The economy boomed under Mao, too, if you think about it. China went from decades of war - Boxer Rebellion, civil war, Japanese occupation, civil war - to a fam

The economy boomed under Mao, too, if you think about it. China went from decades of war - Boxer Rebellion, civil war, Japanese occupation, civil war - to a famine that was entirely unsurprising considering the scope of what had happened in the previous 50 years. Mao ended that and put the country on the path to what they are today.