Mao

Mao Zedong died on this day in 1976. Described variously as a dictator or 'Communist leader', the latter a contradiction in terms, at least he was correct to point out in 1949, the year the People's Republic of China was founded, that the new society would not be Socialist:

"To counter imperialist oppression and raise her backward economy to a higher level, China must utilize all the factors of urban and rural capitalism that are beneficial and not harmful to the national economy and people's livelihood...Our present policy is to regulate capitalism, not to destroy it."

Mao also stated that such development would mean "several decades of hardship". Mao was right but, of course, wrong about the timescale: the hardship continues. The true level of suffering though beggars belief:

"..In the purges carried out since 1949 the total number executed is estimated at well over 10 000 000.." (The Western Socialist, January-February, 1955). Note the date of publication, over a decade before Mao launched the Cultural revolution! That same article concludes:

"While someday the Chinese will produce automobiles instead of rickshaws, will produce all the various consumer and capital goods that the industralized West produces, and the commissars of the "People's Democracy" will delude them with the propaganda that they have advanced into Socialism, the status of the Chinese workers will still be that of workers of the world over - wage slaves for a master class. Until this relationship is done away with there will be no Socialism."

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