American schoolchildren learn about Hitler and, possibly, Stalin, but few know much about Mao. And yet, while Hitler and Stalin were deplorable, Mao murdered far more people than either of his European counterparts—and his tactics have made their way to the United States.

Mao Zedong was born in a rural village in 1893, but he went on to become one of the most powerful rulers in China’s history. He did so by using Communist doctrine to eliminate his opposition.

In the early 1900s, China was reeling under the weight of an inefficient government and rapacious imperial powers. The country had been forced to give Western nations privileged access to its rich natural resources. It was also forced into legalizing opium, a highly addictive substance, because British and French merchants were making a fortune selling the drug. Even today, Chinese people refer to this period as the “century of humiliation.”

It shouldn’t be surprising that many talented Chinese statesmen tried to get their formerly illustrious civilization out of this mess. Sun Yat-sen, who founded the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), was a notable example. He helped overthrow the disgraced Qing Dynasty and establish a republic. Following the Revolution of 1911, Sun Yat-Sen was elected as the first provisional president of the newly formed Republic of China in 1912.

Yet China’s troubles didn’t end there. As World War I raged in Europe, the Empire of Japan made 21 demands on China, claiming control over parts of Manchuria, South Mongolia, and other key regions. When the Treaty of Versailles brought an end to the war, the German territories in China were handed over to Japan—not to China! Following the death of the Republic of China’s first (non-provisional) president, China split apart, with regional warlords claiming fragments of the huge nation.

Meanwhile, trouble was brewing. In 1921, Mao Zedong became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Helped by the Bolsheviks, who had just pulled off a successful revolution in Russia, the CCP formed as the left wing of the ruling Kuomintang party.

Some nationalists, including Chiang Kai-shek, knew that the Communists were set on following the Bolshevik model of bloody revolution. So when Chiang Kai-shek led an army to conquer northern warlords and reunify the country, he ordered his men to massacre the Communists. A civil war broke out, and Mao Zedong rose to power.

Mao founded the Chinese Red Army in response to Chiang Kai-shek’s attack. He then led the army on the Long March, which took 65,000 men over 5,600 miles of frontier terrain to reunite with other Communist armies. Fewer than 8,000 men survived.

Though he lost 90 percent of his men, Mao was hailed as a hero for the Long March. Through his leadership, the Red Army successfully evaded capture, winning support among peasants along the way. That propaganda victory created a mystique around Mao that would accompany him for the rest of his life.

After World War II ended, the Chinese Civil War reached its crescendo. Eventually, the Communists under Mao pushed the Kuomintang out of mainland China and into Taiwan, where they have been ever since. Then Mao turned to the job of establishing totalitarian control.

The first step was to eliminate any potential opposition to Communist rule. Mao had already abolished other political parties (under the guise of “unification”), so he eradicated the landowning class. Then he launched national programs designed to destroy Chinese traditions and transfer all power to himself.

After dealing with elites, Mao turned his attention to the commoners. From 1951 to 1952, he imposed a “Thought Reform” program on the country. Chinese citizens were encouraged to report on their neighbors. False accusations brought the hatred of the mob down on individuals who were either executed, or graciously absolved of their sins by a party apparatchik.

These “struggle sessions” were highly effective at imposing Communist control through terror. As one might expect, those who excelled at deception, deceit, and manipulation rose to powerful positions during this period. Thought Reform remains a major pillar of CCP rule to this day.

Once he had established total control over Chinese life, Mao could experiment with radical ideas. The Great Leap Forward was just one of them. It started when Mao visited the Soviet Union in 1957 and saw that the Soviets under Khrushchev were critical of Josef Stalin, whom Mao revered. Moreover, the Soviet Union had just launched the first satellite, Sputnik, overshadowing China. Mao returned worried that China might one day criticize his own legacy, just as the Soviets had turned on Stalin.

So in early 1958, Mao launched his “Great Leap Forward,” which was an extreme modernization drive. He immediately abolished small farms, nationalizing them, and forced peasants to work together on large communes. Moreover, the Chinese adopted Lysenkoism, a pseudoscientific theory that denied the existence of genes and competition between plants in favor of a new, Marxist biology.

Under Lysenkoism, farmers were instructed to plant seeds right next to each other because the theory suggested plants of the same variety wouldn’t compete against each other. Crop failures became endemic.

Like many Communists before him, Mao was also obsessed with steel production. He decided that China could produce more steel with the use of “backyard furnaces.” Of course, these furnaces lacked the power to produce steel from iron ore, so farmers were ordered to melted down their agricultural tools to meet steel quotas.

In 1959, moderates challenged Mao at the Party conference, arguing that his reforms were a failure. He responded by murdering the dissenters in a great purge. Mao’s Great Famine lasted from 1958 to 1962, becoming the worst man-made catastrophe in history. It killed anywhere from 30 to 45 million people.

Yet such was the extent of Mao’s control over China that he retained power throughout this period. As the average Chinese person subsisted on less than a dollar per day (based on GDP), CCP elites lived in luxury. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that Mao became increasingly paranoid as time went on.

By the late 1960s, Mao feared that his grip on the country was slipping, so he launched the 10-year-long Chinese Cultural Revolution. The goal? To throw the cities into turmoil and use the chaos to re-establish his own dominance. He certainly succeeded in that aim.

To turn Chinese society on its head, Mao took aim at fundamental Chinese traditions that he derided as The Four Olds: old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. He then recruited urban youth into radical organizations called the Red Guards. Mao then used millions of students as a personal army that rooted out people who weren’t radical enough for his liking.

The Red Guards attacked teachers, party officers, intellectuals, and family members who expressed traditional views. In some towns, they even overthrew the local authorities and began warring against other Red Guard groups that weren’t sufficiently “revolutionary.” As many as 2 million people were killed during China’s Cultural Revolution.

Even though this made industrial production impossible, Mao was delighted—he had the perfect excuse to take out enemies amid the violence. As he is said to have remarked, “Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.”

By the end of his life, Mao had killed well over 40 million people. By comparison, Hitler murdered 11 to 12 million noncombatants. But perhaps more chilling than the overall death totals is the effect that Mao’s rule had on Chinese society.

Thanks to his insight into the power of mass movements, Chinese civilization was not simply destroyed by an evil government. It was brutalized by its own people.

In the summer of 2020, over 20 Americans were killed in nationwide race riots that caused at least $1 billion in property damage. As American media called the events “mostly peaceful protests,” Chinese media chose a more accurate designation: the American Cultural Revolution.

Mao’s legacy is alive and well.

—

Image credit: public domain