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chinese culture
Do the Chinese people currently
consider Mao Zedong to be evil or
a hero?
Kaiser Kuo, Dabbler in history
"The Chinese people" are not, of course, of one mind on the
legacy of Mao. There's a range of viewpoints, from the unreconstructed
Mao worshippers who'd like nothing more than
to bring back the days of the Cultural Revolution and who believe
unequivocally that Mao was a hero to those who believe
he was an unalloyed villain, a murderous monster.
Mao takes his place in Chinese history alongside characters
like Ying Zheng, better known as Qin Shi Huang, the
first emperor of the Qin dynasty (221-209 BCe), who unified
China after the long centuries of internecine strife of the
Warring States period. Like Mao, Qin Shi Huang was ruthless
and monomaniacal, but he did unify the country. Mao saw
himself very much in this role and embraced the archetype.
other individuals who sought to unify China through force
of will and an amoral, single-minded focus would include Cao
Cao, the ruler of Wei during the Three Kingdoms period that
followed the collapse of the Han Dynasty. All three — Qin Shi
Huang, Cao Cao, and Mao — are viewed generally with the
same mixture of admiration and contempt.
If I were forced to say there's a dominant view of Mao
among mainlanders, it would be that Mao was "good" up until
the very early 1950s — before the Anti-Rightist Campaign got
into full swing, and before he set China on a course toward
collectivization. Whether or not these beliefs can be supported
by fact, it's widely believed among Chinese that Mao led
the Communist Party and its Red Army in effective resistance
against the Japanese invaders; that they represented a morally
superior vision over that offered by the Guomindang (the
nationalist Party), a vision that championed egalitarianism,
feminism, anti-imperialism, anti-feudalism, and nationalism;
and that they allowed China to "stand up" after a century of
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