Mao's failures are almost unmatched. He approached his position as leader of China with a single drive to make China a modern country. His various campaigns and policies will not only fail to modernize China, it will set some records. These records include:
Deadly hunger in history
The deadliest man-made disaster in history
That is Mao's legacy - death, and death to millions. Sadly he lived until 1976. When he died, China grew stronger under the new leadership. With capable people at the top who are really committed to improving China in this fascinating political ideology, we see the Chinese miracle take place. So we dive into the failure of Mao.
The Great Leap Forward:
Here is the TLDR of it. Mao was a communist and he wanted the whole communist to go to the countryside. What does this mean:
End of private farming
Replaced private farming with comics.
Industrializing the agricultural sector Mao is not that bright.
Socialism is perfect, he thinks, so he expects a massive increase in rice production under the new and better socialist communist system. He sets high production quotas for these communes - higher than they can achieve realistically. The leaders of the committees are competing over who can provide the most grain. They use fear and forced labor to keep people on the farm. They were afraid of being branded "right-wing" and killed so they gave away all the grain they had made.
So the rural population is starving. Between 18–45 million people are starving, making it the greatest famine in history.
It is not like the weather or war it causes. It is 100% Mao's fault. Agriculture in China has never been perfect but millions did not starve before Mao.
This "great leap forward" has indeed seen China's economic downturn - and again remember that up to 45 million people have died for it.
The 4 pests:
However, there is another cause of hunger. Mao wants to eradicate 4 pests from China. They are mosquitoes, rats, sparrows, and flies. The sparrow was large and Mao ordered the Chinese people to start killing every sparrow in sight. They did a great job and 3,000,000 sparrows were killed. This is clearly caused by chronic ecological degradation. Also, it caused a famine.
You see sparrows eating bugs- the same bugs eating grains. Without sparrows, the bug population increased and the supply of rice decreased further.
The cultural revolution:
Mao withdrew after the Great Leap Forward failure. In 1966 he came back strong and bot all again- do you see a pattern here as well? Mao continued his position at the top of the government. Sick of a more moderate voice trying to fix his mess, he told the public that capitalists are entering Chinese leadership and trying to restore capitalism. Mao demands that the youth expel the capitalists by force (literally). Local youths created militias and began attacking and killing anyone they suspected of being dishonest.
The goal is total control and isolation under Mao. This means destroying the 4 "adults".
Old culture
Old habits
Old ideas
Old customs
This means a violent eradication of Chinese culture. Any idea from the time before Mao- or any idea that Mao did not like- was destroyed by force. Again the economy sank, marking the second time it would shrink between 1953-1975. Funny enough that the only 2 times the economy slipped was the only 2 times Mao controlled. And again many people died. Some estimates are as high as 20 million although a more reasonable estimate is 500,000 to 1,000,000.
The damn dams
During the great walk forward, Mao had a series of dams built. As usual he made it cheap and used inexperienced labor to build the dams. He demanded that it be made stupid quickly and for the stupid cheap- and local project leaders cut every corner to meet deadlines, fearing for their lives.
In 1975 the dams were damaged and the results were alarming:
89,000 - 250,000 dead 6 million people are homeless
10 million people are affected
He severely oversaw the agricultural system and removed deforests throughout the region to burn furnaces to make steel. It will bring some salt I can think of, but I don't think Mao is really a good leader. If we can not call Mao a complete failure then Donald Trump is the greatest President in US history. The devastation caused by Mao is astounding. It is still ignored.
He was calmly embarrassed. The fact that this Western Socialist thought that he could justify or defend Mao shows exactly how many hardcore socialists have been deceived.
Do you know why China is rich today? Because they turned their backs on Mao. People may still like him but the government has made a complete 180. They decided that extreme socialism was more of a pragmatic mix of capitalism and socialism. They strengthened trade, expanded the private sector, accepted foreign investment, and gave up Mao's foolish ideas.
China is now rich despite Mao, not because of him.
