Do you agree with the assessment that Mao was nothing other than a ruthless dictator?

The Cultural Revolution is seen as his most ruthless act. By 1966 Mao was losing power and thought the next generation had to experience revolution. He abolished ranks in the army and issued every soldier with his ‘Little Red Book’, taking control of the PLA. The revolution began with schoolchildren and students; schools were closed for two years to rewrite the curriculum and they were encouraged to form military groups called Red Guards. They were to get rid of all bourgeois or capitalist influences in society, mainly in schools.

They started with a campaign against the ‘Four Olds’ – old ideas, culture, customs and habits in this they destroyed many historical and religious artefacts. They also campaigned for true communism instead of ‘going down the capitalist road’. They became increasingly violent attacking anything remotely reactionary even people with western hairstyles or people with landlord parents. However despite all of this chaos Mao encouraged it saying ‘to rebel is justified’. Estimates of the death toll are around a million with many more affected in other ways e.g. tortured but some estimates go up to 20 million as some even committed suicide and when told about this he dismissed it saying “China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people”. In 1969 it was over but it left the country in turmoil, order had broken down in many places, industrial output fell drastically, farming was disrupted and young people had lost a lot of education.

On the other hand there is a lot of evidence to suggest he was not just a ruthless dictator. The First Five Year Plan was a success as outputs were even more than planned which helped to push China forward as an industrial nation. Also, in the Great Leap Forward although many died it would be wrong to blame Mao for it all. There were false claims of production so more food was given in eating halls even though there was actually less food, Mao did not know about this. In addition, the weather was very bad in the next two years which also prevented the harvest from being a success such as floods in many parts of the country which eventually lead to a famine.

Mao also managed to modernise China and make many positive changes. The revolution ultimately freed millions of Chinese peasants from serfdom which laying the foundations for modern China which is undoubtedly better than warlord China or China under the Guomindang. Wealth was redistributed as many landlords were stripped of their land during the Agrarian Reform Law and shared out between the peasants. He improved the rights of women introducing new laws to stop old practices and give them more rights e.g. husbands and wives jointly owned property. Literacy rates rocketed and the people were much better organised to maximise their working power. It is even fair to say his harsh dictatorship was needed to keep China stable as if critics were allowed to speak openly it could have plunged China into chaos once again.

To conclude, the evidence suggests that although it was not all his fault and there were some successes, most of his big policies ended with millions killed and failed mainly and his Cultural Revolution was ultimately to get him more power no matter how many were killed and just caused chaos with no positives for the country as a whole.