In praise of Mao

A member of the Obama Administration claims Mao Zedong as one of her two favorite political philosophers:

Here are some notes on Mao from wikipedia:

In Jiangxi, Mao's authoritative domination, especially that of the military force, was challenged by the Jiangxi branch of the CPC and military officers. Mao's opponents, among whom the most prominent was Li Wenlin, the founder of the CPC's branch and Red Army in Jiangxi, were against Mao's land policies and proposals to reform the local party branch and army leadership. Mao reacted first by accusing the opponents of opportunism and kulakism and then set off a series of systematic suppressions of them. Under the direction of Mao, it is reported that horrible forms of torture and killing took place.

Jung Chang and Jon Halliday claim that victims were subjected to a red-hot gun-rod being rammed into the anus and that there were many cases of cutting open the stomach and scooping out the heart. A confidential report found that a quarter of the entire Red Army under Mao at the time was slaughtered, often after being tortured. The estimated number of the victims amounted to 'tens of thousands' and could be as high as 186,000. Critics accuse Mao's authority in Jiangxi of being secured and reassured through the revolutionary terrorism, or red terrorism.

...Mao took up residence in Zhongnanhai, a compound next to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and there he ordered the construction of an indoor swimming pool and other buildings. Mao often did his work either in bed or by the side of the pool, preferring not to wear formal clothes unless absolutely necessary, according to Dr. Li Zhisui, his personal physician. (Li's book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, is regarded as controversial, especially by those sympathetic to Mao.)

In October 1950, Mao made the decision to send the People's Volunteer Army into Korea and fought against the United Nations forces led by the U.S. Historical records showed that Mao directed the PVA campaigns in the Korean War to the minute details.

Along with land reform, there were also campaigns of mass repression and public executions targeting alleged counter-revolutionaries (Zhen Fan), such as former Kuomintang officials, businessmen, former employees of Western companies, intellectuals whose loyalty was suspect, and significant numbers of rural gentry. The U.S. State department in 1976 estimated that there may have been a million killed in the land reform, 800,000 killed in the Zhen Fan campaign. Mao himself claimed that a total of 700,000 people were executed during the years 1949–53. However, because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution", the number of deaths range between 2 million and 5 million. In addition, at least 1.5 million people were sent to "reform through labour" camps. Mao played a personal role in ordering these mass executions. He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.

Starting in 1951, Mao initiated two successive movements in an effort to rid urban areas of political opposition by targeting wealthy capitalists and political opponents, known as the three-anti/five-anti campaigns. A climate of raw terror developed as workers denounced their bosses, wives turned on their husbands, and children informed on their parents; the victims often being humiliated at struggle sessions, a method designed to intimidate and terrify people to the maximum. Mao insisted that minor offenders be criticized and reformed or sent to labor camps, "while the worst among them should be shot." These campaigns took several hundred thousand lives, the vast majority via suicide.

In Shanghai, people jumping to their deaths from skyscrapers became so commonplace that they acquired the nickname 'parachutes'. Some biographers have pointed out that driving those perceived as enemies to suicide was a common tactic during the Mao-era. For example, in his biography of Mao, Philip Short notes that in the Yan'an Rectification Movement, Mao gave explicit instructions that "no cadre is to be killed," but in practice allowed security chief Kang Sheng to drive opponents to suicide and that "this pattern was repeated throughout his leadership of the People's Republic."

Let's not forget Mao's role directing the Great Leap Forward:

The first attempt to analyse this data in order to estimate the number of famine deaths was carried out by American demographer Dr Judith Banister and published in 1984. Given the lengthy gaps between the censuses and doubts over the reliability of the data, an accurate figure is difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless, Banister concluded that the official data implied that around 15 million excess deaths incurred in China during 1958-61 and that based on her modelling of Chinese demographics during the period and taking account of assumed underreporting during the famine years, the figure was around 30 million. The official statistic is 20 million deaths, as given by Hu Yaobang. Various other sources have put the figure between 20 and 72 million.

I usually try to stay away from political sniping and keep this blog focused on more economic-related matters, but this is really beyond the pale.