picture of Chairman Mao overlooking Yao as he carries the olympic torch

That guy is an internet genius named Maddox.... edit: or maybe some obscure south american pirate guy.

 

That's Che Guevara. He was Castro's right hand man for awhile.

 

That might have been true for the 10's of millions that died during the faminines. But many of Mao's purges were said to have killed millions each. The land reform was said to have killed up to 5 million alone. That was intentional. Mao was well know to kill and torture his enemies. Including stick burning hot irons up the anus's of those who opposed him. He was ruthless. Perhaps the most ruthless in terms of the sheer number killed.

He's even been quoted to say - what's a few Chinese? we have plenty.

Look, I don't have any desire to tear the man down, or label him x y or z. But he slaughtered millions upon millions of Chinese - with intent. And at best, you could say he was callous to the deaths of perhaps another 70 million from famine.

Much of China's rich cultural traditions were wiped out and only now beginning to recover to some degree.

But that's all history. And I personally feel that when China truly enters it's proper place and sheds the yoke of oppression, it may see Mao in a very different light as Russia did with Lenin.

But in the meantime, the chairman is the chairman.

 

Are you sure about that number? Do you even realize how ridiculous it is?

I am a Chinese, I lived from that era. I am sure that number is a bloody lie which is ...only a fool without a brain could believe it and throw it out.

Japan killed Chinese in China.
Hitler killed anyone out side of German.
Bush killing Iraqis in Iraq.

those are the worst mass murderers.

 

You forgot Honest Abe and his relationship with Indians.

 

# Chinese Civil War (1945-49): 2,500,000

* Bercovitch & Jackson: 100,000
* Dan Smith: 1,000,000
* Eckhardt: 1,000,000 from all causes
* Small & Singer: 1,000,000 battle deaths
* Wallechinsky: 1,200,000 battle deaths
* Walker, Robert L., The Human Cost of Communism in China (1971): 1,250,000
* Gilbert, citing Ho Ping-ti: 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 total deaths
* Our Times: 3,000,000
* Rummel:
o War Dead: 1,201,000
o Democide by Guomindang: 2,645,000
o Democide by Communists: 2,323,000
o Famine: 25,000
o TOTAL: 6,194,000

