Was Mao a dictator? A good leader? A revisionist?

[fa2991]

I don't know as much about him as I should. Anyone care to fill me in? :lol:

[Jazzhands]

I don't know as much about him as I should. Anyone care to fill me in? :lol:

dictator, without a doubt. The leader of a one-party state is always a dictator. Difference is, there was a lot more room for disagreement with him than in Stalin's CPSU. At least, that's the impression I get. But as the leader of the party, that makes him a dictator.

Good leader? I don't really think so. His major policies were the Cultural Revolution (nothing good came out of that except some really awesome art-mostly propaganda-at the cost of the suppression of classic Chinese literature like Confucius), the Great Leap Forward (which caused massive famine). So really, the failure of his policies led to the Party recognizing that their policies weren't working and that the only way to save their dominance was capitalist restoration. They thought that capitalism was the only way forward from those policies, forgetting things like Tito's workers' self-management plan in Yugoslavia.

Revisionist? If you recall, he was the one who went on that witch-hunt against revisionists along with Enver Hoxha and turned it into a meaningless slur for anyone who ever criticizes Glorious Leader Comrade Stalin. He is to revisionism as McCarthy is to communism.

[fa2991]

dictator, without a doubt. The leader of a one-party state is always a dictator. Difference is, there was a lot more room for disagreement with him than in Stalin's CPSU. At least, that's the impression I get. But as the leader of the party, that makes him a dictator.

I don't know if that's really fair - one party just means a singular ideology, which is basically how it should be. Now, if no one else wanted him leading the party, that might make him a dictator...


Revisionist? If you recall, he was the one who went on that witch-hunt against revisionists along with Enver Hoxha and turned it into a meaningless slur for anyone who ever criticizes Glorious Leader Comrade Stalin. He is to revisionism as McCarthy is to communism.Didn't Hoxha accuse him of being a revisionist? (But, then again, who didn't Hoxha accuse of being a revisionist? :p)

[Jazzhands]

I don't know if that's really fair - one party just means a singular ideology, which is basically how it should be. Now, if no one else wanted him leading the party, that might make him a dictator...

We already had a thread where we unanimously decided Tito was a dictator, despite his immense popularity. Refer to that. Also, one party doesn't mean a singular ideology, since China has had Maoism AND capitalist restoration since the CCP took over. One party means one party, nothing else.


Didn't Hoxha accuse him of being a revisionist? (But, then again, who didn't Hoxha accuse of being a revisionist? :p)

you answered your own question there.:)

[fa2991]

We already had a thread where we unanimously decided Tito was a dictator, despite his immense popularity. Refer to that. Also, one party doesn't mean a singular ideology, since China has had Maoism AND capitalist restoration since the CCP took over. One party means one party, nothing else.

That was my thread, actually. That's different because Tito was legally/constitutionally "leader for life" or whatever in communist Yugoslavia's founding documents. I don't know if Mao was.

Yes, the singular ideology of the party. If the party takes a turn for the worse, like under Deng Xiapong...


you answered your own question there.:)

:D

[the last donut of the night]

A dictator?!

Everybody knows Mao's diet comprised of dead children, cute furry panda bears, and old little grannies.
:rolleyes:

[NoOneIsIllegal]

All I know is RevLeft members quote him too much. Overrated.
PS: not looking forward to the vegan marxists response to this thread :rolleyes:
PPS: I know i contribute nothing. huzzah!

[fa2991]

PS: not looking forward to the vegan marxists response to this thread :rolleyes:
PPS: I know i contribute nothing. huzzah!

:laugh::thumbup1:

[The Vegan Marxist]

dictator, without a doubt. The leader of a one-party state is always a dictator. Difference is, there was a lot more room for disagreement with him than in Stalin's CPSU. At least, that's the impression I get. But as the leader of the party, that makes him a dictator.

Good leader? I don't really think so. His major policies were the Cultural Revolution (nothing good came out of that except some really awesome art-mostly propaganda-at the cost of the suppression of classic Chinese literature like Confucius), the Great Leap Forward (which caused massive famine). So really, the failure of his policies led to the Party recognizing that their policies weren't working and that the only way to save their dominance was capitalist restoration. They thought that capitalism was the only way forward from those policies, forgetting things like Tito's workers' self-management plan in Yugoslavia.

