Mao Zedong

[TheSocialInspector]

After my pleasurable thread on North Korea which resulted in an argument over the differences between Dictatorship and Communism, I have decided to shift my point of view to a singular, key figure of China's history.

Mao Zedong.

Mao Zedong is, statistically speaking based on his command over executions and supposed murders, the man who is responsible for the most deaths in history, with 70 million, beating Joseph Stalin by 10 million.

Now, my point is, there has been great controversy over what Mao Zedong was. I am truthfully excited to see your point of view on this man, who is considered to have shifted China's state to a more modernized era and increased China's population greatly, along with advancing medicine and science studies. However, in the process, killed great numbers of people.

What is your point of view on Mao Zedong?

[Jimmy Page]

I don't know a lot about him,but to me he seemed to be a leader that made some bad decisions in his time,which caused the deaths of millions
So.....
Not that great

[Hypers]

um.. he is a mystical figure... he made a lot of improvements and mistakes...

as you'd least expect, he isn't really used in propaganda anymore(hehe i live in china). everything that promotes maoism is either erased or blocked...

[TheSocialInspector]

Last I read, an American article lashed out at Mao Zedong's actions and called him a dictator and someone who apparently "gave atheism a bad name".

A couple of websites about Chinese governing were filled with comments criticizing his attitude towards his people. An infuriated gentlemen even said "How can you not think he wasn't evil?"

Looks like it's not looking too good for good ol' Mao in American perspectives.

On the bright side though, China still looks at him as a hero. Or a father.

Hell, millions cried when he passed away. They weren't held at gunpoint and forced to mourn either(unlike the situation in North Korea when Kim Jong-Il died).

Which is, back to my point, on what he was like.

[dingo006]

Mao is Churchill without all the good press. Mao is an amazing war time leader who was not a very good peacetime leader. His peacetime decisions lead to much hardship for his people.

He was brutal (so was churchill although western sources dont talk about it) and his orders DID kill people. Mao attained quite a death toll but when you take a country living in the middle ages and try to force it quickly into the present day? there will be some growing pains.

But without Mao there is no such thing as China. It would probably still be a western client state (much like Japan ended up being) or would have been broken up into small states.

Atheists do not like Mao or any Political Atheist because while they like to point out the death tolls of political/religious organizations like the Catholic Church and like to re-litigate the past when it comes to Mono-theism, they like to pretend that "atheism is non-belief man, so like anyone who claims atheism is the cause of deaths like isnt true atheism. It is a way of preventing the most common arguments that place atheism in its proper historical context.

[Magus]

As a leftist, I am not really fond with what Mao Zedong did.

He emphasized forced Agriculture. He made them work until their death, all that while, the city inhabitant stayed well and alive, including Mao Zedong himself. He knew it. Because he proposed the plan. He made the peasant starve to death while he fed his belly.

He abused powers. His pure philosophy was corrupted with greed(yes, even in the model of Communism, greed comes into play).

The most ignominious thing he did is when he allowed freedom of press, and then targeted all those who opposed his ideologies during that period.

[TheBigUnit]

Mao is a guy who shouldn't have been given power, he was a peoples person (early days) and very authoritarian, these powers he used to his liking, he seems to be a guy who lived off praise and would really get angry if ur against him and will want to punish you

[TheSocialInspector]

I do know that China really emphasizes on Mao Zedong's actions and putting them into the perspective of modernizing China. It is probable, for when I visited Wuhan and decided to hold a quick survey around the streets(for the hell of it), great chunks of people praised him and his actions. Following several points on the mass number of people he killed, most of the replies was, in my most formal tone, linked to this.

"Many people make mistakes, nobody's perfect. Mao Zedong was responsible for many deaths, no lie, but they were all brought from several sources. His second wife, his mistakes in governing but if it wasn't for Mao Zedong, China would not have such a large population, neither would China be this advanced in the World. Our tears for him were wept over pure sadness and devastation, when he passed away."

I did admit, though, some of them did mutter "Well, he certainly didn't care for human life, but he was sure as hell bent on governing China" under their breath. No joke.