# People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong's regime (1949-1975): 40,000,000

* Agence France Press (25 Sept. 1999) citing at length from Courtois, Stephane, Le Livre Noir du Communism:
o Rural purges, 1946-49: 2-5M deaths
o Urban purges, 1950-57: 1M
o Great Leap Forward: 20-43M
o Cultural Revolution: 2-7M
o Labor Camps: 20M
o Tibet: 0.6-1.2M
o TOTAL: 44.5 to 72M
* Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts : Mao's Secret Famine (1996)
o Estimates of the death toll from the Great Leap Forward, 1959-61:
+ Judith Banister, China's Changing Population (1984): 30M excess deaths (acc2 Becker: "the most reliable estimate we have")
+ Wang Weizhi, Contemporary Chinese Population (1988): 19.5M deaths
+ Jin Hui (1993): 40M population loss due to "abnormal deaths and reduced births"
+ Chen Yizi of the System Reform Inst.: 43-46M deaths
* Brzezinski:
o Forcible collectivization: 27 million peasants
o Cultural Revolution: 1-2 million
o TOTAL: 29 million deaths under Mao
* Daniel Chirot:
o Land reform, 1949-56
+ According to Zhou Enlai: 830,000
+ According to Mao Zedong: 2-3M
o Great Leap Forward: 20-40 million deaths.
o Cultural Revolution: 1-20 million
* Jung Chang, Mao: the Unknown Story (2005)
o Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries, 1950-51: 3M by execution, mob or suicide
o Three-Anti Campaign, 1952-53: 200,000-300,000 suicides
o Great Leap Forward, 1958-61: 38M of starvation and overwork
o Cultural Revolution, 1966-76: > 3M died violent deaths
o Laogai camp deaths, 1949-76: 27M
o TOTAL under Mao: 70M
* Dictionary of 20C World History: around a half million died in Cultural Rev.
* Eckhardt:
o Govt executes landlords (1950-51): 1,000,000
o Cultural Revolution (1967-68): 50,000
* Gilbert:
o 1958-61 Famine: 30 million deaths.
* Kurt Glaser and Stephan Possony, Victims of Politics (1979):
o They estimate the body count under Mao to be 38,000,000 to 67,000,000.
o Cited by G & P:
+ Walker Report (see below): 44.3M to 63.8M deaths.
+ The Government Information Office of Taiwan (18 Sept. 1970): 37M deaths in the PRC.
+ A Radio Moscow report (7 Apr. 1969): 26.4M people had been exterminated in China.
+ (NOTE: Obviously the Soviets and Taiwanese would, as enemies, be strongly motivated to exaggerate.)
* Guinness Book of World Records:
o Although nowadays they don't come right out and declare Mao to be the Top Dog in the Mass Killings category, earlier editions (such as 1978) did, and they cited sources which are similar, but not identical, to the Glaser & Possony sources:
+ On 7 Apr. 1969 the Soviet government radio reported that 26,300,000 people were killed in China, 1949-65.
+ In April 1971 the cabinet of the government of Taiwan reported 39,940,000 deaths for the years 1949-69.
+ The Walker Report (see below): between 32,2500,000 and 61,700,000.
* Harff and Gurr:
o KMT cadre, rich peasants, landlords (1950-51): 800,000-3,000,000
o Cultural Revolution (1966-75): 400,000-850,000
* John Heidenrich, How to Prevent Genocide: A Guide for Policymakers, Scholars, and the Concerned Citizen: 27M death toll, incl. 2M in Cultural Revolution
* Paul Johnson doesn't give an overall total, but he gives estimates for the principle individual mass dyings of the Mao years:
o Land reform, first years of PRC: at least 2 million people perished.
o Great Leap Forward: "how many millions died ... is a matter of conjecture."
o Cultural Revolution: 400,000, calling the 3 Feb. 1979 estimate by Agence France Presse, "The most widely respected figure".
* Meisner, Maurice, Mao's China and After (1977, 1999), doesn't give an overall total either, but he does give estimates for the three principle mass dyings of the Mao years:
o Terror against the counterrevolutionaries: 2 million people executed during the first three years of the PRC.
o Great Leap Forward: 15-30 million famine-related deaths.
o Cultural Revolution: 400,000, citing a 1979 estimate by Agence France Presse.
* R. J. Rummel:
o Estimate:
+ Democide: 34,361,000 (1949-75)
# The principle episodes being...
* All movements (1949-58): 11,813,000
o incl. Land Reform (1949-53): 4,500,000
* Cult. Rev. (1964-75): 1,613,000
* Forced Labor (1949-75): 15,000,000
* Great Leap Forward (1959-63): 5,680,000 democides
+ War: 3,399,000
+ Famine: 34,500,000
# Great Leap Forward: 27M famine deaths
+ TOTAL: 72,260,000
o Cited in Rummel:
+ Li, Cheng-Chung (Republic of China, 1979): 78.86M direct/indirect deaths.
+ World Anti-Communist League, True Facts of Maoist Tyranny (1971): 64.5M
+ Glaser & Possony: 38 to 67M (see above)
+ Walker Report, 1971 (see below): 31.75M to 58.5M casualties of Communism (excluding Korean War).
+ Current Death Toll of International Communism (1979): 39.9M
+ Stephen R. Shalom (1984), Center for Asian Studies, Deaths in China Due To Communism: 3M to 4M death toll, excluding famine.
* Walker, Robert L., The Human Cost of Communism in China (1971, report to the US Senate Committee of the Judiciary) "Casualties to Communism" (deaths):
o 1st Civil War (1927-36): .25-.5M
o Fighting during Sino-Japanese War (1937-45): 50,000
o 2nd Civil War (1945-49): 1.25M
o Land Reform prior to Liberation: 0.5-1.0M
o Political liquidation campaigns: 15-30M
o Korean War: 0.5-1.234M
o Great Leap Forward: 1-2M
o Struggle with minorities: 0.5-1.0M
o Cultural Revolution: .25-.5M
o Deaths in labor camps: 15-25M
o TOTAL: 34.3M to 63.784M
o TOTAL FOR PRC: 32M to 59.5M
* July 17, 1994, Washington Post (Great Leap Forward 1959-61)
o Shanghai University journal, Society: > 40 million
o Cong Jin: 40 million
o Chen Yizi: 43 million in the famine. 80 million total as a result of Mao's policies.
* Weekly Standard, 29 Sept. 1997, "The Laogai Archipelago" by D. Aikman:
o Between 1949 and 1997, 50M prisoners passed through the labor camps, and 15,000,000 died (citing Harry Wu)
* WHPSI: 1,633,319 political executions and 25,961 deaths from political violence, 1948-77. TOTAL: 1,659,280
* Analysis: If we line up the 14 sources which claim to be complete, the median falls in the 45.75 to 52.5 million range, so you probably can't go wrong picking a final number from this neighborhood. Depending on how you want to count some of the incomplete estimates (such as Becker and Meisner) and whether to count a source twice (or thrice, as with Walker) if it's referenced by two different authorities, you can slide the median up and down the scale by many millions. Keep in mind, however, that official Chinese records are hidden from scrutiny, so most of these numbers are pure guesses. It's pointless to get attached to any one of them, because the real number could easily be half or twice any number here.
* Perhaps a better way of estimating would be to add up the individual components. The medians here are:
o Purges, etc. during the first few years: 2M (10 estimates)
o Great Leap Forward: 31-33M (14 estimates)
o Cultural Revolution: 1M (13 estimates)
o Ethnic Minorities, primarily Tibetans: 750-900T (8 estimates, see below)
o Labor Camps: 20M (5 estimates)
o This produces a total of some 54,750,000 to 56,900,000 deaths. The weak link in this calculation is in the Labor Camp numbers for which we only have 5 estimates.
* Notice that many early body counts (such as Walker) completely miss the famine during the Great Leap Forward, which was largely unknown in the west until around 1980. There are two contradictory ways to assess those early estimates which ignore the famine:
1. "If these are the numbers that they came up with without the famine, imagine how high the true number will be once you add the famine deaths."
2. "Can we trust any of these numbers? After all, if they missed such a huge famine, they can't have known very much about what was going on inside China."
* ... so this line of reasoning will get us nowhere. In fact, the median of the 7 estimate that predate 1980 is 45.7M, which is almost the same as the median of the 7 estimates that post-date 1980 -- 58M. (At this scale, a 12M difference counts as "almost the same".)

