Through out all of history we have seen so many heroes and villains all over the world. But one place in particular was in China, with a leader who goes by the name of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong was a well-known communist leader in china who actually lead the Chinese Communist Party. He is one of the most important people/historical figures in history. At first he was helping China at the beginning of his ruling, nut then his actions had cause China to completely fall and breakout into violence and complete chaos!!
Changing the views of his people because whatever good he had done did not matter anymore from his great down fall. During his ruling though some believed that Mao was a hero others believed he was a villain, but which one was he? In my opinion after all the facts I have discovered I truly believe Mao Zedong was a Villain! He led china into an economic downfall and killed over 78 million people, that is more than the amount of people Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler combined!
When Mao Zedong first began he was very well known in china as a great revolutionary and a military leader/mastermind, Mao Zedong had led the communist party of China to victory against the nationalist party in the Chinese Civil war. And after he set his policies in play Mao Zedong had officially transformed China into a major world power when he first started ruling. However, Mao Zedong made quite a few “errors” or mistakes while he was leading the country of China.
One of his major errors was “The Great Leap Forward” and also the “Cultural Revolution” which had caused major disaster in China. The Great Leap Forward was a social plan used from the years 1958 to 1961 which used China’s massive population to quickly change China from a peasant farming economy into a modern communist society. And during the process of the Great Leap Forward Communes were built/set up during time. It was a way to manage and control all resources. Many people were moved from there homes into a these communes.
In a commune, everything must be shared there was no exception, no one owned a single thing everyone was forced to share and do everything together. All household items were used and shared in a way that contributed to the commune in many ways like animals and also for food. And everyone cooked together in the same space and everyone ate together at what was known as a “communal dining. ”. Also farming jobs were assigned to all the people every single day. But in realization the communes in fact were actually poorly governed and taken note of.
But later a lack of managing the food and also a series of bad weather caused a major famine from 1958 to 1960 causing the rising number of deaths of many people. The Cultural Revolution however was a reform movement in China meaning to change something for the better by removing its faults or completely changing its form and quickly began after the failure of the Great Leap Forward because many people of china had begun to start asking questions and questioning Mao Zedong’s true abilities after such an economic downfall.
And during the year 1965 they wanted to remove and get rid of any counterrevolutionary elements that were within in China. The intelligent and bright thinkers and teachers of china were there targets. As well as many people considered unwanted by the government, had resulted from these two movements alone and caused many million deaths to occur within the country of China. Which is why Mao Zedong in my eyes is considered a Villain!
Mao Zedong has is believed by many people including myself to be known as a true Villain, and one of the worst, most evil villain’s to be exact after all the death and destruction he had caused in China. And I am not alone with my statement because according to Document #1: Mao Zedong was blamed for causing all sever damage that was brought to china both economical, societal, and as well as cultural damage and damage to their foreign relations.
Such as the fail of the Great Leap Forward, because after failing to succeed and bring about a modern communist society people began to question Mao bringing the cultural revolution to take place to reform china but that soon failed too because with a poor attention to nations crop and communes many people had died (about 40-70 million to be exact) causing china to plummet down and show what a true villain Mao is.
Also according to document #5: after Mao Zedong’s rise to power he had set up and launched a 5-year plan from the years 1953-1958. His goal was to get rid of China’s dependence on agriculture to become a “world Power”. He had run manipulate campaigns to manipulate the people to doing and agreeing with what he wanted to g=do by doing “flower campaigns” and “supposed” (hypothetical) willingness to peoples different opinions, showing how he is just tricking people in to doing as he say and pretend to care for the people!
Also doc 5 states “Given the freedom to express themselves, some Chinese began openly opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership”. Meaning that the people were speaking their mind and often speaking the truth about the ways of the communist party which werent always positive notes. However, later on just after a few months, Mao’s government reversed its policy and punished anyone who criticized or was accused to have criticized the Communist Party. And the numbers/amount were believed to be as high as 500,000 people.
