no Hitler.
Actually, the reason for China's success is a steady move from non-capitalism to capitalism. Capitalism is not the magic potion just because the TV says so.
Isn't this an unfair comparison? Hitler lost whereas Stalin and Mao won. History is written by winners. And winners are always well looked upon no matter what they did. Roman Empire, Persian Empire, Ghengis Khan, Britsh and Spanish colonialization, etc. etc. etc. If Stalin and Mao had live in an age where we didn't have internet and all that stuff, they probably would just be another two famous dictators.
Mussolini was a monster too, many people over look his atrocities because of Hitler and Stalin. Mussolini's facist party was horrible.
The Bush family has killed roughly two million Iraqis needlessly and screwed up the American economy. I think they should be mentioned with the others.
From a Western perspective, Hitler's more troubling because we essentially created him. All-consuming, murderous, policy-defining anti-Semitism was our bailiwick for at least two millenia. The Holocaust was just the statist, mass-coordinated, hyper-industrialized grand finale.
I'm not sure what's to debate here. They were all horrible in their own way. Absolute power corrupts absolutely...
But revisionist history didn't happen until recent times. Although using the internet as a timeline is probably off. I would say that their shine really came off with the fall of communism in USSR and China. Hence they were doing pretty well until they lost postmortem, to capitalism.
Mao had creativity. He had mad handles, but sometimes he got so creative he'd whiz a pass and kill a song bird, or a whole species of song birds, just to show off. Not only could he fastbreak a team to death -- at half time he would move the opponents to a new city. Always thinking outside the box. Stalin had the undeniable drive and focus of a true champion. He was never afraid of the dirty work, diving for loose balls, throwing elbows, using his millions of fouls. He really left it all on the floor, that and the blood of his opponents, referees, ... fans, and teammates, ... and former teammates. Hitler was more of the complete package. As a discipline-obsessed player-coach, he could post a triple double any night, and then design new, crisp uniforms during the postgame interview! He really inspired his team, sometimes with an animated pep talk, and sometimes just by fear alone. Often, his leadership could get whole crowds to contest the opponents' shot all at once!
i think Deng pretty much undid a lot of what mao did in respects to moving toward a freemarket economy. Some of what mao did like the "cultural revolution" directly let to many death and lot of suffering. Stalin pulled the same crap forcing pretty much forcing slave labor.
Mao was responsible for my family being evicted from China and I'm still bitter (even though I wasn't alive at the time). On the other hand, at least they were able to leave. I want to say that what makes Hitler scarier than Stalin or Mao was that he played up peoples racial prejudices while the other two were more political. But given that we are so much more ready to embrace our political views and demonize the other side of the aisle perhaps it is the examples of Mao and Stalin that should alarm us more in this country. If someone were to suggest wiping out a particular ethnic group in this country they wouldn't get a lot of public support. But if someone wanted to wipe out Bush supporters?
