Talk:Mao Zedong/Archive 1

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I think someone needs to read over Neutral point of view. I personally don't know enough about China's history to rewrite this article. -- Ansible

This article is worse than no article. Here it is, if anyone wants to use it: --Taw

Mao Tsetung was a real communist: He in no way fought for a world without classes and without oppressors. He did not give his whole life to the people. When poor peasants and workers rebelled against intolerable conditions, Mao oppressed them and fought their struggle higher. It wasn't just biased - it contained lot of factual errors. Revolution doesn't work the way it was described. It works using terrorism, mafia-like organizations, genocides, brainwashing, breaking human right, foreign military support, building system of mass oppression and spreading lots of "it's not so bad as conservatives are saying" propaganda in civilized countries (the last is the reason why it succeeds so often). And I'm not any westerner. Coutry I live in was occupied by communists until 1990. --Taw

The comment about mass murder needs some explaination. He caused many deaths such as in Cultural Revolution and Leap Forward and famine that followed. But those were at best due to failed policies or mobs got out of control. The term murder does not fit in the Neutral point of view rule. Whoever wrote it please justify.

Many of those people died in various camps. Unfortunatelly Chinese don't let foreign scientist study this in China, so it isn't documented as well as for example Nazi genocides. See Rummel, "Death by gevernment" for reference or external link on Genocide page.

BTW: who can be called "mass murderer" if not Mao ? Are you suggesting not using this term just to be politically correct ? --Taw

Mao is not "considered by some" to be a murderer. He is a murderer, and no other "point of view" has any place in an encyclopedia. One can add that some people consider him a political hero, despite his mass murders; but this is even questionable. - Tim
 * I think stating that Mao was a "murderer" is not in accordance with the neutral point of view. We need to say is considered by some (or even is considered by many) to be a murderer, and then to also mention the opposing view, which was widely held in China and had influence throughout the world.  We should not be afraid of stating the facts objectively and trusting people to make rational judgements. --Eob

You got to be kidding. Mao is the biggest mass murderer of all time. That isn't a 'point of view' its a demonstrable fact. Should we also change the Adolf Hitler entry to say "Adolf Hitler is considered by some to be a not-so-great guy. Some believe he killed millions of Jews."? I think NPOV has run amok when we can't call a murderer a murderer. I say its not a violation of NPOV when you make a statement that you can back up with proof, ever read The Black Book of Communism? And as for "the opposing view" being "widely held in China", gee you think their State-run media, brutal suppression of free speech and prisons full of political dissidents could have something to do with that? --MemoryHole.com

Henry Kissinger has committed war crimes, and no other "point of view" has any place in an encyclopedia. One can add that some people consider him a political hero, despite his war crimes; but this is even questionable.

Is this comment supposed to be making some kind of point? - Tim

Obviously, the point is that assigning names like "mass murderer" and "war criminal" as if they are incontrovertable facts in an encyclopedia is exactly the opposite of what is supposed to be going on in an encyclopedia. It would be perfectly legitimate to say that "Mao's opponents accuse him of being one of the world's great mass murderers", just as it would be appropriate to say that Henry Kissinger's opponents would accuse him of being a war criminal. Otherwise, you are simply turning it into a non-neutral forum of opinions and value judgements.

Mao was a mass murderer and his crimes are well documented (even though exact size of it is still subject of speculation). It's the fact and it has nothing to do with neutral point of view. --Taw

OK, so we cannot agree on the second paragraph. So I am removing it and placing it here. I guess we will just have to stick to basic uncontroversial facts. For the record the two most recent versions of this paragraph were (the first is mine): Some people regard him as a hero who liberated China from foreign and capitalist oppression.
 * Mao is considered by many to be a mass-murderer second-only to Stalin. (See Genocide for details.) Others regard him as a hero who liberated China from foreign and capitalist oppression.
 * Mao was the second biggest (after Stalin) mass-murderer in history. (See Genocide for details).

I was rewriting this when the previous edit was made; let's try to work this out. - Tim


 * I am okay with the current (rev. 14) article in terms of the deaths he caused and his failure to be a good ruler. However, I still think the article is biased with the omission of his credit as a revolutionist hero.  What would China be today without him fighting away the corrupted Nationalist government?


 * Probably would be like Taiwan. A lot richer, with more freedom etc.


 * Yes, probably. It's only your speculation.  You can say anything about history that never took place.  Taiwan is just a lush green island with natural resources sufficient to feed its population.  My own speculation is that if the Nationalist government were to rule China, more people would have died due to the famine.  The officials would be fat as pigs as the common people died of hunger.  Besides, China would be ruled by the Japanese now.  The Japanese would have a strong hold of the entire Asia using China as a staging area for world domination.  It is pointless to speculate, our time is probably better spent on watching the Star Trek episodes on changing temporal events on different timelines.

I'm not speculating. Every time country was divided to communist and non-communist parts, non-communist became much richer and much more free. Germany, Korea, China, Vietnam are most obvious examples. Main cause of famine was collectivization, and Japanese ocupation is *way* better than communist occupation. BTW. before split Taiwan had albost no industry, and it doesn't have so much resources.


 * Even the Taiwanese native hates the Nationalist government in Taiwan today if you want to know how corrupted they were/are. Most Chinese people considered Mao a hero in the first half of his life, but he became a monster after he was in power.  Many blame all those killings on his failure to control the mobs of the Red Guards instead of accusing of him plotting the deaths of millions of people.  Same is true for the deaths due to the famine.  Do you really think any sane ruler of any country would want famine in his own country.  You may say those were mass involuntary manslaughters (unintentional due to ignorance on how nature and agriculture works), instead of murders.  There is no doubts that he was responsible for many deaths, but are they meditated murders or just negligence?

Well, Soviets deliberately caused famine on Ukraine, and Mao was also a communist, so it's quite probable that he caused it deliberately. --Taw


 * I agree the article is incomplete, and that the Nationalists were nasty people (who murdered 10 million people, btw). But the fact that someone else is evil cannot possibly justify your being evil.  Overthrowing one genocidal regime does not justify being genocidal oneself.  Mao is not a hero because he opposed the Nationalists - he is a villain because he was no different from the Nationalists: he merely killed people in the name of a different set of slogans. - Tim

I still have trouble with the term "murder". Is there a difference in term of one's intention? If you started a fire by mistake, are you a murderer? Or are you just a fool that responsible of many deaths when something you did got out of control? He may be guilty of all those political murders, but you should not count the famine deaths as murders. Those mob killings are murders commited by the individuals in the mobs some with hidden agenda on their own to get rid of their own enemies or to rob others of their valuables, should they be counted towards Mao? I am no supporter of Mao myself, but I don't agree that all the deaths he caused were murders.

If you hire a hitman, and the hitman kills his victim, you are guilty of murder, despite the fact that someone else did the actual killing. This is accepted in every court of law in every civilized society in the world. The people who killed in China acted with Mao's authority and under his direction. Thus Mao is as guilty as they are. Mao is guilty because he intentionally caused people to die - millions of people. He intentionally killed millions of people as a matter of policy. He acted and commanded people to act in specific ways because it would lead to the deaths of people he wanted to be dead. The idea that Mao inadvertently killed millions of people is absurd. You think that after his policies of terror left the first 5 million victims dead, he wasn't aware that by continuing with those same policies he would leave millions more dead? Having proven that his policies results in millions of people dying, he deliberately choose to continue with those same policies, proving his intention was to kill more millions of people. A simple awareness of just the rudimentary facts leaves no room for rational doubt. By the same standards of jurisprudence that apply to everyone in courts all over the world, Mao is guilty of murder. Millions of times over. - Tim -

I removed the comparison of Mao with Stalin, because the numbers killed by each can only be estimated, and there is a great deal of overlap in estimates for the two. One estimate might put Stalin's total at 20 million, another at 60 million. One estimate might put Mao at 15 million, another at 70 million. The number Rummel uses, is based on adding together most-likely estimates of various incidents to reach a grand total. His totals usually fall at midrange of all the estimates. So the number for Stalin, 40 million, and for Mao, 35 million, are most likely numbers, according to Rummel's research. But they could differ considerably from the truth, in either direction - though not to such an extent as to make either person anything but a genocidal monster. The point, though, is that Mao may have killed more people than Stalin. It doesn't seem apparent, given what we know, but we shouldn't make assertions about who killed more, in the articles, without explaining the methodolgy in detail. - Tim

Okay, so now there are now about 5 paragraphs out of about 8 or 9 that directly or indirectly concern themselves with the number of people who died under his rule. I don't object to discussing the number of people who died under Mao, even in this amount of detail, but to this article right now focuses on this almost to the exclusion of almost everything else that concerns Mao, so clearly some additions are necessary to fill out the details. Some discussion of his role in the Long March or the war with Japan, the Little Red Book, the Nixon visit and ping pong diplomacy, for example? Every policy decision of Mao's during his rule is discussed only in terms of how many people were killed by it, and there is no discussion of his life before coming to power. Right now the article just comes across to me as a diatribe, and while I understand and sympathize with the agenda that lies behind it--certainly Mao did things a lot of people object to--it really doesn't address the broader issues surrounding Mao as a historical figure. Yeah yeah, I know that "he/she who proposes should dispose" in Wikipedia, but I don't have the detailed knowledge at the top of my head and don't have the research material at my fingertips.
 * I agree. The article as it stands (rev. 21) is biased towards only on his killings.  He had done more than just that.
 * don't worry about facts at your fingertips - start some headers for people to fill in, and move the death-count to a header called 'evaluation of Mao's career'.


 * Okay, I made a first stab at reorganizing the article a bit. Hopefully, others can fill in the details or otherwise improve the organization further.

--- Removed section that Mao was disgraced within the party after the Cultural Revolution. It's wrong. The Gang of Four supported him up until they were arrested after his death. Added a paragraph about the official view of history from the PRC. Added a NPOV sentence about the death toll. There was a usenet discussion on this but the death toll in pre-Mao china. consider that the population of China in 1949 was 400 million where it was in 1900 while the people of China at Mao's death was about 700 million -- Chenyu

- BTW, I don't like Mao. I just wanted to include an argument that I have heard (i.e. Mao was really bad, but China without Mao would have been worse). Also 7.4 million seems very high for the death toll of the Anti-Rightest Movement. Anyone have a cite? -- Chenyu

Mao is a dick head. the bottom of this article is the best. vist pyro jack for more info. hehe. - I removed the bit about genocide. I don't know how much about Mao's policies, but the article didn't specify in what way he had selected people to kill. (Random mass murder is not genocide.) Also, I updated the bit about lasting influence. There are plenty of Maoists around, and not just in Peru. I pick up a copy of MIM Notes (Maoist International Movement) evey week. Good paper. DanKeshet


 * Aah, reading the genocide page, I see Mao is indeed being accused of genocide. If somebody could find some facts, that'd be great; else, the genocide link still doesn't make sense right after a reference to politically motivated killings. DanKeshet

Mao doubled the life expectancy of his people. He is the incarnation of anti-genocide.

To argue genocide or "mass-murder" in respect to a political leader requires an argument about their "line" or policies. It is not like in the case of the Maryland sniper, someone who went around persynally killing people. At most you can say a political leader gave the general orders. However, it is clear that if you look at orders given by political leaders, the orders of Bill Clinton over 8 years time killed more people than the orders given by Mao over 27 years. Bill Clinton ordered the protection of U.S. companies and property globally, including farms and food that had the starving been able to take over, would have stopped the deaths of somewhere between 8 and 14 million people EACH year. Clinton had the capacity to end world starvation--at least he did in theory, while it is true that he would have been killed by bourgeois fanatics if he had tried--but Mao never had the wealth necessary to be able to order the saving or killing of those who died from starvation. Despite this fact, the press reports that Mao "killed" millions when it is just as sure that had the same method been applied to bourgeois leaders they "killed" even more millions.

As for the Black Book of Communism -- see our corrections of that book here: http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/agitation/blackbook.html

---

This paragraph is a problem


 * The Chinese Communist Party would be the first to admit that there have been confusions and errors on the way. In the late 1960s, a ruinous and misguided "Cultural Revolution" tore apart the fabric of society, and set back many of the advances made in the previous decade and a half.

The problem is that its a bit unclear. The official view of the Communist Party toward the Cultural Revolution is much stronger than "confusions and errors". Also the view that the cultural revolution tore apart advancements made in the 1950s needs to be attributed.

Just some justification about the text that I added and that someone is trying to remove.

1) I'm trying to present Mao Tse-tung in as NPOV as possible listing what both his supporters and his detractors say.

2) It is simply impossible to discuss Mao without discussing the Great Leap Forward. The GLF was intended by Mao as a alternative model for economic growth which contradicted the Soviet model of heavy industry that was advocated by other people in the party.  I removed some of the more NPOV language (i.e. Mao killed millions) for some other less inflamatory language (i.e. Mao developed economic policies in which millions died.), but I don't think that any complete article can avoid this especially since the Chinese Communist Party and the official Chinese histories holds Mao responsible for these deaths.

--User:Roadrunner - I'd really like to know the justification for removing my additions. They seem rather NPOV descriptions of the point of view of people who do not like Mao.

--User:Roadrunner - 172,

Will you at least try to justify your deletions? My description of the Great Leap Forward was written largely to meet your objections, in that I described the process of the GLF and left out opinions about Mao's moral culpability in it. While Mao's role in the GLF is something that historians continue to debate and which there is some valid controversy about, I do not think that it is correct to deal with this issue by not mentioning it.

I'm willing to justify the rest of my edits also, but I cannot address your objections to the text if you refuse to state what they are.

---User:Roadrunner

Roadrunner, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that the old version lacked info on the GLF. I fully agree with your interpretation. I thought that you were merely deleting the figures on life expectancy.

- 1) Be careful here. Just because I've stated an interpretation doesn't mean that I agree with it.  Be careful about trying to guess my personal views from my edits.

2) I *didn't* delete any of the text on life expectancy. I *added* text which states who anti-Maoists interpret it.  Text which I might add should stay in.

---User:Roadrunner

172,

Can you explain what you find objectionable about the current text before blindly reverting.

1) You don't seem to object to the description of the GLF 2) You seem to have been under the mistaken impression that my edits removed the paragraph on increase of literacy and lifespan. They did not. They did add how anti-Maoists respond to these increases.

At this point, I'd like to know what your objections are to the text as I've editted them.

---User:Roadrunner

--

Now that we are agreed on the GLF, I'd like to know what your objections are to the rest of my changes.

1) The description of Mao as freeing China from a century of imperialism needs to be attributed and balanced.

2) The part on the increase in life expectancy also needs to be balanced with the anti-Maoist interpretation about it.

I'm not asking you to agree with the anti-Maoist views, but I would like your justification for not mentioning them at all.

Roadrunner,

I’m not a Maoist, but your Taiwan analogy is unrealistic. First, Taiwan, a small island of only 20 million, benefited from the flight of 2 million well-educated, bourgeois Chinese following the revolution. Second, it benefited from US-backed land reform, aid, and investment. Their export-led growth and emphasis on light industry did influence China under Deng, but Taiwan is not a microcosm for the mainland.

---User:172

Roadrunner,

I am an anti-Maoist as well. I only agree with anti-Maoist conclusions, however, when they're valid. I did appreciate nonetheless your mentioning that the Great Leap was a departure from Soviet orthodoxy.

---User:172

It's not my Taiwan analogy. It was an analogy that was pointed out frequently in the Cold War. It's been mentioned less often recently because of the warming of relations between the KMT and CCP and because of the Mainland's generally better economic performance.

The fact that it is incomplete needs to be mentioned, but there is no reason for deleting it completely.

Also the fact that the GLF was a departure from Soviet orthodoxy is extremely important. The GLF happened after the fall of Stalin and it was related to the Sino-Soviet split in 1959.

--- User:Roadrunner

---User:Roadrunner

I've heard that Taiwan analogy many times. It's invaild no matter how frequently it's used. Taiwan is not a microcosm of the Mainland. Someone does need to add something on the Sino-Soviet Split. You're right about that. --- User:172

-- You might think its invalid. I might think its invalid, but the fact that it has been raised so many times means that it needs to be mentioned in the encyclopedia under NPOV. A full discussion of comparing the PRC and Taiwan would take tens of pages, and if I feel interested enough I might talk about it in an article on the Economy of China. Suffice to say that anti-Maoists have responses to each of your points. Taiwan's economic growth took place after 1965 when most U.S. aid had been cut. Taiwan did benefit from land reform, but land reform was hardly out of the question on the PRC. Most of the investment was indigienous with relatively little direct U.S. investment. Also, one can argue that the 2 million wai-shen-ren were an economic liability rather than an asset. Most were conscripted soldiers without large amounts of education. By and large, the wai-shen-ren did not become economic entrepeneurs and practically all of the major businessmen in Taiwan were local ben-shen-ren.

I've added text to say that the comparison is controversial, but I don't see how one can completely delete it without violating NPOV.

-- User:Roadrunner ---

Changed the first paragraph.

The problem with simply stating that Mao created a unified China is that it is a particular point of view that many people will disagree with. Curiously, the Chinese government and most Chinese would disagree with it since Mao didn't succeeded in unifying Taiwan or Hong Kong. I changed it to reflect the prevailing view of Mao in China.

--- User:Roadrunner

--

Removed one paragraph for stylistic reasons. It doesn't make any sense to put "Evaluation of Mao's career" in the middle of a historical narrative.

