The worlds worst leader Mao Zedong

[Plaything48]

Mao Zedong didn't set out to be the world's most lethal dictator. It was never his goal to kill more than 80 million of his own people. But then, sometimes things just happen. And anyway, somebody's gotta be the world's deadliest political leader.

Mao had a dream of bringing anarchism to China, and as quickly as possible. But there was a paradox. The only way to abolish the government and prevent its re-emergence would require eliminating all the people who are constantly fucking it up for the rest of us: landlords, financiers, bureaucrats, outside agitators, and other criminal types. And Mao realized that this could only be accomplished by imposing a total dictatorship. So the path to a government-free utopia began with autocracy.

Which is precisely what Mao announced after the Communists came to power in 1949. Ever since, China has reaped the rewards of its "people's democratic dictatorship," which has in turn manifested its beneficence toward the citizenry in myriad ways.

For instance, there was the Great Leap Forward, a revolutionary policy initiative intended to bootstrap China's fledgling economy and establish it as the world's largest steel and grain exporter. Announced in 1959, Mao's brainchild involved three major endeavors:


double the country's annual food production using only half the manpower
apply most of the surplus labor to steelmaking
apply the rest to national infrastructure projects

The genius of this plan was in its details. And with the Great Leap Forward, Mao established himself as one of the greatest outside-the-box thinkers of all time.
No one had ever suggested to farmers that they could double or triple their crop yields by simply packing their seeds two or three times closer together. In practice, however, this new technique failed miserably: the seedlings crowded each other and prevented any of them from receiving adequate sunlight and soil nutrients. But everyone was afraid of Mao's temper, and so no one told him that his idea was worthless. Instead, his underlings reported bumper crops, although the opposite was actually the case.

Another of Mao's agricultural tips fared almost as poorly. He decreed that farmers make a concerted effort to hunt down and kill each and every sparrow. The birds were seen as pests, which ate the farmers' crops. In actuality, the sparrows were eating insects which lived on the crops. So the farmers were in fact slaughtering one of their few allies in the battle for pest control.

And then there was the steel. Whereas you or I might have taken a hundred thousand idle farmhands and assigned them to work in a few steelmills, Mao's plan was something else entirely. He directed the farmers to stay home and wait for those bumper harvests to arrive. In the interim, they were to construct and operate backyard furnaces for smelting steel. They were given production quotas.

In order to meet the quotas, the ignorant peasants resorted to melting down whatever metalstuffs they had lying around: hinges, doorknobs, utensils, tools. It was all converted into useless slag and dutifully turned over to the government. This godawful steel found its way into public works, like bridges and dams. Not surprisingly, many of these poorly-engineered structures collapsed dramatically or were abandoned.



So the Great Leap Forward was an unqualified failure. But nobody wanted to tell Mao that. He believed himself to be infallible, and had a history of making life uncomfortable for anyone who dared question his policies. Which is why his lackeys waited months before telling him about the famine.

That's right, famine. As in: "the worst famine in the history of mankind." Some estimates put the total as high as 43 million dead.

Over a period of three years, beginning in 1958, China's agricultural production completely bottomed out. The combination of the economic policies of the Great Leap Forward along with an unprecedented drought resulted in disaster for domestic food production.

The entire population suffered. People all over China were starving. But hardest hit were the hapless populace of rural Henan province. When the farmers could not meet their production quotas in 1959, the local government declared that the farmers were hiding their harvests and denounced the citizenry as enemies of the people. Military patrols were sent to locate these hidden caches of grain. The soldiers beat families who failed to cough up the food they were assumed to have hidden.

When winter arrived, the peasants had nothing to eat but tree bark and grass. The officials saw to it that the families' cooking pots were smashed, to prevent them from cooking grass soup. As an incentive to finally release their hidden stores of food, thousands of peasants were tortured and murdered by the local government. Military forces patrolled train stations and roads to block escape.

