but by the time Mao died, China was a broken way-more-than-half-agrarian society, and below a lot of third world countries. Kind of like North Korea today. The

but by the time Mao died, China was a broken way-more-than-half-agrarian society, and below a lot of third world countries. Kind of like North Korea today. The best one can say is, China was a basket case before Mao, he established a strong system of central control and a level of human development ie literacy and medical care, and those paved the way for development after Mao.