Interesting. Is there a list of counterpoints that argues all of the common propaganda against Mao and Mao era PRC spread by the West and FLG up to this time. I'm aware of the US embargo that exacerbated the famine but is there any truth of mass killing of sparrows(?) or the logic behind it? I also get the impression that Mao wasn't really a great statesman/ruler in the same vein as current CPC brass or perhaps it was such a different time and circumstance that it needed a leader of Mao's quality. The comparison to Qin shi huang is often pointed out.
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- Thread starter bd popeye
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Mainland China under Mao came after over 100 years of near nonstop warfare from both foreign invasions and internal civil wars, was sanctioned by both the US led West and the Soviet led communist block (after the Sino-Soviet split in 1961), and was under a naval blockade imposed by Taiwan/ROC* that prevented even internal shipping between coastal mainland Chinese cities.
* Officially the naval blockade was imposed by Taiwan/ROC, but in reality the US was the true force behind the blockade due to the mutual defense treaty between the US and ROC. The naval blockade was lifted in 1979 when the US switched diplomatic recognition to the PRC.
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supercat
Colonel
It's not easy.
Updates and overhauls to the procedures and methods of handling ammonium nitrate events are definitely required.
I see Mao as someone who's very good at making high level strategic decisions, but bad if you ask him to be a bureaucrat that has to manage day to day running of the country.
Focusing on just his role after 1949 as chairman, he still made many right calls. For example his focus on Two Bombs One Satellite at great cost was absolutely correct and we have examples for and against in terms of North Korea and Iran to demonstrate the result of the two paths today. Had he not focuses on nuclear weapon and delivery system back then China might have missed the opportunity to join the P5 and be considered "legal owner of nuclear weapon" and be instead in an Israel type situation today.
He wasn't very good at economic policies and he thought he could use revolutionary spirit to overcome economic difficulties and those were his flaws. But such flaws were nowhere enough to make him bad at ruling.
Or if you want another comparison: Che Guevara was a lot worse than Mao at waging guerrilla war and even worse at managing Cuba's economy once he was in power. Although he uniquely could recognize he was no good as a bureaucrat and went back to do what he did best (and then failed at it anyway).
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Two often overlooked points:
1. The famine during the Great Leap Forward did not affect the whole country evenly and was much much worse in some parts than others. The vast majority of the famine deaths came from just 3 provinces: Sichuan, Henan, and Anhui. What did these 3 provinces have in common? They happen to be the 3 provinces whose leadership were filled with close followers of Deng Xiaoping. Deng's Second Field Army operated around the Dabie mountains on the border of Anhui and Henan for most of the Chinese Civil War before liberating Sichuan at the end of the civil war. Deng was in charge of running the economy during the Great Leap Forward and has personally mentioned as one of his top accomplishments the complete repayment of the Korean War debts to the Soviet Union in the middle of the famine. Those debt payments were made using agricultural products.
2. The propaganda against Mao is not limited to the West and FLG. Much of it actually come from certain groups of high CPC cadres (and their children) who were the worst perpetrators of violence and destruction during the Cultural Revolution and they are eager to divert blame of their own actions to Mao. Mao's impetus for launching the Cultural Revolution was the fear that state power was transforming the communist party elites into a new privileged, conservative, oppressive, and exploitative ruling class (so called reactionary authorities and capitalist roaders). To prevent this, there needs to be continuous revolution and never ending class struggles, and the people must be empowered to rebel against the ruling authorities (造反有理 it's righteous to rebel). The brutal attacks on intellectuals and destruction of cultural and historical relics carried out by children of some high CPC cadres and their followers at the start of the Cultural Revolution was their attempt to redirect and derail the Cultural Revolution, in what Maoist rebels would later call 打着红旗反红旗 (waving the red flag to oppose the red flag).
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"Houses are for living, not for speculation"
To be honest, the political struggles during the Great Leap Forward, the Three-Anti and Five-Anti Campaigns, and the Cultural Revolution were extremely complex. Anyone without patience would not want to understand the root causes of these events, which led most people to attribute the chaos of this period to Mao Zedong, something that anti-communist countries were happy to see.