Congratulations, you're an idiot! (http://kasamaproject.org/2009/10/02/chinas-maoist-revolution-living-laboratory-of-socialist-liberation-and-communist-goals/)


Revisionist? He is to revisionism as McCarthy is to communism.

Excuse me. You're an idiot who at least got one thing right. :thumbup1:

[Prairie Fire]

Must be a new thread. I'm surprised that more Maoists and more critics haven't replied.

I was formerly a Maoist around the time when I was in highschool/very soon after graduation. Since leaving Maoism, I am what most refer to as a "Hoxhaist" (for the sake of differentiation and avoiding confusion on revleft, we will continue to use that term,), which is a trend that historically is notable for the denouncing of the Peoples Republic of China along with the Americans and Soviets.

Given all of this background, and the history of the schisms and ideological struggle within the global Marxist-Leninist movement, I will give you the contemporary Marxist-Leninist analysis on Mao, which rejects opportunistic attacks and sycophantic flattery, in favour of a more politically honest position.

Mao Tse Tung was a revolutionary figure, who played a progressive role in the development of China

He played a substantial role in the liberation of China from the Japanese fascist occupation, as well as from the domestic kuomintang government of Chiang Kai Shek, the landlords, foriegn imperialists, and vestigial traces of feudal aristocracy.

He was head of state of a new,revolutionary state established in China, which was progressive and made many gains for the working people. Millions were freed from Serfdom, feudalism and the oppression of womyn were dismantled, literacy and education were made available to all, social wealth was redistributed to those that had produced it, regular annual starvation was combatted, and many social programs and legislation were put into place for the benefit of the working people.

The Chinese played a positive role supporting liberation movements in Indochina, Korea, and greatly contributing needed materials and goods to the socialist nation building project in Albania.

Many of the crimes that are now placed at the feet of Mao Tse Tung by the bourgeois press are without foundation, including the telephone number body counts, and blaming the results of natural disasters and agricultural failures ( annual occurances in many parts of China, predating the revolution,) on the political leadership of the CCP, excesses during the cultural revolution,etc.

On the other hand, Mao Tse Tung was not a Marxist-Leninist (contrary to initial assumptions).He made many mistakes, and to illustrate these, I will point to some texts on the subject.

EDIT: Instead of reprinting whole texts, I will give links, because I realize that by reading all of these sources, a full picture emerges.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=51
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/imp_ch4.htm
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/imp_ch5.htm
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/imp_ch6.htm
http://redrebelde.blogspot.com/2008/09/enver-hoxhas-reflections-on-china-part_08.htm (http://redrebelde.blogspot.com/2008/09/enver-hoxhas-reflections-on-china-part_08.html)l (http://redrebelde.blogspot.com/2008/09/enver-hoxhas-reflections-on-china-part_08.html)
http://redrebelde.blogspot.com/2008/09/enver-hoxhas-reflections-on-china-part_10.html
http://redrebelde.blogspot.com/2008/09/enver-hoxhas-reflections-on-china-part_11.html
http://coffeemarxist.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/extracts-letter-from-the-cc-of-the-party-of-labor-of-albania-to-the-cc-of-the-communist-party-of-china-1978/

[Adi Shankara]

I was formerly a Maoist around the time when I was in highschool/very soon after graduation. Since leaving Maoism, I am what most refer to as a "Hoxhaist"

well...that certainly explains alot. :lol:

[CJCM]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/chinese-revolutionary-history-t133079/index.html?

[Jazzhands]

Congratulations, you're an idiot! (http://kasamaproject.org/2009/10/02/chinas-maoist-revolution-living-laboratory-of-socialist-liberation-and-communist-goals/)

That's a real impartial and reliable source you've provided.:rolleyes:

Also, I have officially run into my first GracchusBabeuf negrep on Revleft. His wise counsel has informed me that I am, and I quote, an "anti-Mao anti-worker bourgeois fascist imperialist class traitor."

How very intellectual.

[The Vegan Marxist]

That's a real impartial and reliable source you've provided.:rolleyes:

Also, I have officially run into my first GracchusBabeuf negrep on Revleft. His wise counsel has informed me that I am, and I quote, an "anti-Mao anti-worker bourgeois fascist imperialist class traitor."

