6. The Suffering Inflicted by Mao Was Just a Part of China’s Suffering in the Twentieth Century
The preceding entries on Mao’s screw-ups, with one bad idea from the Chairman following another, barely capture just how tragic the twentieth century was for China. Mao did a number on the Chinese in the second half of that century, but things had been bad in the first half as well. First, there was a foreign invasion to crush the Boxer Rebellion. Then came a revolution that overthrew the imperial rule, only to replace it with decades of warlord anarchy. Then came civil war between nationalists and communists. All of that took place against a backdrop of natural disasters that killed millions.
Things were made worse by a Japanese invasion that killed millions more Chinese before World War II had even begun. China ended up on WWII’s winning side, but things did not improve when the conflict ended. The civil war resumed and went into high gear, and ended in a communist victory. Once the communists took over, Mao adopted idiotic policies – from the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution – that killed tens of millions of Chinese. Then in July 1976, as an aging Mao’s hold on power began to loosen – he died a few months later – China was rocked by the twentieth century’s deadliest earthquake.
