The True Mao

Fire of Liberty

Here's an interesting overview by Ralph R. Reiland of Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's highly detailed and extensive biography "Mao: The Unknown Story." The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist and Robert Morris University professor has supplemented this well written book by noting the horrific details of life and suffering under Mao and his "red-book brigades." While others like Nick Kristof of the New York Times seem to find ways to excuse Mao's horrific activity and the slaughter of millions because he brought about "progress" or "made the trains run on time," Reiland seems to shoot down such non-sense that seems to run rampant in Kristof's circles with the following paragraphs:

Still, Mr. Kristof worries that Chang and Halliday might have painted too dark a picture. He wonders if the 70 million number is "accurate," and if the book unfairly excludes "exculpatory evidence" about the upside of Mao's rule.

Arguing that "Mao's legacy is not all bad," Kristof pays tribute to Mao's successes with land reform and women's rights. "Land reform in China," he writes, "like land reform in Japan and Taiwan, helped lay the groundwork for prosperity today."

What he doesn't say is that land reform in Japan and Taiwan was accomplished without the slaughter of millions of people.

Regarding women's rights, Kristof asserts that Mao "moved China from one of the worst places in the world to be a girl to one where women have more equality than in, say, Japan or Korea."

The perfect example of this enhanced equality, perhaps, is that the Chinese government has just banned this new book on Mao, for both men and women.

I suggest you read the column and check out Mao: The Unknown Story to see how much of a monster that this pudgy little man really was.