How very intellectual.

Yeah, well, I didn't call you a bourgeois fascist imperialist class traitor, I just called you an idiot & provided a link to you that gives a concrete analysis over the ruling of Mao, the Cultural Revolution, etc. And is backed up with sources! So yes, the source is reliable enough.

[28350]

Wait, does anyone deny that he was a dictator?
I mean, I'm more or less pro-Mao, but I'm not gonna come out and say that he was a glorious conduit for the voice of the people

[Antifa94]

I'm pretty sure that Mao led a United Front of left wing parties.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

You could argue that he was all three of those things.

I'd say he was definitely a brilliant leader in the early days of the Chinese revolution.

[scarletghoul]

Wait, does anyone deny that he was a dictator?
I mean, I'm more or less pro-Mao, but I'm not gonna come out and say that he was a glorious conduit for the voice of the people
If he really had dictatorial powers why do you think so much of his work is targetted at 'rightists' or 'ultra-leftist tendencies' within the party, and so on and why do you think there was so much change in economic policies throughout the 50s 60s and 70s ? There was a lot of debate, especially within the party, and oftentimes Mao didn't get his way (after the great leap he was pushed down from power a bit by Liu and Deng, for example).

[Vampire Lobster]

dictator, without a doubt. The leader of a one-party state is always a dictator. Difference is, there was a lot more room for disagreement with him than in Stalin's CPSU. At least, that's the impression I get. But as the leader of the party, that makes him a dictator.

Okay, seriously, that logic down there is just odd. I mean, you're claiming "the leader of a one-party state is always a dictator", which essentially means the leader of a one-party state always has a more or less total control over the state. That being the very definition of dictator. But you, somehow, manage to totally skip the idea that perhaps, perhaps the control over PRC might've been in the hands of a much broader party vanguard than merely just Mao and that decisions made there would be result of the party consensus, not just sporadic whims of the Chairman. That's essentially how the situation is in contemporary China and Hu is generally not seen as a dictator. You really need to give a second thought there on things, your definitions are honestly fucked up and your understanding of the situation somewhat simplified.

But still, that doesn't really the address the actual point; was Mao a dictator? I don't believe so. He was pretty damn strong within the Party, but he surely did not have complete power there. You remember what happened after the Great Leap Forward? Mao was essentially just pushed aside. He was kicked out of his State Chairman post and the responsibility for economic planning was given to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. For couple of years, Mao essentially was a persona non grata within the Party, openly attacked and not really consulted at all. That simply doesn't happen to dictators and for a good while, Liu was pretty much the most influential man in the Party and very popular due to success of his reforms. The atmosphere and decision-making tradition within the Party was far too open for any dictatorial ambitions before the bloody rage of the Cultural Revolution. And during the Cultural Revolution, student oclocracy was essentially the way to go and even though Mao was revered, there's no way anyone controlled that shit. Mao had to call in PLA, after all. And yeah, to the end Mao still pretty much needed the approval of his Party vanguard to get anything done, even though there was no means of actually taking away his position again. But the system was really quite different from your generic post-World War II socialist experiment.

[Dimentio]

You cannot be a bad leader if you are preservering during over 20 years of civil war and foreign intervention, constantly is defeated and yet ends up triumphant against an opponent many times your size.

As a military leader, Mao was probably not the best tactician or the best strategist, but he managed to hold out.

As a political leader, he was probably one of the most skilled of the 20th century.

His economic policies though, were badly thought out, sloppily implemented and sometimes subordinate to even petty political goals (like slapping opponents within the party in the face).

He was also a ruthless human being, most likely with several psychopatic traits. He didn't tell his daughter in law that her husband - his son - had died in the Korean war, and during the childhood of his sons, he treated them badly and indifferently (in a culture where a son is the most precious thing in the world). When he was in his early twenties, he wrote a poem where he claimed that he wanted to do whatever he wished to do, no matter the emotions of anyone else.

I would say that he is a great political figure, like for example the first Ming Emperor, but hardly a man who lived as he preached.

