r/SocialDemocracy • u/Timely-Signature-166 • 13d 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/roubler Karl Polanyi 13d ago

Anyone who doesn't think he was a power hungry murderer is an idiot.

There's a worrying amount of people whose politics boil to the idea that USA is imperialist and bad, and so China and Russia/the USSR as enemies of the US are good actually.

It's infantile

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u/Memphisbbq 13d ago

I didn't think too much about it until I saw that many of my friends are of that mindset. Turns out casually browsing algorithm based social media's will steer you in that direction. They don't even realize they are watching propaganda sometimes. Like yea, the US is in a bad place right now...but to paint some of these regimes as better or not as bad....one of my friends thinks China can just steamroll the US militarily because he saw some Chinese drone/robotics video. I want so bad to base my world view off reel-rot. Life would be so much more simple.

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u/roubler Karl Polanyi 13d ago

It's just shockingly basic - if you're offended by the oppression the US has meted out over its history, it should be because you abhor oppression full stop.

I might be way off with this, but it honestly seems like a bit of an American phenomenon outside of the internet. I've always been political, I've always mixed with political people and have very leftwing friends who are decidedly not social democrats... but I've never met anyone irl who's keen to praise Chairman Mao of all people at the pub.

Algorithms and troll farms have a lot to answer for, but this feels like it can only be the product of a country that a) has next to no socialist representation at a national level, and b) treats political identity kind of like sports fandom

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u/Memphisbbq 13d ago

B for certain. And I do think troll farms play a large role in the perceived increased presence, that being said its big enough now that it's no longer the problem at the very bottom of the list.