Show of Hands

Yay!!! Starve people to death and shoot anyone who disagrees!!! 🇨🇳

Fake news

What did we decide on last time? He didn’t kill that many personally, and many died because of a drought or something. “the Great Leap Forward that aimed to rapidly transform China's economy from agrarian to industrial. This campaign led to the deadliest famine in history and the deaths of an estimated minimum of 45 million people between 1958 and 1962.”
During the land reform, a significant numbers of landlords and well-to-do peasants were beaten to death at mass meetings organised by the Communist Party as land was taken from them and given to poorer peasants, which significantly reduced economic inequality.
n 1976, the U.S. State department estimated as many as a million were killed in the land reform, and 800,000 killed in the counter-revolutionary campaign”

Mao himself claimed that a total of 700,000 people were killed in attacks on "counter-revolutionaries" during the years 1950–1952. However, because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution", the number of deaths range between 2 million and 5 million. In addition, at least 1.5 million people, perhaps as many as 4 to 6 million, were sent to "reform through labour" camps where many perished. Mao played a personal role in organizing the mass repressions and established a system of execution quotas, which were often exceeded. He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.

“Starting in 1951, Mao initiated two successive movements in an effort to rid urban areas of corruption by targeting wealthy capitalists and political opponents, known as the three-anti/five-anti campaigns. Whereas the three-anti campaign was a focused purge of government, industrial and party officials, the five-anti campaign set its sights slightly broader, targeting capitalist elements in general. Workers denounced their bosses, spouses turned on their spouses, and children informed on their parents; the victims were often humiliated at struggle sessions, a method designed to intimidate and terrify people to the maximum. Mao insisted that minor offenders be criticised and reformed or sent to labour camps, "while the worst among them should be shot". These campaigns took several hundred thousand additional lives, the vast majority via suicide. “

“In January 1958, Mao launched the second Five-Year Plan, known as the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives which had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger people's communes, and many of the peasants were ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and on the production of iron and steel. Some private food production was banned; livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.

Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. The combined effect of the diversion of labour to steel production and infrastructure projects, and cyclical natural disasters led to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by a further 10% decline in 1960 and no recovery in 1961.

In an effort to win favour with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party hierarchy exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them. Based upon the fabricated success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount of that fictitious harvest for state use, primarily for use in the cities and urban areas but also for export.

The result, compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, was that rural peasants were left with little food for themselves and many millions starved to death in the largest famine known as the Great Chinese Famine. This famine was a direct cause of the death of some 30 million Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962.”

Oops

In the early years after 1949 there was a certain degree of terror and violence against former landlords and counterrevolutionaries. There was no choice, whether we want to say it's good or a disappointing reality.

The Great Leap Forward exacerbated an existing famine, but it's not to blame for people not having enough food – that was the famine. That's obvious. And famine isn't the government's fault. No government is perfect, so don't act like capitalist governments never let people die during famines.

Probably a couple million people were killed, in a country of 600 million. I'm not concerned.

You’re right. He was quite the leader. Maybe when you rule with an iron fist you’re bound to get a few casualties. I think that the way they rule now is much better. Not perfect. But better.

He didn't rule with an iron fist. He governed more democratically than any other leader in Chinese history. The masses were consulted for all decision making and their real participation in the political process was huge. When establishing a democratic revolution, there will be some casualties. Too bad.

Seems pretty harsh

Democracy isn't harsh.

No, he is harsh