Chairman Mao's Reign of Terror--Finally the Truth Comes Out

Crosswalk.com ^ | October 20, 2005 | Albert Mohler

[RayChuang88]

Our moral imagination is haunted by monsters--and the greatest aspect of this horror is the fact that so many monsters are real. Is the world ready to face the reality of Mao Zedong?

For the last seven decades or so, Mao has been a focus of admiration among many on the Left. Many Americans have known Mao primarily through the work of sympathetic biographers who became champions of the Chinese Communist regime. For many others, Mao has remained a man of mystery, whose true character and legacy have been hidden from Western eyes. All that is about to change. The publication of Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday will force a radical reformulation of Western understandings of Mao--and the book is virtually certain to exercise a vast influence within China as well.

[RayChuang88]

Having just finished this AWESOME book, it brings back memories of the horrors of China under Mao Zedung's rule--especially the recollections of relatives and family friends who lived through it all.

Between the labor camps, the misguided Great Leap Forward, and the horrors of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, is it small wonder why untold millions of Chinese were killed by labor camps, famine and flat-out genocidal liquidation? The original Soviet estimate published in 1976 of 56,000,000 killed during the time of Mao's rule was probably not far from the truth, either.

And you openly wonder why the Left still embraces Mao Zedung as a great leader, even though we now know the truth.

[highlander_UW]

And you openly wonder why the Left still embraces Mao Zedung as a great leader, even though we now know the truth.

I don't wonder...the Left embraces a culture of death...Mao was just very efficient in their eyes...and, of course, the Left can embrace him because he was an enemy of the US.

[sauropod]

mark

[AmericaUnited]

The original Soviet estimate published in 1976 of 56,000,000 killed during the time of Mao's rule was probably not far from the truth, either. Mao made Hitler look like 'just some cranky dude' by comparison. Multiply 56,000,000 by 2,3,4, or 5, the number of living family and/or friends of the dead, and you get the number of people affected by this monster.

[RayChuang88]

In my personal opinion, the number of people killed for political reasons by labor camps, forced famine and outright genocide by Communist regimes during the 20th Century is at least ten to fourteen times the number killed for political reasons during the Nazi era. It is only now that we are finally seeing the sheer horror of the utter and complete evil that was Communism.

[proudofthesouth]

I'm hoping that one of my bookclubs will be offering this book. If not I can add it to the list of books that I want to get by the end of the year.

[trek]

The joke's on him. I have been to Tienanmien Square where he is entombed. If Mao could see through the walls he would see Colonel Sanders smiling down on him. (I kid you not) I half suspect the Chinese did this on purpose. They have a long tradition of this sort of subtle humiliation of their leaders.

[Spok]

The slaughter of 56 million means no more to the left than a liberal president who is accused of rape. The Marxist concept that no sacrifice is too great or immoral so long as the cause is advanced has permeated liberal/Democratic thinking. They ARE useful IDIOTS!

[hauerf]

"It is only now that we are finally seeing the sheer horror of the utter and complete evil that was Communism."

But only people whose eyes are open have seen anything. Hardly any leftists (eg, the stranded fifth columnists in media, education, and the Demoncratic party) have seen anything at all.

[Thermalseeker]

It is only now that we are finally seeing the sheer horror of the utter and complete evil that was Communism.

Was? Did I miss something? My observation is that Communism is alive and well all over the globe.......

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

BTTT

My wife has told me some incredible stories of what she and her family went through in the Cultural Revolution.

I've been to China a few times, and one of the things that amazes me is that Mao's picture still hangs on the wall of many households there, mostly in the rural areas.

Happily, much of the younger generation has no love for him, and maybe the time will come in the near future when Mao will finally be buried (physically and figuratively).

[Reconray]

Could Christiana Amanpour of CNN be todays Simone de Beauvoir

[yarddog]

I have an old "Guiness Book of World Records" somewhere which lists the worlds greatest murderers.

I was not surprised to see Chairman Mao listed as number one. They claim 60 million. Not sure where their figures come from but the surely must have had some proof of the claim.

[IronJack]

you openly wonder why the Left still embraces Mao Zedung as a great leader

For the same reason they embrace Karl Marx as a great thinker and remain silent on the predations of Josef Stalin and Fidel Castro. For the same reason they revere the cowardly Che Guevara and the sleazy Eva Peron. Part of it is a misplaced sense of romanticism; they glorify these vermin as "little people" who fought the Establishment and won. Never mind that few accomplished anything on their own; they stole it from someone else or married it. And their accomplishments are always promissory notes payable in somebody else's blood.

More than that, they are all proof that socialism can ascend. Now, granted, it makes a mess of everything it touches, but the pantheon of liberal heros reminds the vanishing liberal that even idiots can still have hope.

[combat_boots]

"I don't wonder...the Left embraces a culture of death...Mao was just very efficient in their eyes..."

How right you are. I specifically remember 2 aging hippies, who held position and power in IT for Ohio, looked me straight in the eye and laughed, when one of them specifically said, "Remember. Hitler was an overachiever."

In shock, I turned and walked away. These 2 were in POWER, endorsed by Ohio government at the time.

[Travis McGee]

bttt

[holden]

Before I was old enough to know better, our elementary school teachers were all-too-willing to have us go out to the local bookstores to spend our paperboy, detasselling, and lawn mowing money to buy Mao's little red books.

It was disgusting.

HF

[RayChuang88]

I think once the Communist government of Fidel Castro ends we will finally find out that Castro was just a bad a tyrranical thug as Stalin and Mao Zedung ever was. It could take decades to undo what Castro did to that country--a country that could have been the economic superpower of Latin America had that country been a proper representative republic.