[RadioRaheem84]

I never understood the notion of what compromised a dictator to American and Western leaders. I've always seen a lot of the leaders of Communist nations as always in a state of war considering their situation much like Lincoln during the Civil War. It's not like they call him a dictator (although Southern Revisionists do).

[Os Cangaceiros]

A dictator (to American leaders) is someone who aforementioned American leaders dislike and seek containment of.

That seems like a pretty simple definition to me.

[RedTrackWorker]

The book The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution provides the background for understanding where Mao's politics came from, which the section "The Triumph of Maoist Stalinism" in the article "China's Capitalist Revolutions" on the LRP website describes very briefly: A working-class upsurge in the late twenties was defeated in China, due to the policies of the Stalinist Comintern. This defeat isolated the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the working class, and instead of thinking, "What went wrong? How can a working-class policy be re-established?" as Chen Duxiu did (he was a co-founder of the CCP and after said defeat, joined the Trotskyist movement), instead of that, Mao theoretically justified the isolation from the working class and emphasized an approach based on rural struggle. The rule of the Maoists was not workers' rule. For a time, Mao used anti-imperialist rhetoric but when he could make a deal with the U.S., he was then telling "revolutionaries" to support it against Russia! And now the Chinese ruling class functions to sell Chinese workers' labor power on the global market by keeping them under control (Wall Street understands this even if some on the "left" blind themselves to it)--with no fundamental change in the social base of the regime since Mao's rule. If one understands his regime as being a form of capitalism that adopted the cloak of communism, one can understand this. If one claims Mao as a revolutionary or progressive, one has to twist history and Marxist theory to do so.

[Dimentio]

The book The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution provides the background for understanding where Mao's politics came from, which the section "The Triumph of Maoist Stalinism" in the article "China's Capitalist Revolutions" on the LRP website describes very briefly: A working-class upsurge in the late twenties was defeated in China, due to the policies of the Stalinist Comintern. This defeat isolated the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the working class, and instead of thinking, "What went wrong? How can a working-class policy be re-established?" as Chen Duxiu did (he was a co-founder of the CCP and after said defeat, joined the Trotskyist movement), instead of that, Mao theoretically justified the isolation from the working class and emphasized an approach based on rural struggle. The rule of the Maoists was not workers' rule. For a time, Mao used anti-imperialist rhetoric but when he could make a deal with the U.S., he was then telling "revolutionaries" to support it against Russia! And now the Chinese ruling class functions to sell Chinese workers' labor power on the global market by keeping them under control (Wall Street understands this even if some on the "left" blind themselves to it)--with no fundamental change in the social base of the regime since Mao's rule. If one understands his regime as being a form of capitalism that adopted the cloak of communism, one can understand this. If one claims Mao as a revolutionary or progressive, one has to twist history and Marxist theory to do so.

How large was the urban working class in China in the 1920's to 1950's? In Russia, it was at least around 8-10%.

[AK]

All I know is RevLeft members quote him too much. Overrated.
In all fairness, he has said some wise and sorta inspirational things like "women hold up half the sky".

[RedTrackWorker]

How large was the urban working class in China in the 1920's to 1950's? In Russia, it was at least around 8-10%.

Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution is on marxists internet archive (I can't post links yet) and its second chapter, "Problems of the Chinese Revolution", takes up this question. As he says: "The political role of the proletariat in Chinese society was determined more by its specific gravity than by its bulk in relation to the rest of the population." They are similar in their relative proportion as well, but as he points out, the Russian workers' state existed and that gave the Chinese working class great strength!



Yet it is interesting to note that the factory population of Russia in 1905 was one and a half million, and the workers in city and village together were estimated at ten million.[21] The industrial spurt in China during and just after the war created a class of factory workers estimated at about one and a half million. Industrial workers, inclusive of the factory population, were put, in 1927, at about two and three-quarter million, and the handicraft workers at more than eleven million.[22] Even when properly weighted for distribution and density of population and taken in conjunction with the disparate totals, these figures nevertheless reveal a striking similarity. There was a similarity, too, in the militancy and combative qualities of the Russian and Chinese workers. The latter had only come into being as a class during the war, and the first unions, in the modern sense, appeared only in 1918. Yet a year later China’s working class was already intervening in the political life of the country, striking in support of Nationalist students against the Japanese rape of Shantung and the treachery at Versailles. Six years later one million workers participated in strikes, many of them on the basis of directly political demands. Two years after that the Chinese unions counted nearly three million members and the Shanghai workers carried out a victorious insurrection that placed power in their grasp. The intensity of this unprecedented growth was in part a source of weakness, yet it was also expressive of the profound reservoirs of strength of the Chinese working class, for all its youth. Here mere comparison must end and Give way to the criterion of historical continuity. One of the deepest sources of this strength was the fact that the Russian working class had already triumphed and already ruled over the first Workers’ State in the world.