The people had nothing to eat. They filled their stomachs with whatever they could find: leaves, weeds, leather, straw, feathers, dirt. When they had run out of everything, absolutely everything, they finally resorted to cannibalism. People dug up freshly buried corpses. When somebody died, it was common for family members to hide the fact and keep the body for themselves. The government turned a blind eye to the situation, as people were rarely prosecuted for cannibalism.

By 1961, Mao had no choice but to relent. He swallowed his pride and bought grain on the world market. He was forced to disband the communes and return to proven farming methods. The backyard steel efforts were abandoned. In political terms, the failure of the Great Leap Forward was a stunning personal defeat for Mao. And the critics inside his own government began to gather momentum.

During the next five years, Mao learns to better manage his public relations. At his direction, the Chairman's "little red book" is published, containing pithy quotations about the nature of struggle and so on. A cult of personality is born. Which brings us to Mao's other major achievement. In August of 1966, Mao launched The Cultural Revolution, an effort to purge the country of all dissident thought (by means of bashing in the brains of all dissident thinkers).

Leveraging his newfound popularity among the youth, Mao called for students to abandon their studies and form militia groups, to aid the army in the ouster of undesirables. The youths happily complied. Upwards of 11 million schoolchildren joined the Red Guard and traveled to Beijing to await further orders. Mao's defense minister told the mobs that their mission was destroy every throwback of traditional culture and philosophy.

Predictably, the Red Guard began by murdering teachers and school administrators. Then they destroyed the Tibetan monasteries. Foreign diplomats were lynched. Next were artists, scholars, and intellectuals. And whenever Mao denounced one of his former comrades, the Red Guard made it their mission to eradicate the offender. And when they ran out of enemies to torture and kill, the various Red Guard factions turned on each other, resulting in street warfare.

These waves of repression and killing continued in spurts for more than three years. Millions of people were killed, and the economy left in shambles. The Cultural Revolution continued unabated until Mao's death from Parkinson's disease in 1976.

Five years later, the Chinese government issued a declaration condemning the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. The sweeping "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" included this tersely-worded indictment of the man:


Chief responsibility for the grave "Left" error of the "Cultural Revolution," an error comprehensive in magnitude and protracted in duration, does indeed lie with Comrade Mao Zedong. [...] far from making a correct analysis of many problems, he confused right and wrong and the people with the enemy. [...] Herein lies his tragedy.
Oh yes, poor Mao.

[Greg]

Where did you get these facts I would like to see your source.

Also don't quikly blame Mao for being completely ignorant to my knowledge China now represents a huge part of the economy and all those democratic nations are using his products supporting him. One thing also is the only type of government that will be capable to work in China is dictatorship there are many factors that have proved why.

[Plaything48]

Glenn, greg whatever your name is, im sorry but to give you my source would be telling.

You mean to quote the source might expose some of the myth?

[Greg]

Heh it is Greg and thank you for noticing.

Also how are we supposed to trust your information if we aren't able to view the source?

Greg, it's obvious that you aren't a patriotic American :)

[Colleptic]

Pull out any book with facts from that era and you can find the facts he touches upon, his information is a bit skewed, but holds ground. I quite liked what he wrote.

A bit skewed? If the information on which he makes his claims is skewed, how then can his conclusions not also be skewed?

[JoeyNormal]

Mao was an Anarchist?

[Brad]

With the exception of Mao's motivation (anarchy?), the above facts are all well-established -- go read a history book sometime.

