Communism, in my opinion, is the most evil and pernicious ideology ever to exist on this Earth. I would say without one moment's worth of hesitation that it is much more evil–and, indeed, much more dangerous–than Nazism. Why? Nazism could never have the type of worldwide appeal that communism/socialism/Marxism has; it could never fool the whole world. It is VERY easy to fool people with communism. It has a veneer of perfection to it, whereas Nazism is overtly violent, crude, and racist–communism's violence, crudity, and racism is hidden beneath layers of rhetoric, theory, and knee-jerk emotion.

I”ll stand corrected about Mao's individual character failings but the point shouldn't be lost: it is the communist system and its ideas about central planning that is the worst culprit of all.

Thanks for the feedback.

Whatever motivations Mao had and whatever his true dedication or feelings for Marxism, I believe the dynamics behind what happened during the Great Leap Forward are nevertheless examples of what happens when a market economy is taken over by central planning. And it is this that is the greatest danger of all. Indeed, it overshadows any personal failings of individuals, such as Mao, because it is a system that, like a repeatable scientific experiment, can be adopted again and again, and lead to great horror each and every time.

Thanks for your comments. I want to go back and re-read those parts in the biography as well as read your book. His desire for a “clean slate” is very similar to Pol Pot's desire to press the reset button, as it were, on Cambodian society.

Mao also had pretty much a fetish for torture.

As I see it, this is sad for two reasons: (1) left-liberals are so morally bankrupt as to need a perpetual history lesson in the crimes of communism; and (2) Hitler is the only example that works on them because he is a “right-wing” dictator, and thus politically incorrect, as opposed to a left-wing dictators, who are politically correct because they presumably believe in “social justice.”

Little do they know that Hitler had wayyy more in common with the socialist Left than he did with the American Right.

Your analysis is not really correct. Mao cared about communism only insofar as it satisfied his lust for power and domination. He had an almost sexual desire to rule–pure megalomania. He also had contempt for the peasants. Read Jan Halliday's and Jung Chang's biography of Mao. Some scholars have criticized it as too biased and polemical but you can still see Mao's self-centered philosophy in the way he lived. He would stay in bed for weeks on end, have servants wait on him hand and foot, and request large harems of girls and boys to serve his vast sexual appetite. A pure dedication to Marxism, in my opinion, played a relatively moderate role in true Maoism.

I myself am curious about how she would respond to the question: “do you support Mao's extermination of 30 million + peasants, and if not, how do you reconcile his political philosophy and his deeds?” That one would be a bit harder to dodge.

What killed those many 10s of millions was the communist system itself; the idea of the centrally planned economy. That's what makes it even more frightening than what Hitler did; at least with Hitler the evil was obvious: he targeted identifiable groups for death and this sort of racism and hatred is at least easy enough to recognize, if not oppose.

Not so with the type of horror that Mao and communism rendered because it was cloaked in do-gooding. Mao had devised a system of planting crops that he claimed would result in much greater yields. From on high in his central location he deigned that all farms now plant in this fashion. So, naturally, his minions in charge of collective farms reported back that the high yields Mao predicted came true (there was no downside in not telling the truth and they were all there to curry favor with Mao and the party), leading the central authority in demanding a percentage of those yields be sent to them. But since the originally tally was overinflated, what was sent out of the countryside was 100% of what was actually harvested, leaving zero for the peasants who, ultimately, starved to death…in the 10s of millions.

This is the stereotypical example of the horror of central planning.

The mainstream media are BETRAYING Americans by their silence. It is easy to take over a country when the media cooperate in the take over.

Every American has reason to be very concerned. This is no longer the America we once knew.

Avidyananda