cdude

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Mao was a great revolutionary, an inspiration to people around the world even today. He was a lousy nation builder and ego maniac later in his life. But he brought a lot of great ideas and reforms to the Chinese society. Not saying we didn't pay a price for all the changes. But still his legacy is there and people will talk about him in generations to come.

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gunnut

He's an inspiration to numerous high ranking officials in the Obama regime.

That just brings a warmth in my heart.

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

bolo121

a legacy of ashes

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For Gallifrey! For Victory! For the end of time itself!!

Vinod2070

I am not sure what positives can offset the 30 million (some say 50 million) lives lost in that "great leap"!

He was an egomaniac cut off from the grassroots.

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There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don’t..

gunnut

This link is rather amusing:

OH WOW! OBA MAO in WASHINGTON • Looking at the Left

Officer of Engineers

The only one that history cares about - he united China - through blood but he did unite China. Under him, China reversed herself from being a Somalia into a nuclear world power. That is what history will remember him by ... and that is all the Chinese today, those who have not lived under him, cares about.

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Chimo

bolo121

Ah but the cost of it..horrendous. Millions dead, the economy in ruins and the intellectual cream of the nation dead.
If you asked me would i live in messed up but somewhat democratic India or mighty but dictatorial China I know what i would choose.

Vinod2070

Stalin also made USSR a super power. I think most Russians don't think very highly of him today.

Some Chinese seem to argue that China needed that iron hand to turn around. May be they are right. It does boggle the mind though.

Are you saying that most Chinese look at his legacy positively? Even today?

cdude

Here we go again.

Ask any farmer, suicidal or not, to make a choice between living in the two countries. Did you just call China a dictatorship? Or you mean Mao's China?

cdude

I agree. Not only those have not lived under him, but even those, lived through his time, still have a lot of admiration to this man. In Mao's China, you could go from a farmer girl to achieve whatever your peers can. That's his biggest legacy among others (like making China a power to be reckon with).

xinhui

that is a Myth, but a powerful one.

Of course one can become a millionaire over night, but how many actual won the lottery??

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xinhui

I prefer Deng's model, sure working in a factory sucks, but it is a job and a real chance to advance.

After day-dreaming in a barren farm, the same girl still goes hungry under Mao's China.

cdude

It's a little bit unfair to compare these two. Stalin started with a united, resource rich, almost industrialized country. Mao started as the weaker side in a civil war when China was Somali like.

Actually he WESTERNIZED the country. There were only two ways possible at the time, the communism/atheism, or the "new life movement" style prompted by Chiang Kai-Shek which is a Christian way of life.


Absolutely. I think Mao's approval rating is higher in the countryside, but even in the cities, he's admired. You don't think the long line in Tiananmen square is faked, do you?

cdude

Everybody prefers to live under Deng. He's a likable, reasonable, and capable little man. But I doubt he could achieve what he had without Mao's foundation (sure Mao could have left Deng a better China, but).

kyli

I second that. Deng's policy is way better than Mao's ideology.

Russians didn't need Stalin to unite them or end the wars. China needed somebody to stop the bloodbath. It didn't have to be Mao, but KMT was a complete failure. The funny thing is that some members said that Mao ruined the economy, but before CCP came in power China's economy had been in a mess for decades.