[Jess]

I'm Chinese, and what he did was horrible and I've never liked him. I never understood why most Chinese people seem to still admire him and all that...even my mom says he brought great change to China. Sure, he did, but he still caused the deaths of so many...I guess another positive thing is that he WAS for women's rights (someone correct me if I'm wrong...that's what I learned in Asian history last year) but even so that doesn't change what he has done. :/

[Magus]

I'm Chinese, and what he did was horrible and I've never liked him. I never understood why most Chinese people seem to still admire him and all that...even my mom says he brought great change to China. Sure, he did, but he still caused the deaths of so many...I guess another positive thing is that he WAS for women's rights (someone correct me if I'm wrong...that's what I learned in Asian history last year) but even so that doesn't change what he has done. :/

Many dictators brought some kind of change to the country, some were beneficial, other were bad. Moumar Gaddafi. Stalin. Hitler. Sadam Hussein.

[MisterSix]

Mao Zedong is, statistically speaking based on his command over executions and supposed murders, the man who is responsible for the most deaths in history, with 70 million, beating Joseph Stalin by 10 million.


What the fuck?
Josephs number keeps going up each year. How is he still killing people?
It was not that long ago that people were happy saying he was responsible for 20 million.

[dingo006]

Stalin's number keeps going up because they add things like the killings by soviet soldiers in Eastern Europe during the second world war of civilians and from like the Ukrainian famine, during which 3 million to 5 million peasants died of starvation which they blame Stalin for because he ordered about 30,000 ukranian peasants killed and 2 million deported.


Remember the great famine accounts for 40- 50 million deaths in that number and that isnt entirely Mao's fault. I mean sure Mao reacted harshly to the Famine and punished rural populations more than the urban ones but that famine was not entirely manmade.

remember in 1960 an estimated 60% of agricultural land in northern China received no rain at all and there were floods and droughts all over china.

Its not to say that mao receives no blame for the Great Famine but weather did have something to do with it.

I mean Stalin probably targeted and exterminated a larger percentage of his population than Mao but more people died directly under Mao's rule.

I think people are ignoring the most important part about Mao tho. He is the founder of a Superpower that grew from a colonial possession of a great empire to a great empire in it's own right in less than a century. In the words of Vice Chairman Deng Xiaoping, “without Mao there would be no People's Republic of China,” Without Mao the USA and USSR would have carved China up like it did Europe and China, as a country, would no longer exist.

Mao is easily one of the greatest military leaders of all time. He was a horrible peace time leader but to ignore the fact that he beat 2 larger armies (Japan and the US backed Chinese) who were better armed, better equipped and better educated. He stared down the Soviet Union and the United States at the same time and prevented China from becoming a client state of the West.

[TheSocialInspector]

...a dark knight.

Lols

[jason123]

He was a military mastermind. He has written the military guide used by almost all militarys on guerrila warfare.

[Syntax]

Mao is Churchill without all the good press. Mao is an amazing war time leader who was not a very good peacetime leader.


This.

[TheBigUnit]

He was a military mastermind. He has written the military guide used by almost all militarys on guerrila warfare.

isnt that sun tzu?

[Syntax]

He was a military mastermind. He has written the military guide used by almost all militarys on guerrila warfare.

Mao wrote books relating to politics and I do not recall from any book that I've read with Mao writing any military guides. I think what you mean is the strategy he called "People's war".

[dingo006]

Mao wrote books relating to politics and I do not recall from any book that I've read with Mao writing any military guides. I think what you mean is the strategy he called "People's war".

Mao actually wrote a lot of guides and reports on tactics early in his military career. he wrote On Guerrilla Warfare in 1937. (all of which are on the net and translated, which is cool)

[Syntax]

Thanks for the correction. Do you have a link of the book?

[dingo006]

Here is the link to the book in particular

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/


Here is the general link.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/

[Texas warrior]

He is evil and no number of good things that he caused can make up for the loss of life.

[WaffleSingSong]

Personally, I think he tried to do good at first, but when he got powerful he could not handle it and became corrupt. Even on the former, he was still quite dictatorial in his views. However, he was one hell of a military leader.

So, I have no blind rage with him, but he did a lot of not-so-noble things that makes me not like him.

[TheSocialInspector]

I understand he started "The Great Leap Forward", a period of time bent on advancing China's politics and future into the gargantuan hole of success and prosperity.

The result? 45 million people died.