If the Chinese workers were comparatively weak because they were so young as a class, they were far stronger than the Russian workers had been before them precisely because this Workers’ State now existed as a gigantic objective factor in the class struggle viewed on a world scale.

[Apoi_Viitor]

While I don't really care for (or pay attention to) the idealogical views of Mao Zedong, Maoist China was as anti-proletariat as it gets. Sure he helped pave the way towards the current (inegalitarian) prosperity China now sees, but was it really worth 30~ million lives? I understand that Mao was (partially...) unaware of how disastrous his policies were, and even if (as others have explained) he wasn't a dictator, he was far from being a "good leader".

[Saorsa]

This question has been debated many times on Revleft. I'd suggest this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/new-democracy-t136648/index.html) as a good start, if you want to learn about Maoism in China and Maoism today simultaneously. It's not a good idea to take the bourgeois approach and focus on Mao the individual - instead, he should always be seen as the leading figure in a mass movement of millions.

This is a good list of useful books (http://www.revleft.com/vb/chinese-revolutionary-history-t133079/index.html?) if you're keen to do some serious study.

I'd suggest you look at the 'Situation in Nepal' section if you want to learn about Maoism - it focuses mainly on the revolution currently taking place over there, but wider issues of Maoist theory and history get debated quite regularly.

Here are some of my thoughts.

China was under the control of a revolutionary state apparatus controlled by the Communist Party of China, a revolutionary organisation created, built and led by the workers and poor peasants. An organisation formed in the class struggle of the Chinese cities (Mao began as a trade union organiser), which gradually extended its influence into the countryside and sunk deep roots amongst hundreds of millions of struggling peasants. An organisation which waged a revolutionary armed struggle for decades, which became a movement of hundreds of millions of people consciously and creatively seizing history and changing China's path towards socialism and ultimately communism.

The Communist Party was under the control of the masses from it's beginnings right up to 1949 and beyond. In the decades that followed the revolution, class struggle was reflected inside the Communist Party - large sections of the cadres and the leadership became seperated from the masses and hostile to their interests. These people sought to consolidate the bourgeois revolution and defer the socialist revolution until some indefinite later point. They represented the forces of the counter-revolution, the Thermidor, the capitalist restoration.

Opposed to them were Mao, the Four ( Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen) and the hundreds of millions of workers, peasants, and young people who threw themselves into the greatest mass movement in history - the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Arguing that there was no going back, that the masses of working people were in control and that this had to be developed and consolidated in new ways, they sought to destroy the counter-revolutionary forces in society and create a new generation of committed revolutionary communists who could carry on this struggle indefinitely.

Communist Party branches across China were dissolved and replaced with new, younger and radical branches. Cadres of the party and state employees had to face the criticism of the ordinary working people in mass meetings, and those who did not satisfy the people were driven from their posts. Three in one committees were formed, where workers elected representatives to administrate the workplace, shop floor workers were involved in every step of the decision making process and everyone was involved in both shop floor work AND administrative work.

This struggle, of course, did not proceed evenly across China. In some areas it was blocked from happening at all, where the capitalist forces were strongest. In some areas counter-revolutionary elements in the party, representing the interests of the emerging new bourgeoisie, pretended to be supporters of the GPCR and formed 'Red Guard' groups of their own, which clashed with genuine Red Guard forces. In some areas, despite Mao's calls not to do this, intellectuals, cadres and state employees were subjected to violence and unnecessarily harsh treatment by the revolutionaries. But revolutions are messy by their very nature - they do not proceed smoothly or in a straight line.

