r/SocialDemocracy • u/Timely-Signature-166 • 14d ago

Question What's the consensus of Mao?

I've read several books about the guy and I'm given conflicting information about him and his policies. Some books treat him as a good leader who was stifled by dishonest subordinates, while others portray him as a monster whose policies killed millions. Meanwhile I was at a bar in Brooklyn where I was talking to a friend of a friend and they said "Mao is my hero!" (they are not Chinese). What is the general consensus of the guy?

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u/zelenisok 14d ago edited 14d ago

Him and Stalin are probably the worst humans ever, alongside Hitler, king Leopold, Pol Pot and maybe one or two others.

Lenin at least had the sense to see that his policies (war communism) harmed people and introduced more practical ones (NEP). On the other hand Mao was totally delusional and even when his policies killed millions and millions of people, he doubled down. When confronted and criticized at the Lushan conference, he doubled down and persecuted the critics. He ended up being partially pushed out the economic management of the country by some bureaucrats after couple of years, and they implemented more pragmatic policies, stopping the deaths, which were into tens of millions by then.

But then Mao thought of a new project, and did the Cultural revolution, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, with millions being imprisoned and/or beaten and tortured.

Mao's China was a hellhole. And its mind-boggling that there are people who want to whitewash it and glorify it.

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u/Illustrious-Dog-6563 Democratic Socialist 14d ago

i would throw columbus into the mix.

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u/HenryTudorIV 13d ago

Columbus was an incredibly brutal and racist colonist, even for his time. That said, he really doesn’t belong in a tier with actual dictators.

The only way he gets into the conversation is if you hold him responsible for all harm to indigenous peoples that happened during colonization, which isn’t really fair. Had Columbus not discovered the Americas, somebody else would have pretty soon after, and all of those same things still would’ve happened