7 Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong was dictator of China from 1943 to 1976. Mao’s plan was to make China a superpower country. Mao also said he would turn China into a powerful country that could match the United States and the Soviet Union. In the process however, he created the greatest famine and genocide in history. Under Mao’s rule China endured a series of economic disasters and political terrorism. Millions of Chinese died by execution, starvation and committing suicide. Tens of millions were sent to labor camps. 5 Million were executed. Mao turned neighbors against neighbors and sons and daughters against their teachers and parents. Mao used fear to root out every last hint of dissent. A criticism uttered in private could lead to public humiliation, torture or death. The famine killed about 30 to 45 million people. Millions died from disease. Another 700,000 committed suicide out of fear of Mao. Mao lead 2 Great Leap Forwards which was a plan to use China’s vast population to rapidly transform the country from an rural economy into a modern communist society. Both combined killed 40 to 50 million people. Millions of children were also killed. If children stole food, they would have their fingers chopped off. Mao once lead a revolution that everyone in China was supposed to accept, but if you opposed the revolution, you would either be imprisoned for many years, tortured or executed. People were expected to work till they dropped. People were beaten up and tortured if they could not do their work and if they were late going to work. People were also beaten up if they said something that made Mao or his men angry. Mao’s brutal men had methods of torture like whipping, burning people with incense or with flame of a kerosene lamp and nailing a person’s palms to a table and then to insert bamboo splints under fingernails. Mao killed 70 million people. Mao died in 1976 after suffering from a nervous system disease.
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