Another great problem with GPCR, perhaps its main problem, was that the decision was made to leave the PLA out of it. There were grave problems with bourgeois forces controlling the military, and particularly with the emergence of a privileged, unelected officer corps that lorded it over the ordinary soldiers. Had the GPCR been extended to the army, had the ordinary soldiers waged a struggle to identify, expose and throw out the reactionary elements in their ranks and in particular among their officers, history could have played out completely differently. But at a time when the USSR was massing troops on China's borders and threatening it with nuclear weapons, and at a time when China was surrounded by imperialist threats on all sides, the decision was made that China could not afford to weaken its military and introduce the chaos of the GPCR to the PLA - it would have made China ripe for invasion.

This decision was probably wrong, although history is far too simple to just single out a handful of factors that led to a counter-revolution and then claim they are universal. But when Mao died, and the reactionary elements moved against the Four and the revolutionary movement they represented, the PLA had been turned into a top down army where the soldiers obeyed the officers without question, and the workers, peasants and students who resisted the revisionist coup were shot down like dogs.

Many Western leftists like to think they can tell the naive, stupid, sheeplike workers of the Third World how their revolution 'must' be carried out. And, of course, it must be carried out exactly like the revolution in Russia was - coincidentally enough, the only Marxist revolution which has taken place in a mostly white country and coincidentally enough, the only Marxist revolution which has taken place in a country that is even close to being part of the Western imperialist states. Many on the Western left have nothing but contempt for the workers and peasants of the Third World, and dismiss the ability of these workers and peasants to construct their own Communist Party's, their own vehicles of liberation, and to do so in a manner that fits the unique conditions of their particular countries. Maoism rejects this approach.

That's what happened in China. A massive, revolutionary party emerged from the struggles of hundreds of millions of people, and led a revolutionary process that spanned almost 80 years, from the formation of the party in 1921 to the counter-revolution in the mid-to-late 70s. This revolution destroyed the power of the bourgeoisie and the landlords, and drove out foreign imperialism. It then went through the tortuous process of building a new kind of society, a society which could not and should never have replicated what was done in Russia as it is clear to everyone that did not work!

The Chinese revolution failed, like every other revolution to this point. Most revolutions fail even to seize state power, and nowhere has it been successfully held against the threat of counter-revolution afterwards. But the Chinese experience, and in particular the GPCR, offers a rich set of lessons for revolutionaries to learn from around the world, and around the world that is exactly what's happening, particularly in the revolutions emerging right now in Nepal, India, the Philippines and throughout South Asia.

As the 21st century revolutions unfold, either in Nepal and India or somewhere else (these revolutions may well be defeated), as imperialism suffers defeats around the world, a new communist movement will emerge in response to this and I am hopeful and confident that it will not have anything to do with the kind of sectarian, dogmatic bullshit that sums up most of the Western left today. I'm confident that the second New Communist Movement will be heavily influenced by the most revolutionary ideology in the world today - Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

[L.A.P.]

Every leader has his bad traits but overall I :thumbup1: of Mao Zedong.

[RedStarOverChina]

He was a dictator, a humanitarian, a liberator, a bandit, a poet, a fighter, a thinker, a strategist, a rebel, an authoritarian figure---all that and much more.

[∞]

He played a substantial role in the liberation of China from the Japanese fascist occupation, as well as from the domestic kuomintang government of Chiang Kai Shek, the landlords, foriegn imperialists, and vestigial traces of feudal aristocracy.

I'm sorry, but this section is riddled with opportunism. You are acting as if the movements against feudal landlords and Imperial Japan (NOT FASCIST PEOPLE HERE REALLY NEED TO STOP OVER-USING THE TERM) were carried out single handily by Mao. I believe it was the power of the working class that brought such change.

This is the same kind of thing they do with Stalin "He won ww2." It was the bravery of the courage of the soviet troops (and some cold ass winter) that defeated the fascists.
There is no denying he is a dictator. 1. He had no term. 2. He made 90% of decisions 3.HE IS ONE GODAMNIT!

[Marxach-Léinínach]

He was a good leader until 1969 I think. From then until 1976 he made quite a lot of questionable decisions, to put it lightly anyway. 1949-1969 though, he was absolutely great, leading the most populous country in the world towards socialism and for that I give him :thumbup1: