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> Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed". Controversial? Good lord, Mao's Great Leap Forward killed

> Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed". Controversial? Good lord, Mao's Great Leap Forward killed between 23 and 42 million people in just a few years.

Volpe 13y ago
Okay, so Mao could be argued to be a bad idea, but there was and has been a lot of communism since Mao. Could you say the same for Deng Xiaoping (also a communist)?
- Aloisius 13y ago
  At the time of the Korean war, China was still in the Mao period. From any sane point of view at that time, communism was horrible for China. Post-Mao, well... Hua was a disaster and Deng was never a good communist. Mao himself accused Deng of being a capitalist and banished him to the countryside in the 60s. Once he finally gained power and brought back mild capitalism (really, market socialism), it still took 20 years for China to really get going.
  - Volpe 13y ago
    This is over simplistic and wrong. Mao used purging to get rid of others building power within the party. It had nothing to do with whether they were Communist (many good communists were purged). Sane points: Education, Health, both improved under communist rule.
- philwelch 13y ago
  If you define "the communists" as "the Chinese communist party", then judging from China's development they've done a fine job. This was not quite true during the 1950's, when the head of the communists was Mao. It's also questionable to define the economic system of Deng's China as "communist" in the same way as Soviet Russia and, say, Cuba.
yetanotherphd 13y ago
Only by a very loose definition of "kill" - that is, by looking at total population numbers. And overall, the communist regime saved many more people from starvation (you can also see this in the total population numbers). Starvation was common before communism (this is second hand "communist propaganda" from my father, probably originally from a similar source to the information the Korean POW's were given), but it wasn't concentrated into a few years like in the great leap forward.
wisty 13y ago
The Great Leap Forward - 1958 to 1961. The Korean War - 1950 - 1953. Until the Great Leap, Mao had done a fantastic job. Life expectancies shot up by about 15 years, as he dismantled feudalism, and established a relatively functional and stable state. Then he undid all the good he'd done, in the 1958, sending life expectancies back to ~35. Then things improved again, when Deng and co managed to contain Mao a little better (though they sometimes had ... issues). tl;dr - Mao had done a fantastic job, up to 1958, which was well after the Korean War ended.
- Aloisius 13y ago
  You're right. I completely confused the Korean war dates. Egg. Face.

Volpe 13y ago

Okay, so Mao could be argued to be a bad idea, but there was and has been a lot of communism since Mao. Could you say the same for Deng Xiaoping (also a communist)?

Aloisius 13y ago
At the time of the Korean war, China was still in the Mao period. From any sane point of view at that time, communism was horrible for China. Post-Mao, well... Hua was a disaster and Deng was never a good communist. Mao himself accused Deng of being a capitalist and banished him to the countryside in the 60s. Once he finally gained power and brought back mild capitalism (really, market socialism), it still took 20 years for China to really get going.
- Volpe 13y ago
  This is over simplistic and wrong. Mao used purging to get rid of others building power within the party. It had nothing to do with whether they were Communist (many good communists were purged). Sane points: Education, Health, both improved under communist rule.
philwelch 13y ago
If you define "the communists" as "the Chinese communist party", then judging from China's development they've done a fine job. This was not quite true during the 1950's, when the head of the communists was Mao. It's also questionable to define the economic system of Deng's China as "communist" in the same way as Soviet Russia and, say, Cuba.

yetanotherphd 13y ago

Only by a very loose definition of "kill" - that is, by looking at total population numbers. And overall, the communist regime saved many more people from starvation (you can also see this in the total population numbers). Starvation was common before communism (this is second hand "communist propaganda" from my father, probably originally from a similar source to the information the Korean POW's were given), but it wasn't concentrated into a few years like in the great leap forward.

wisty 13y ago

The Great Leap Forward - 1958 to 1961. The Korean War - 1950 - 1953. Until the Great Leap, Mao had done a fantastic job. Life expectancies shot up by about 15 years, as he dismantled feudalism, and established a relatively functional and stable state. Then he undid all the good he'd done, in the 1958, sending life expectancies back to ~35. Then things improved again, when Deng and co managed to contain Mao a little better (though they sometimes had ... issues). tl;dr - Mao had done a fantastic job, up to 1958, which was well after the Korean War ended.

Aloisius 13y ago
You're right. I completely confused the Korean war dates. Egg. Face.