6park.com
Who was the worst ruler of all time? 6park.com
 6park.com
You know who I want to dive into? Mao Zedong - the worst ruler of the last 3 decades 6park.com
 6park.com
Mao’s failures are nearly without equal. He approached his position leading China with a single-minded drive to turn China into a modern nation. His various campaigns and policies would not only fail to modernize China, it would actually set some records. These records include:
Deadliest famine in historyDeadliest manmade disaster in history
That is Mao’s legacy - death, and death in the millions.
Sadly he lived until 1976. When he died China boomed under new leadership. With capable people at the top who actually focused more on improving China over fascistic political ideology, we see the Chinese miracle occur.
So let’s dive into the failure that is Mao.
The Great Leap Forward: Great Chinese Famine - Wikipedia 6park.com
 6park.com
Here is the TLDR of this. Mao is a communist and he wants to go full communist in rural areas. This means:
Ending private farmingReplacing private farming with communesIndustrializing the agricultural sector
Mao is not that bright. Socialism is perfect, he thinks, so he expects a massive increase in grain production under this new and better socialist commune system.
He sets high production quotas for these communes- far higher than they can realistically achieve. The leaders of the communes compete over who can give the most grain. They employ fear tactics and forced labor to keep the people in the fields. They fear being branded “right-wing” and killed so they give over all the grain they produce.
Thus the rural population starved.
Between 18–45 million people starved to death, making this by far the largest famine in history.
It’s not like weather or war caused this either. This was 100% Mao’s fault. Chinese agriculture was never perfect but millions weren’t dying of starvation before Mao.
This “great leap forward” actually saw China’s economy shrink- and again remember that as many as 45 million people died for this.
The 4 pests: Four Pests Campaign - Wikipedia 6park.com

There was another cause to the famine though.
Mao wanted to rid China of 4 pests. They were mosquitos, rats, sparrows, and flies.
The sparrows were a big one and Mao ordered the people of China to begin killing every sparrow in sight. They dutifully did and 3,000,000 sparrows were killed.
This obviously caused rampant ecological devastation. Also, it caused famine.
You see sparrows eat bugs- the same bugs that eat grain. With no sparrows, the bug population skyrocketed and the grain supply dwindled further.
The cultural revolution: Cultural Revolution - Wikipedia 6park.com
 6park.com
Mao stepped back after the colossal failure of the Great Leap Forward. In 1966 he came back strong and botched it all again- are you seeing a pattern here too?
Mao resumed his position at the top of the government. Sick of the more moderate voices trying to fix his mess, he publicly stated that capitalists were infiltrating Chinese leadership and trying to restore capitalism.
Mao demanded the youth drive out the capitalists through violence (literally). Local youth created militias and began attacking and killing anyone they suspected as being disloyal.
The goal was total control and unification under Mao. This meant destroying the 4 “olds”.
Old cultureOld habitsOld ideasOld customs
This meant the violent eradication of Chinese culture. Any idea from the time before Mao- or any idea Mao disliked- was eradicated by force.
Again the economy shrank, marking the 2nd time it would shrink between 1953–1975. Funny enough the only 2 times the economy shrank was the only 2 times Mao was fully in control.
And again lots of people died. Some estimates are as high as 20 million though a more reasonable estimate is 500,000 to 1,000,000.
Those damn dams. 1975 Banqiao Dam failure - Wikipedia
During the great leap forward Mao had a series of dams built. Like usual he did it cheap and used inexperienced labor to build the dams. He demanded it be done stupidly quick and for stupidly cheap- and the local project leaders cut every corner to meet the deadlines, fearing for their lives.
In 1975 the dams broke and the results were horrifying:
89,000 - 250,000 dead6 million people made homeless10 million people affected
He grossly mismanages the agriculture system and deforests entire regions to fuel furnaces to make steel.
This is going to cause some salt I imagine, but I really don’t think Mao was a good ruler at all. If we cannot call Mao an absolute failure then Donald Trump is the greatest President in US history.
The devastation caused by Mao is astounding. It is still ignored today. I saw a popular Quora socialist try to defend the policies of Mao while debating a Chinese person. He was soundly humiliated. The fact this Western Socialist actually thought he could justify or defend Mao shows exactly who deluded many hardcore socialists are.
Do you know why China is so rich today?
Because they turned their back on Mao. The people may still like him but the government did a complete 180.
They moderated the extreme socialism with more a pragmatic mix of capitalism and socialism. They vitalized trade, expanded the private sector, accepted foreign investment, and gave up the stupid ideas of Mao.
China today is rich in spite of Mao, not because of him.