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Also don't quikly blame Mao for being completely ignorant to my knowledge China now represents a huge part of the economy and all those democratic nations are using his products supporting him.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

You are aware that Mao died in the '70s, right? And that Deng Xiaoping opened the country to economic reforms? The only remnant of communism is the mis-named Communist Party Congress -- sort of like the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

Quick history lesson:
In 1911, the Qing dynasty was overthrown and the Rebublic of China was founded, based on loosely democratic principles, and led by Sun Yat-sen. The Communist Party, founded in 1921, and led by Mao took firm control of the country in 1949. Between 1911 and 1949, China was basically in a constant state of war, civil and external. The Japanese took the entire Northeast, the Nationalists were fighting the Communists, and both were fighting the Japanese -- most of the country was under the control of local warlords, who aligned with one (or more) of the aspiring governments. Whether Mao was an opportunist looking to take control of the nation in a time of turmoil, or if he truly believed in the Marxist ideology he used to rally The People will never be known. Regardless, he was not an anarchist.

[castille]

Most people forget the fact Mao united the people of China, and gave them a common cause since the corrupt and collapsing Imperial system in the 1910s.

He had his faults....ok pretty much everything he did was stupid, but what he did BEFORE taking power was very important.


Compare Mao to Chiang's corrupt and sleazy GMD party...not much of a choice is there? If there was a Fascist party they'd stand a better chance than the GMD.

castille,

where are you from? The only people I have heard express that point of view have been those who were there, or perhaps had familly who were there.

[shunyadragon]

Skewed figures mean little when the body count over the centuries is well into the millions. In China's history there are few heros and angels. Sun Zhong Shan (Sun Yatsin sp?) probably comes closest to being a hero, but his poor health and weak power base made it impossible for him to govern or unite China divided by corrupt warlords. Many blame his failure on chaos to follow in the twentieth century. But in country divided by ruthless warlords no one could rule. The brutality, corruption and neglect of the Nationalists who took control after WWII is well documented. Considering the brutal rule and ethnic cleansing of the dynasties who killed millions, followed by a country divided by corrupt warlords, who also killed millions, wrecked by the Japanese who killed millions. As to who killed the most no one knows. The nationalists who escaped to Taiwan after the revolution openly slaughtered hundreds of thousands in there war against Mao. One of the most notorious events occured in Taiwan when the executed over 50,000 students at one time. Body counts in history mean little today in a country that is now united prosperous and at peace.

Mao Zedong was a great general, charismatic leader, a fair poet and he united China. A task no one else was able to accomplish. His revolution and the cultural revolution were brutal beyond belief, but the Chinese people don't have much in the way of heros to compare Mao Zedong to.

From Frank in China

[castille]

Originally posted by PeterWolf, castille, where are you from? The only people I have heard express that point of view have been those who were there, or perhaps had familly who were there.

China. And you're right, most native Chinese do agree Mao wasn't the best leader, but nor was he the worst.

In China's history there are few heros and angels. Sun Zhong Shan (Sun Yatsin sp?) probably comes closest to being a hero, but his poor health and weak power base made it impossible for him to govern or unite China divided by corrupt warlords.

Don't forget Deng Xiao Ping. Despite the fact he was exiled, threatened with murder, and getting on, he managed to turn China's economy into a powerhouse, improved living standards, and refused to take credit for the work. He is less known outside of China for this sole reason - he didn't have an ego (like Mao), so he tended to shrug away media attention.

From Frank in China

Is that "Frank" the guy who went to Mao's ultra-secret spy base in the 30s? I find his writing is fair, if somewhat afflicted with exotic fever.

[dotcoma]

but nor was he the worst.

How do you figure? He murdered more people than than any other dicatator in history? Can you at least admit he's top 5?

[samsara15]

Ghenghis Khan was a fairly bad guy, for his times. He didn't have as many people to work with as Mao did, but he killed as many city-dwellers as he could. Tamerlane was no slouch at killing people, either. You can't measure evil by sheer numbers.

[dotcoma]

You can't ONLY measure evil by numbers but it's not to be discounted.

[castille]

It reminds me of this scenario:

Who is more evil, the a German SS commandant, or a pedofile?

[dotcoma]

Who cares? What does that have to do with anything?

[castille]

My eternally drunken Irish friend, that story simply brings up the question of whether the intent (ie. intent to kill) is morally worse than the results (ie. indirect deaths).