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Mao was as bad as the other two, and perhaps the stupidest of all three. His attempt to apply Marxist dialectics about "class struggle" to agriculture sabotaged China's food supply, to name just one absurdity.
However he was not a "pedophile" as has been claimed. He apparently did like to bang young virginal girls who had no choice in the matter, but they had at least reached puberty. Pedophiles like prepubescent children; secondary sex characteristics turn them off.
Uh oh, it looks like I might be setting myself up here as attempting to defend Mao as no one before had done, but there's no denying that without Mao's Chinese Revolution, China is not the super power that it is today. Were Mao's ideas and implementations all really well thought out? Of course not. But he also got China away from being manhandled by outside nations, which had plagued the country for centuries. Good guy? No. Important historically? Undeniable.
12, probably not. Less than that, perhaps, although peasant Chinese culture and our culture are about as far apart as two societies can get. Women were just baby machines. Of course Mao claimed to be getting rid of the old oppressive order, so he should've behaved better. But to call him a pedophile is to apply a Western psychosocial construct onto a society where it doesn't quite fit.
Even at that, 10 was the age of consent in some U.S. states like California and Texas until the early 20th century.
"The Private Life of Mao Tse-Tung" by Mao's personal doctor, Li Zhisui, describes that in detail. I've actually heard the very few defenders of Mao try to justify Mao's pedophilia by claiming that he was saving those girls from dying in the famines of the Great Leap Forward by having them as sex slaves. Never mind that those famines were CAUSED by Mao and that pedophilia isn't justified. Then again one has to wonder about anyone who would defend Mao.
I once talked to a journalist who'd interviewed Mao who stated that everyone in Mao's circle knew of his fondness for prepubescent girls.
But he also got China away from being manhandled by outside nations, which had plagued the country for centuries. Good guy? No. Important historically? Undeniable.
No, if it hadn't been for the United States, Mao probably would've ended up on the wrong end of a Japanese bayonet. That's not jingoistic bragging, because I think it was a terrible American strategic blunder to enter the war. But don't attribute China's independence to Mao. Anyone in Mao's position who had half their enemies nuked for them could've done the same thing.
"The Private Life of Mao Tse-Tung" by Mao's personal doctor, Li Zhisui, describes that in detail. I've actually heard the very few defenders of Mao try to justify Mao's pedophilia by claiming that he was saving those girls from dying in the famines of the Great Leap Forward by having them as sex slaves. Never mind that those famines were CAUSED by Mao and that pedophilia isn't justified. Then again one has to wonder about anyone who would defend Mao.
I once talked to a journalist who'd interviewed Mao who stated that everyone in Mao's circle knew of his fondness for prepubescent girls.
I haven't read the book, but none of the synopses of it I read when it was published, including in conservative magazines, specified that his sex partners were anything but the common marriageable age, however low that may have been in peasant China.
Throughout the period of his ascendancy, as reports of his personal life have made clear, young and virgin girls were brought to his bed on a regular basis. Agents, they might equally be termed pimps, roamed the Chinese countryside searching for suitable girls and explained the situation to their parents. They were sold the idea that a great honour was being provided for them and their daughter. Perhaps financial or material inducements were also provided at need. Presumably, there are a number of these women living still in China with Mao’s children, although this is not a subject which is discussed very much in the public sphere.
If, as the author suggests, Mao fathered children by these girls, they would obviously not have been "prepubescent" at the time.
Important historically? Didn't he make steel for no reasons? What about the famines that killed off a ton of people?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puddy4LyF
Uh oh, it looks like I might be setting myself up here as attempting to defend Mao as no one before had done, but there's no denying that without Mao's Chinese Revolution, China is not the super power that it is today. Were Mao's ideas and implementations all really well thought out? Of course not. But he also got China away from being manhandled by outside nations, which had plagued the country for centuries. Good guy? No. Important historically? Undeniable.
Once it has been mentioned that Mao is responsible for the deaths of more than 25 million people, do we really have a need to argue over whether he was also a sexual pervert? That is akin to concerning yourself with whether or not Ted Bundy was also a litterbug.
Once it has been mentioned that Mao is responsible for the deaths of more than 25 million people, do we really have a need to argue over whether he was also a sexual pervert? That is akin to concerning yourself with whether or not Ted Bundy was also a litterbug.
He he, good point...as bad as being groped by an old dictator would be, the fact is they were the lucky ones...
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