Thread: China's Blockbuster - 'The Founding of a Republic'

Did what, if anything, he did justify the millions killed during his time and the destruction of that millenia long Chinese culture?

What he did right, no matter how great, could not be used to justify what he did wrong, because we are talking about things that were independent to each other: his positive contributions to the Chinese did not depend on the wrongdoing and faulty decisions later in his reign. Based on the same rationale, one should not disregard his achievements as founder and leader of the new China simply because of his wrongdoings.

If what you care is whether Mao/the PRC government at his time saved more people or killed more people, stat numbers would be a good indication. Look at infant mortality rate, overall mortality rate etc. Again, one does not justify another: land reforms, significant improvements on industrial capacity, on the nation's power, on education or on health system does not justify or "cancel out" deaths and sufferings in pure human disaster (like the cultural revolution) as well as human+natural disaster (like in the late 50s/early 60s). But if you want to keep a balance sheet on human lives and living quality, I'd say the overall number from 1949 to mid 1970s was very positive and not merely a result of peacetime bonus. If you think Mao's time was just a complete economic/development failure, I think you are missing a lot. FYI, a lot of info and numbers can be found in this book: The Cambridge History of China: The ... - Google Books

I also want to add a few points regarding the "destruction of that millenia long Chinese culture":

The cultural revolution's impact (among other political movements during Mao's time) on Chinese culture is often overstated. In fact it's lasting effect on Chinese culture is almost nothing when compared to the impact of modernization, industrialization and the adoption of western culture/lifestyle. Yet many people don't consider the latter as a bad thing in general. This is because not all traditions are good, and not all new things are bad. For example, Mao promoted gender equality which is definitely against the traditional Chinese culture, that doesn't mean we shouldn't change it. If Mao was in India he would try to destroy the caste system too. Some traditions---not just cultural traditions but also political traditions---they just have to change for the nation to evolve. Mao knew it well, but he was too ambitious, the way he did it in cultural revolution was bound to fail.

There are, of course, also parts in the culture that people should always value, and those were also being attacked in the cultural revolution, including cultural relics and culture itself. But to say that they were destroyed and could no longer be found today as a result of the cultural revolution/Mao's rule? That was simply not true, except for a small portion of cultural relics. Some Taiwanese today likes to claim that they retained the "true roots" of Chinese culture and the mainlanders don't have it because of Mao, yet, if culture is something infused in your lifestyle, I failed to see any of these proclaimed "superior cultural heritage" in real life. In fact, some of the Taiwanese don't even recognize themselves as Chinese anymore.

The cultural revolution's biggest impact was not really on traditional culture, but on the particular generation of people who actually experienced it: those who was a red guard, those being persecuted by red guards, those students that were being sent to villages, and everyone else who experienced a decade of chaos. It also hampered the nation's economical, industrial and technological development significantly. So yes, it was a big deal, a man made disaster, but not so much in the way that it's name suggests, otherwise it would be a success and not a failure.

Did you go to each of the billion or so han-ethnic and non han-ethnic chinese people in China and secure their agreement with you on the various issues of state, or did you infer total agreement of the Chinese populace from the internet?

To say that today's Chinese people as a whole think that Mao is a hero is a very inappropriate generalization. To say that a majority of mainland Chinese still sees Mao as a positive figure, as a great man who may have some flaws and have made mistakes (this is also the "official" conclusion regarding Mao), this would probably be more accurate. But still, this is from my personal observation, not from any scientific survey.

In reality, everyone has their own interpretation regarding Mao. In today's China, you could easily find someone who likes Mao and everything he did, someone who likes Mao but not everything he did, or someone who hates everything about Mao. There are even people who likes the cultural revolution, wanted it to happen again, in China, right now, because he/she hates Deng and the current PRC government. But in the not so extreme (and more popular) cases, whether they likes Mao or not, many of these opinions could actually be justified. To some people it may look like that anyone who likes Mao were just misinformed or being brainwashed, because Mao "was just like Hitler". While I agree that anyone who treats Hitler as a hero could not be justified, I wouldn't hold the same judgment towards Mao's supporters. Mao is certainly a controversial figure, people who experienced the world differently could easily interpret him differently, even within China, a peasant, a factory worker and a businessmen may reach very different conclusions about Mao. And they probably know about Mao's history---both the good part and the bad part---more than most foreigners.