5 Things You'll Learn from Mao

Well, I can't agree with number 3 at all. The british empire was importing opium on a large scale in the 19th century to make some money. The chinese emperor was against these imports and there was even a war about this issue (The Opium War, 1840-42). As the war didn't help about 4 decades later the emperor started to grow Opium in Sichuan and Yunnan which reduced the imports. The Qing Dynasty was overwhelmed in 1911 but Opium still played a large role in the 20s as it was important to finance weapon imports. And now the big BUT, the opium production and consumption was largely reduced under Mao Zedong who saw Opium as a problem. It only continued to play a larger role in Hong Kong which was still a british colony at this time. So if you can blame anyone for too many Opium deaths it's the british empire and the Qing Dynasty.

I think something that I consider problematic you forgot. Mao made China become a member of the UNO but as a side effect Taiwan (a sovereign state in my eyes) was expelled from the UNO.

i think you did a good research Thank you

well, I can't agree with number 1 at all.It's not for a job and income.It is for the faith and truth.

You are right. Stalin and Hitler were men of 'faith and truth', too.

my friend thats what they told you don't you understand !!

Mao = staline = Hitler kif kif ...

Well, that's a little exaggerated I think. I don't want to defend Chinese politics nore am I a friend of Chinese politics, but this is like saying Moslems are criminals and terrorists. It just makes things worse and doesn't help us in finding a peaceful dialogue. Hitler and Stalin were really evil, Mao had his failures too but from what I have learned in my history lessons (and they were surely not pro China ;)) he didn't genocide whole "races" (I really dislike using this word, but so you know what I mean) like this. What I always say to my brother and my dad who are both "little communists" and big fans of Fidel Castro and Che, is that the communist faith in itself is a good thing, but the way communism is practiced in the real world has nothing much to do with what communism should be. In an utopian world it would be everyone has an income, a job, and a good live, in reality communism is more like 98% have the same income and have a job (but a very bad job and a very low income) and 2% only have a comfortable life. I don't mean owning a car, cool computer hardware and whatever by comfortable life, because that is just our superrich European standard, but living in a dirty, polluted city with a hard factory job and earning less than a few euros per hour is surely no comfortable life. Anyway, I think both sides have to learn their lessons from their wrong thinking. It's not like our democracies are really democratic for example. I mean I live in Berlin, Germany and a tax paying citizen of Germany and I can't even vote for the simplest city rulings because I am Austrian. When I am confronted with such a situation I ask myself why do we have an EU. So we all need to see what we did wrong and admit it to the other, the German, the Chinese, everyone. And then we can start talking about the things the Germans and the Chinese etc. are doing good and exchange this knowledge.
So peace and light for a future without war :-) *dreaming*

Why is the communism judged by its promises and the fascism by its deeds? You are right, killing some 800 000 Tibetans is not a genocide. It was done out of necessity, just to make the other two-thirds of them live happier.

Actually it was even 1.2 million Tibetans who died in the conflict under Mao, but I still think you have to differentiate. As I said I am not pro Mao, but Mao is not Hitler neither is Stalin, Mao or Hitler. They are 3 people who did gruesome things of different reach.

Mao died in 1976 and he is history. Things have changed quite a bit, mostly for good. Considering the status of China after his death, China (yes, even the chinese government) has done a pretty good job up to now. Compare the development of China and Russia e.g. The problem is that Chinas image in the western media is now only black and white, but in reality they have as many colours as other countries. While they have their problems in Tibet I could observe a constant growth in wealth and people in the Buddhist temples of the mainland. I personally do not like the chinese behaviour in Tibet, but I do also not like the idea that religious leaders (who elected the dalai lama, god?) get political power. And I see that the development in other regions of the world is much worse, take e.g. Iraq, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Birma, Tchetchenia, Kurdistan.... I am not paid by the chinese goverment (by the way, I could ask them 8-; ) but I have been there several times and I just see that the image of China in the press has nothing to do with the reality of the country. I can understand that my chinese colleagues are very sad about this one-sided treament and the low level of knowledge about their country.

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Seen in ghoermann home page (?)

Wrong mao is not history i got many problems with my art for tibet !!