Showing that Mao was evil because he didn’t want people speaking the truth to show his real ways and wrong doings of the counrty of china and what he truly planned to do he wanted everyone to beileve what he was doing was good but in reality it wasn’t goodin it was harming China and all of its people. Later Mao put together another 5 year plan known as the great leap forward acoording to document 6 and Under this new economic idea most relatively small agricultural collectives were merged into larger peoples communes and many peasants were forced and oreder to work on massive roads and city buildings.
And according to doc 7 many new and uproven and unatural/scientific farming methods were formed and the production of everything kept deacreasing and failing as the years progressed and just kept getting worse with the addition of draughts and floods. And the rural peasants eventually did not have enough to eat and many millions starved to death. Which is now what is thought to be the largest famine in human history! This famine aolne was a direct cause of the death of many millions of Chinese peasants between the years 1959 and 1962.
Showing how umprepared Mao is and how he didn’t care for the tolls of death because after all this occurred he kept ruling and trying new ways to change and reform china to be a communist country but didn’t put good enpough thought into his work or the opinions/ beliefs of the people which could have been a good help for him show the true evil in him and the villain inside of Mao Zedong! Now although I and many others believe that Mao Zedong is a villain there are some people who truly believe that Mao Zedong was a great leader and was a hero non-the less and that he actually did no wrong what so ever.
These people think of Mao Zedong as if he were a God who had successfully led China to the path of an independent and extremely powerful nation. According to Document #8: Mao Zedong must have been a good leader because up until his death on September 9th 1976 people truly supported him but he was quite symbolic in china and in the global communist movement for his fight against imperialism, feudalism and capitalism which was known as the 3 evils in pre-1949 China because the were the dark ages of china and One of his proposals at the time was to educate the peasants to stare clear of these temptations.
While these policies along with his military strategies and contributions to Marxism-Leninism gave him an almost God-like status to some. And the youth during his time as ruler didn’t go through the suffering from The Great Leap Forward or any of the famine Mao caused according to document number 9. That is why the views of Mao were positive from the youth of china. Also at a young age the children were taught to idolize Mao Zedong and to follow Mao and do whatever he had said or ordered and to them according to the children (at that age) Mao Zedong could do no wrong!
Which is why the sought to him as one of the greatest Heroes! The youth also might have though that by not having to go to school or listen to authority was being cool when in reality it actually had ruined the Chinese society. Also before Mao’s rule in 1949, illiteracy rates in China where 80% and life expectancy was 35 years and after Mao’s death, illiteracy declined to 7 % and life expectancy increase to 70 years (according to doc 9). Some people believe that thanks to Mao Zedong that reading was well improved in china and so was education and now why they are the top most educated country in the world.
Also some historians do beileve that Mao Zedong was a dictator in comparison to Hitler and Stalin with a death toll much higher than both combined. Yet, the ideology of Maoism has influenced many communists around the world throught history. Even China itself has moved sharply away from Maoism since Mao Zedong’s death because it was not a favored rule and had brought some good but a majority of chaos and destruction in my defense. But as the Chinese government put together a free market economic reforms starting to take place in the late 1970s.
Later on as Chinese leaders took power, less recognition was given to the Mao Zedong and his evil ( and someitmes good) ways. Nevertheless, the Chinese government has never officially destoryed the history of mao’s ways. In conclusion through out all of history we have seen so many heroes and villains all over the world. Mao Zedong being one of them. I personally think he is one of the worlds biggest villains from all the death and destruction he had caused in Chinas history.
But some people believe he was a good guy a hero to be exact and though I don’t not agree with this statement doesn’t mean it is not true to some historians he was a dictator who enjoyed his power and death to others he was a good ruler who could do no harm in the world and just bring peace and some historian believed he helped/ taught more people to read and to become more educated which is why china is one of the top countries today but nobody truly knows everything is a matter of fact and opinion and in my opinion he is a bad man!
