Mao Zedong was an Unfit Leader in China

Mao Zedong was a Chinese communist revolutionary who founded the People’s Republic of China and also ruled as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the start of the People’s Republic of China to his death in 1976. Mao Zedong was an unfit leader for China for many reasons, but during his time Mao introduced many Soviet ideas throughout his reign that had previously worked for the Soviet Union but were not fit for China’s economy. Due to these ideas being introduced to the Chinese economy and not being fit for their needs they suffered greatly, and many people even died during famines caused by agriculture shortages.

Mao Zedong was an unfit leader for the Chinese people because of the many detrimental ideas/policies that were introduced into China. According to Nien Cheng, 1987, “When Li Zhen (a famous Chinese teacher and friend of the author) returned to Shanghai, the city was suffering from a severe food shortage as a result of the catastrophic economic failure of the Great Leap Forward Campaign launched by Mao Zedong in 1958” (Source 5). Mao’s policy that was introduced to China was a giant failure and embarrassment. In actuality, Mao’s policies did the opposite of what he wanted to happen in China and many Shanghai and Chinese citizens ended up going hungry during parts of his reign. Even if citizens were to work they still would not be able to feed their families and would end up starving just like everyone else in the country. The quote being explained relates back to the thesis since Mao’s policies ended up pulling China back instead of pushing it forward. In addition, John K. Fairbank, “In spite of universal collectivization, farm production had not noticeably increased” (Source 9). Due to the Stalinist (Soviet) models of industrial growth being introduced in China, and not being tailored to the Chinese civilization caused agricultural production to stay the same/decline. This caused many citizens to again starve and they could not do anything about it since they had to work as a collective. The quote stated relates back to the thesis since Mao Zedong did not adjust these policies to China which made China go into a great famine. To briefly explain, Mao Zedong’s detrimental policies created a widespread famine across China, which will be explained soon ended up killing many Chinese citizens.

Mao Zedong was an unfit leader for China because his policies sent many Chinese citizens to their graves. According to Edmund Valtman, 1961, “Valtman suggests that the only plots that many Chinese will receive will be their own graves” (Source 6). Due to the severe food shortages, the Chinese government gave farmers back the right to farm on their own land. Due to this shortage, most Chinese citizen will be receiving their own plots of land in the form of a grave which can also be interpreted as death. This connects back to the stated thesis because Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward ended up killing many Chinese citizens, therefore, making Mao an unfit leader. In addition, British Medical Journal graph, 1999, “During the year 1960, we see a dramatic drop in food production and a huge increase in death”(Source 12). In the graph that the British Medical Journal published it can be seen that food production dropped below 150 million tons, and spiked to about 45 per 1000 people due to Mao Zedong’s agricultural policies. In total, it can be seen that Mao Zedong ended up indirectly killing 50 million people due to his policies. This relates back to the thesis since Mao’s policies ended up killing many, many people instead of helping them which Mao thought they would do. Due to the many unfit decisions that Mao had done he caused a famine to occur in China which killed many citizens that he is trying to protect.

Mao Zedong was a negative leader because of the policies introduced into China, which caused a famine to begin, but due to this famine which has begun under his rule, many Chinese citizens died. Overall Mao Zedong was a very unfit leader for China due to the many bad policies he had introduced to China which caused many Chinese citizens to die. But, many wonder, if the UN had recognized him as a leader, would those deaths have been prevented.