TIL the founder of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, was responsible for the deaths of over 65 million people, making him the most prolific killer of the 20th century.

submitted by aThievingStableboy from heritage.org

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[–]dart200 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

most of that was famine related.

and i've heard theories that much of that famine was caused not by lack of work ethic, but actually being too successful at killing off animal species that were perceived as pests, but actually had unrealized service as pest control.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Namely swallows. The book "Mao" is a good breakdown of the entire cultural revolution. It's a dry read, but still informative.

That being said, this thread is misleading- you can't correlate "evil" to body count. If so, China would top the metrics for everything. The reality is that China is like nothing you've ever seen in terms of population. Floods that would kill 50 people in America would kill thousands in China. Famines that would wipe out villages in Europe would kill millions in China. Had Mao and Stalin switched places, Russian Mao would not be any different from Stalin; his Russian body count wouldn't skyrocket to his China numbers.

My point is that Mao needs proper context as opposed to just a body count.