Made a minor edit. The comparsion should be between 1949 and 1976 and not 1949 and now.

Also reworded split between rightists and leftists. Deng Xiaoping's faction did *not* want to follow orthodox socialist policies. Those were advocated by Hua Guofeng and his restorationist faction which controlled China from 1976 to 1978. Also Deng's view was to deemphasize ideology rather than to deemphasize communtarianism. Deng's philosophy was ultimately to "seek truth from facts" rather than to "seek truth from ideology".

--- User:Roadrunner

-

Removed this paragraph since it isn't clear whose point of view this is.....


 * The Chinese Communist Party would be the first to admit that there have been confusions and errors on the way. In the late 1960s, a ruinous and misguided "Cultural Revolution" tore apart the fabric of society, and set back many of the advances made in the previous decade and a half.

Whose interpretation of history is this? It isn't the CCP. It isn't as far as I can see those of Maoist supporters. It isn't that of any Western of Chinese historian that I know.

--- User:Roadrunner

-

Roadrunner:

First, this is an encyclopedia article, not a list of pros and cons regarding Mao. You do not have to put “supporters of Mao claim” in front of statistics regarding life expectancy. That trend is a fact. Second, anyone with more than a superficial understanding of history can understand why this Taiwan comparison is utterly ridiculous. Taiwan, an island of only 20 million, benefited from the flight of well-educated, middle class Chinese after the revolution. You're right, most of the 2 million were soilders, but a large number were bourgeois Chinese. This flight of the Chinese middle class not only aided Taiwan's development, but the development of Singapore, Hong Kong, and even Malaysia and Indonesia. One of the more difficult tasks of modernization, Roadrunner, is educating and training the population to fill many roles in a more complex division of labor. If you can’t understand the concept of human capital, then you have no business evaluating China's economy, or for that matter any economy. As a Cold War ally of the US, it also benefited from heavy aid and investment from the beginning, stimulating industrialization, allowing it to take off. Third, I don’t understand your obsession with trying to hide the Cultural Revolution paragraph. It’s clear. The CPC agrees with that position entirely, an for that matter so does any rational person. Forth, Deng’s “seek truth from facts” is not a deviation from Marxism whatsoever. Marxism claims to be scientific and materialist. It is not a religious doctrine. Deng, in this sense, wanted to de-emphasize communitarianism without rejecting Marxism or orthodox socialist policies. --- User:172

---

Roadrunner:

What’s your problem? Are you afraid that some impressionable reader will come across the statistics on life expectancy and become a Maoist? Let the facts speak for themselves.


 * 172,
 * I agree that this article might be a little more NPOV; however, I disagree that these wholesale edits are the way to go about it. Perhaps a bit at a time would work better.  After all, we're talking about a man's whole life here. Hephaestos

172,

Read and understand the NPOV guidelines. When there is controversy, it is important to fairly present both sides of an issue. The Taiwan counterexample is raised often enough so that it needs to be mentioned *whether one believes it is rational or not*. In fact the question of whether the PRC could have replicated Taiwan's economic performance is an interesting, complex, and highly controversial question that almost deserves its own article. *BUT IT NEEDS TO BE MENTIONED*

I am concerned it is not a real encyclopedia article unless someone mentions the controversy over what the life expectancy statistics mean.

The reason I object to the characterization of the Cultural Revolution is that the CCP traces the beginning of the economic disaster under Mao to the Great Leap Forward and would disagree that the Cultural Revolution wiped out earlier gains because it official position is that once the post-Civil War economy was stabilized, Mao took a disastrous wrong turn.

Marxism does claim to be a rational and scientific theory but the controversy in the mid-1970s was what to do when the fact seem to contradict theory. Deng's solution was to move from fact to theory while the position of the Gang of Four was to move from theory to fact. Both were Marxist positions but one took ideology as the primary while the other took facts as the primary.

As far as "orthodox socialist policies" you seem to be unaware of what socialism means in a Chinese context. ---User:Roadrunner

I'll keep hands off of this article for now. I welcome anyone else to look at the edits and then insert the ones that they think are appropriate.

172,

You had a very good idea, Roadrunner. Let's write some articles on the rise of the East Asian Tigers. But I cannot tolerate the Taiwan analogy unless the article also explains why Taiwan is not a microcosm of the mainland. ---User:172

--

Started article on the East Asian Tigers

---

Assessment comment
Substituted at 21:21, 3 May 2016 (UTC)