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Because the CCP under Mao liberated China from foreign oppression. Now whether you might argue that it was thanks to or rather despite Mao being in leadership
by cardanome 1y ago
Because the CCP under Mao liberated China from foreign oppression.
Now whether you might argue that it was thanks to or rather despite Mao being in leadership is another matter and believe me I am in the "despite" camp but it still makes sense that he would have strong symbolic importance for the Chinese people.
People that will argue "oh he killed millions of people" need to get their head out of the cold war propaganda. I do believe his economic policy was criminal and was done against the advice of Soviet advisors but it is still not murder. His policy was idiotic, he was neglectful maybe but he did not purposefully cause a famine.
Saying it is the same or even worse are the purposeful, planned industrial scale mass murder that Hitler was responsible for under the Nazi regime is pure holocaust apologia. Plain and simple.
- cooper_ganglia 1y agoCriticizing Mao is "Holocaust apologia" because killing 45,000,000 of his citizenry was just an accident? More people died then than during the Holocaust. More people dying is objectively worse, no matter how you slice it.
- cardanome 1y agoIf I plan out how to kill someone, get the right weapon and execute on my plan, yeah that is murder. If I see a donation stand for children in Africa and decide to rather buy a video game from that money, well some children are going to starve because of my decision but I haven't exactly killed them. Blaming Mao for a famine is completely insane if you are not super brainwashed. He was a human not a god. But considering you took the highest death toll estimation you could find already shows you are not interested in facts but in pushing a narrative.
- mcv 1y agoIf only Mao had been aware that he was human and not a god. He didn't allow any criticism of his ideas, and that makes him entirely culpable for the results.
- vaidhy 1y agoThe 5 - 10 million Congolese who died under Belgian rule is probably much higher as a percentage of the population than the great leap forward. Great leap forward killed 4% of Chinese population. Vietnam war killed 10% - 12% of people in Vietnam. I do not see condemnation of US here..Rather, I see the celebration that US has a democracy.
- spauldo 1y agoThe Vietnam War caused a lot of changes politically and militarily in the US because the US is a democracy. We make a lot more effort not to go around slaughtering civilians these days. Nobody wants to be a babykiller. War has never been nice, but peace is supposed to be. It wasn't some foreign invader that killed that 4% of China's population, it was their own government - the organization whose primary purpose is to look out for their welfare.
- vasac 1y agoNot exactly. It’s just that much more effort is put into making crimes acceptable to the general public. Embedded 'independent' journalists, collateral damage, precission weapons, 'mistakes’ everywhere, and the usual ‘but we are a democracy' - along with a bunch of similar justifications. It still results in over a million deaths, but now it’s perfectly acceptable to the majority of people.
- spauldo 1y agoWell, I suppose we should start killing our own civilians then, since that seems to be what people approve of these days. "Only 4%" should be about right, yes?
- mcv 1y agoAre you sure? The US still killed a lot of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the unconditional support for Israel's intentional murder of civilians and children.
- 1y ago