# Tibet (1950 et seq.): 600,000

* Chinese occupation. (For the most part, it's already been included in the numbers above.)
o Free Tibet Campaign [http://www.freetibet.org/info/facts/fact1.html]
+ Tibetans killed by the Chinese since 1950: 1,200,000
+ Died in prisons and labour camps between 1950 and 1984: up to 260,000
+ 1959 Uprising: 430,000 died
# K. in Reprisals: 87,000
o Our Times: 1,200,000
o Courtois: 600,000 - 1,200,000
o Walker, Robert: 500,000-1,000,000 (all ethnic minorities)
o Rummel: 375,000 democides inflicted on etnic minorities
+ ... incl 150,000 Tibetans
o Porter: 100,000 to 150,000.
o Eckhardt:
+ 1950-51 War: 2,000 civ.
+ 1956-59 Revolt: 60,000 civ. + 40,000 mil. = 100,000
o Harff and Gurr: 65,000 Tibetan nationalists, landowners, Buddhists killed, 1959
o Small & Singer say that China lost 40,000 soldiers in Tibet between 1956 and '59.


http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

 

^^^ why did you even bother to list those war death? he wasn't the only person responsible for war death. heck, he didn't even solidify his power until later. during war, it's either kill or be killed. nobody is right.

oh, anyone can make up a number too. the fact there are discrepencies in your source make them unrealiable.

 

Commodore,

How about Bush ? I'm not defending China here, but at least i should put both of them under the same microscope.

Here's an article for you that you might wanna read

Do You Feel Safe Now?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS


'''....... Bush didn’t stop there. On his way to the Beijing Olympics, President Bush expressed “deep concerns” for the state of human rights in China.

But not in Guantanamo, nor in Abu Ghraib, nor in the CIA’s torture dungeons used for “renditions,” nor in Iraq and Afghanistan where the US is expert at bombing weddings, funerals, children’s soccer games, and every assortment of civilians imaginable.

As the good book says, clean the beam from your own eye before pointing to the mote in your brother’s eye.

But Americans, the salt of the earth, have neither beams nor motes. We are the virtuous few, ordained by God to impose our hegemony on the world. It is written, or so say the neocons.

What would President Bush say if, heaven forbid, the Chinese were as rude as he is and asked Mr. Superpower why the land of “freedom and democracy” has one million names on a watch list. China with a population four times as large doesn’t have a watch list with one million names.

What would President Bush say if China asked him why the US, with a population one-fourth the size of China’s has hundreds of thousands more of its citizens in prison? The percentage of Americans in prison is far higher than in China and is a larger absolute number.

What would President Bush say if China asked him why he used lies and deception to justify his invasion of Iraq. China, unlike Bush, is not responsible for 1.2 million dead Iraqis and 4 million displaced Iraqis.

