More on the Real Mao The News York Times’ Nick Kristof Couldn’t See Fit to Categorically Condemn

Edwin A. Locke at Capitalism Magazine summarizes the real Mao Zedong portrayed in “Mao: The Unknown Story” succinctly, and also notes the authors’ recounting of the behavior of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger towards him:

Mao is clearly the worst monster in world history. Like Hitler and Stalin he was a power-luster and wanted to rule the world. Like them he was a mass murderer (about 70 million in his case). Like them he was a scheming manipulator (though more vicious and maniacally “clever” than the other two).

But there was a certain respect in which he was morally lower than the other mass murderers, if you can imagine such a possibility. Mao actually enjoyed the prospect and the act of torture, killing and destruction, even (if not especially) his own people. He wanted to destroy, not just as a means of gaining power, but also as an end in itself. Further, when he could have had people shot (virtually all of whom were totally innocent of anything–even of opposing him), he said that was too tame and had them beaten to death and had movies made of it so he could watch them being brutalized.

“Enemies” (and their families) were sometimes not killed outright, but made to suffer in agony for years until they died. He destroyed all culture during the “cultural revolution” (even propagandistic operas), because he wanted everyone to be either dead or be unthinking, mindless brutes. To concretize all this, imagine James Taggart, who hated existence, combined with a megalomaniacal, totally psychopathic personality. (I think Pol Pot, whom Mao admired, was probably the same, only on a smaller scale).

Also in the book is some disgraceful beyond belief information on Kissinger’s and Nixon’s wooing of China. They were practically licking Mao’s feet. Ayn Rand was quite right in saying Nixon was totally outwitted (it is not even clear from the book that Nixon even had any wits to be outwitted). Mao offered virtually no concessions, and we offered almost anything they wanted, including the betrayal of Taiwan at the U.N. This led dozens of other countries to come licking at Mao’s feet. (Ironically, other communist countries despised Mao, especially because he wanted to control those countries too).

It’s hard to believe that The New York Times’ Nick Kristof could have read the same book when it first came out in October, and have written the following (link requires registration, but it’s still there), but he did (original BizzyBlog post on Kristof’s book review is here):

I agree that Mao was a catastrophic ruler in many, many respects, and this book captures that side better than anything ever written. But Mao’s legacy is not all bad. Land reform in China, like the land reform in Japan and Taiwan, helped lay the groundwork for prosperity today. The emancipation of women and end of child marriages 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. Indeed, Mao’s entire assault on the old economic and social structure made it easier for China to emerge as the world’s new economic dragon.

….. Mao’s ruthlessness was a catastrophe at the time, brilliantly captured in this extraordinary book – and yet there’s more to the story: Mao also helped lay the groundwork for the rebirth and rise of China after five centuries of slumber.

There is no end to the excuse-making on the part of some for tyrants of the left.