Did Mao Zedong commit genocide?

Who is Mao Zedong?

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia regarding Mao Zedong (a.k.a. – Mao Tse-Tung):

Conversely, Mao’s socio-political programs, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, are blamed for causing severe famine and damage to the culture, society and economy of China. Mao’s policies and political purges from 1949–1975 are widely believed to have caused the deaths of tens of millions of people.

I don’t know if I’d call it genocide but it would qualify as mass murder in my opinion.

He didn’t commit genocide as the definition of genocide is the planned murder of a certain race/community. However, as @Bluefreedom did point out above, he did commit mass murder. His Great Leap Forward alone accounts for at least 20 million deaths. You can be sure that throughout his alsmot-30-year reign, he killed lots more people (for example, in his anti-Rightist purges and in the Cultural Revolution).

This man simply wasn’t afraid to sacrifice lives. In fact, he even shocked people like Khrushchev when he basically said that it didn’t matter if China got nuked because they had so many people and would replace the numbers in no time.

Perhaps the only reason why you’d think it’s genocide is because the Chinese are a pretty homogenous people. But no, Mao didn’t exclude other groups such as Tibetans from his policies (I suppose you could argue a case for genocide there though, I read that he wanted to wipe out Tibetan culture and “Sinocise” them. Read up more on the Great Leap Forward in Tibet).

Chairman Mao committed cultural genocide at the very least.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic That’s true. Eurgh.. It pains me to think of thousands of years of civilisation lost like that.. That man was a tyrant…

Chairman Mao was a dick!

Mao Ze-Dong – how obvious is that?!?

lol @Cartman – silly.

@Cartman you’re too clever

Genocide is defined as: A deliberate extermination of an ethnic or political group.
The reason most people don’t know that is because ethnic genocide is much more popular. That’s why people know who Hitler is and not Mao.
@Cartman my friend, I give you the rofl-copter salute…

He was scared of losing his power so he tried to wipe out anyone who was smarter than him, or had the potential to be. He also destroyed literature. Many people were killed. The Chinese think of him as a hero though. They praise him for unifying china and forgive him of his “mistake”. I have been to monuments in China where the people basically pray to him, bow down and worship him. Very interesting for me as an American.

@wickedbetty Very interesting indeed.
From afar, and by afar I mean someone who does not live in China, it seems that Mao’s indoctrination is very much alive and well in China. Mao has truly captured the essence of immortality.
Doesn’t immortality suck?

Now let me ask a new question for anyone who happens to still be following this question- Do you think that Annita Dunn should be fired from her job in the whitehouse for claiming that Mao is one of her favorite philosophers?

@w2pow2 No. Freedom of speech is included here.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic If someone said that they admired Hitler, would you want that person to have a government job?

@w2pow2 If you’re that concerned about it, I’d recommend writing your local congressperson and/or house representative.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic I’m more interested in why you aren’t concerned about it. You’re an American, right?