Why won't you reveal that candidate? For what reason?
Its probably Mao. He is a founder just like the other two and also has a lot of controversy.
He was pretty damn good at fighting. Both in warfare and knowing what the enemy wants from a geopolitical perspective. His actions are why China even has a base today to do all those developments. Without him, we would still have arrogant people like the west, Japan, Russia and even freakin India trying to grab China's land openly but because of him, they don't dare. Thats why they seethe so hard at him. All those idiots who give credit to only Deng show how their mentality is only limited to a small part of a big picture that requires many steps with the foundation steps being the ugliest.
Unfortunately he was too vision focused and not enough on execution/details. Thats why some of his administration bits turned out really badly. He also stayed past his welcome date.