Mao: How Bad was Bad?

[Queequeg]

I'm reading Mao: The Untold Story.

I'd always thought of the Chinese Communists prior to Deng as, well, almost entirely terrible in a way that even the Stalinists weren't, but reading this he seems, well, almost over the top.  It's obviously polemical, but just by the facts he's reaching Reinhard Heydrich levels of non-banal evil and it's, well, actually kind of surprising.

Is this book just completely biased?  Did the Chinese Communists do...anything positive prior to the fall of the Gang of Four?  Was Mao some kind of psychopath? 

[Martinus]

It could be a cultural thing - Chinese Emperors were also quite known for their cruelty, that would make most medieval European monarchs wince.

[Norgy]

Their most positive contribution probably was prior to gaining full control in 1949. And the one-child policy isn't as bad as some seem to think.

[Razgovory]

Well they did end the warlord era and restore some national pride.

[Monoriu]

Well they did end the warlord era and restore some national pride.

Technically they have not yet achieved the job of unifying China, as another player is still kinda in the game. 

[grumbler]

The position of women in Chinese society was incredibly poor prior to the Communist takeover (no voice in whom to marry, no right to divorce, no right to inherit, no ability to own property, to vote, no education outside the upper classes, etc).  The CCP did fix that.

I think that the most interesting feature of The Untold Story (which I have not read, but which I have used as a reference work) is the extent to which Mao appears to have been a sadist.  That's a much harder legacy to overcome than simply being a brute.

[DGuller]

The position of women in Chinese society was incredibly poor prior to the Communist takeover (no voice in whom to marry, no right to divorce, no right to inherit, no ability to own property, to vote, no education outside the upper classes, etc).  The CCP did fix that.

No right to keep feet unbroken as well.

[Josquius]

He was more crap than evil evil. He's not up there with Stalin and hitler.

[Norgy]

He was more crap than evil evil. He's not up there with Stalin and hitler.

Death tolls disagree with you.

[Queequeg]

He was more crap than evil evil. He's not up there with Stalin and hitler.

As Norgy said, Mao killed more people and during a time of peace.  He also seems to have been comfortable with sadism on a personal level in a way that neither Stalin nor Hitler was.  He seems a lot less human than Stalin and a lot less pitiable than Hitler.

[Valmy]

While I knew that basically I still found it almost comically vile that he took the failure of the Great Leap Forward as a personal attack and launched the Cultural Revolution as revenge. As if reality would have to be held responsible for his loss of face.

[The Minsky Moment]

While I knew that basically I still found it almost comically vile that he took the failure of the Great Leap Forward as a personal attack and launched the Cultural Revolution as revenge. As if reality would have to be held responsible for his loss of face.

IIRC it was more than just personal vindication but a political power play.  There is a reason Liu and Deng were early casualties.

[Josquius]

He was more crap than evil evil. He's not up there with Stalin and hitler.

Death tolls disagree with you.

No they don't. They agree with me perfectly.
Most dead under him were down to incompetence, starvation, crazy kids going out of control, etc... not death camps or efforts at world domination.

[Queequeg]

TBH reading this makes Deng's accomplishment a lot more successful.  He's like Adenauer if Adenauer had taken power in 1960 Germany after a Nazi victory.  How he came out of this political culture is astonishing. 

[Queequeg]

He was more crap than evil evil. He's not up there with Stalin and hitler.

Death tolls disagree with you.

No they don't. They agree with me perfectly.
Most dead under him were down to incompetence, starvation, crazy kids going out of control, etc... not death camps or efforts at world domination.

This was peacetime.

If you read a lot of the Nazi self-justification of the Holocaust, it was initially inspired by the idea that the Jews were biological enemies of the Reich and that their physical destruction was essential for the war effort, and later on as a kind of punishment for their role in what was increasingly obviously going to be the destruction of the Reich.  By contrast Mao should have presided over unprecedented prosperity after an uninterrupted century of madness and destruction, with China unified and free of both Manchu and Western oppression.  Instead the average Chinese person was worse off when Mao was dying than they were when the Japanese left.