China’s human rights policy is not perfect. China’s greatest human rights failing is that China is the Bush Regime’s prime enabler of its war crimes and human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. By financing Bush’s budget deficit, China is financing Bush’s gratuitous wars. Indeed, China can be said to finance the weaponry that the US gives Israel to enable the suppression of the Palestinians and with which to bomb the civilian population of Lebanon.

China is a serious human rights abuser, because China is complicit in Bush’s human rights abuses.

If we are honest about who is actually murdering and abusing people, it is the US, Israel, and the UK. There’s your “axis of evil.”


Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Link of the full article:

http://counterpunch.org/roberts08072008.html

 

Give me a break. The guy killed at least tens of millions of people.

Also, the above comparison of Bush to Mao is a joke and just shows the poster's ignorance of actual history. That's like saying Lincoln was as bad as Hitler because people died during the Civil War.

 

Mao was responsible for many deaths, including deaths in my family (my uncle committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution while he was locked in a "Niu Peng"). However, I still find the West's demonization of Mao a little disturbing. There is a point that the Westerners never get: Mao achieved something that all Chinese elites had struggled to achieve for a century before him -- establish an independent and united Chinese state that's free from foreign influence. Mao was an idiot when it came to the economics and he loved to hold on his power, but his historical achivement will be valued in China even after the end of the CCP.

Mao's reputation hit the bottom during the late 1970s/early 1980s when Deng Xiaoping took over in China. However, in recent years there have been a resurgence of Mao admirers, especially among the ultra-nationlistic Chinese youth. To them, Mao is the back bone of Chinese nationalism -- strong and resilient in the face of the stronger West. This is another trend I find very disturbing.

 

Yes that is pretty much what I was saying but also wanted to add that by doing away with many of the feudal and old cultural institutions also made it possible for China to enter modernity.

Its an interesting hypothetical regarding what China might be like if Chiang Kai-Shek had won but in our timeline Mao's forces won and the history of modern China wouldn't have happened without the creation of the PRC.

 

My church as a Jesus fathead on the wall.

 

well heres what I posted on the other thread about Mao

Mao had the best of intentions for the Chinese people under harsh times, and did bring a lot of good to China. But because of a combination of flawed ideologies, paranoia of others, lack of support from foreign powers (UN didn't recognize mainland China until the 70s), and natural disasters led to the death of many.

Mao was a great revolutionary and commander, but wasn't the best in terms of running a country during peaceful times, and having a bunch of army generals advising him on social and economical issues didn't help either.

I think people just need to realize Mao and the communists did manage to unite China through sheer will and determination. People also need to realize that China was in seriously bad shape at that time, and even tho it might not seem like it the overall life of the Chinese was better as a result of Mao.

That been said I don't think you'll find anybody in China who will regard Mao with the feverish icon worship like in the 1970s and early 80s. Most of us regard the "great leap forward" as a failed policy, and his revolutionary ideals held china back once it stabilized as a nation. His economic policies probably held China back for 20 years.

 

Which one?

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21699842@N05/2742182520/" title="VYtheGreat Fathead by weslinder, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/2742182520_205239d2e8.jpg" width="267" height="500" alt="VYtheGreat Fathead" /></a>

Or

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21699842@N05/2742182514/" title="obama fathead by weslinder, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3200/2742182514_838c8b50d9.jpg" width="267" height="500" alt="obama fathead" /></a>

 

I'm not trying to defend Mao, but people listing the numbers of deaths he caused should at least be reasonable with their numbers.

Did Roosevelt kill all the Americans who died in WWII? Did Lincoln Kill all the Americans that died in the American Civil War?

Did Washington kill all the Americans that died in the revolutionary war?

Mao was plenty brutal, and it's fine to point out the legitimate atrocities Mao was responsible for. There is no need to attribute other casualties to him.

Mao had some great ideas, and was responsible for some of the most tragic and senseless loss of life, as well cultural artifacts and history.

 

Well you do have his face carved into a mountain.

Well Bush is highly criticized and unpopular in the US and around the world for starting that fiasco, we really should just look at issues on its own instead of comparing it to other things.

 

That takes skill, that was just a giant poster. its tacky, like if you have those monet and picasso prints in your house framed as opposed to original oil paintings.

 

Jesus would throw more than nine touchdowns in a season.

 

Well I guess that would depend on people's taste.

However I do hope that maybe in the next decade or so the Chinese government will restore the Tiananmen Gate to the way it was during the Qing dynasty.

 

yeah on discovery channel they showed the forbidden city and all the artwork was great.

nothing tacky like a giant Mao poster.