The worse of two evils II: Pol Pot vs Mao Zedong

Which regime was worse?

  • Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge

    Votes: 27 69.2%

  • Mao Zedong's Maoism and the Communist Party

    Votes: 2 5.1%

  • They were both equally evil

    Votes: 4 10.3%

  • I honestly do not care about them

    Votes: 6 15.4%
  • Total voters
    39
Japanrocks12 said:
Sigh... Two more evil regimes created as a result to imitate Marxism.

IMO Mao is the worse one due to his evil charismatic personality, his Great Leap Forward(AKA Giant Step Backward), and his horrific Cultural Revolution.

A friend of mine actually is a Mao worshipper who believes to the extent of his poor little heart that Communism is the way to go.
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Are you serious? You obviously have not read what Pol Pot did.
 
Yes, I read what Pol Pot did, and I know he is the mastermind behind genocides, but Mao killed as well, and he corrupted many and still does(as in the case of my poor friend)
 
Pol Pot was worse by a clear margin, but that's not to say that Mao was fine.

Mao was a monster, an evil despot like few in history and the creator of the second most murderous regime in history.
 
Mao is worse due to.... his horrific Cultural Revolution
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An attempt to wrest power from the party back to the 'masses' (ie Mao) which spiralled out of control and resulted in the deaths of thousands of people or the systamatic and deliberate genocide of 1/4 of the population of a nation. I like that reasoning.

Do you belive genocide has to be deliberate?
If genocide has to be deliberate than Mao is not responsible for any genocide. If you believe genocide can be accidental than Mao is responsible for genocide. Either way Pol Pots genocide was certainly deliberate.
 
Japanrocks12 said:
Yes, I read what Pol Pot did, and I know he is the mastermind behind genocides, but Mao killed as well, and he corrupted many and still does(as in the case of my poor friend)
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Mao is dead. Your friend chose to believe in him; Mao did not force him. Most of Mao's killings came under the Cultural Revolution, and that was a few million (2-5?). Though it was most likely more than Pol Pot, it was a much smaller portion of the population, which must be taken into account. Moreover, the 20 million who died from the Great Leap Forward died from bad economic planning, not outright execution and planting landmines around the countryside. Imagine if Pol Pot ruled China instead and covered the whole country with landmines and evacuated the entire population of Beijing, as well as banning anything that remotely resembles modern technology. The two are incomparable in my mind.
 
luiz said:
Pol Pot was worse by a clear margin, but that's not to say that Mao was fine.

Mao was a monster, an evil despot like few in history and the creator of the second most murderous regime in history.
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The second most murderous? Hitler has him beat by a clear margin.
 
Japanrocks12 said:
Yes, I read what Pol Pot did, and I know he is the mastermind behind genocides, but Mao killed as well, and he corrupted many and still does(as in the case of my poor friend)
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Your friend corrupted himself. Don't worry, just sit him down with some figures and he'll see the light.


But realistically, being a communist isn't that bad. You still live in a capitalist country, but you get all the best imagery- Che Guevera T-shirts, WW2 Soviet posters etc.
 
Yom said:
Mao is dead. Your friend chose to believe in him; Mao did not force him. Most of Mao's killings came under the Cultural Revolution, and that was a few million (2-5?). Though it was most likely more than Pol Pot, it was a much smaller portion of the population, which must be taken into account. Moreover, the 20 million who died from the Great Leap Forward died from bad economic planning, not outright execution and planting landmines around the countryside. Imagine if Pol Pot ruled China instead and covered the whole country with landmines and evacuated the entire population of Beijing, as well as banning anything that remotely resembles modern technology. The two are incomparable in my mind.
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But that's like saying that the 40 million who died under Stalin died from bad economic planning!


They died because they didn't want the government seizing what resources they harvested and was rightfully theirs.


You see, any plan of collectivization is doomed cause human deaths on a massive scale.
 
When Mao came to power, China was in a serious wreck. Over half a century of foreign decision making, radical reform, the collapse of the Qing dynasty, and the rise of communism. When Mao came to power, the people looked to him for a solution.


Yet he failed them....
 
Japanrocks12 said:
But that's like saying that the 40 million who died under Stalin died from bad economic planning!


They died because they didn't want the government seizing what resources they harvested and was rightfully theirs.


You see, any plan of collectivization is doomed cause human deaths on a massive scale.
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Stalin killed many and forced others to be worked to death. The only possible deaths under his regime due to starvation that could be attributed to bad economic planning are those that occured during the Ukranian famine, and there is evidence that it was engineered (I am not sure whether they were or not, but this isn't the place to discuss it).

Besides, 40 million did not die under Stalin. Most figures put that amount between 8 and 20 million.
 
Japanrocks12 said:
When Mao came to power, China was in a serious wreck. Over half a century of foreign decision making, radical reform, the collapse of the Qing dynasty, and the rise of communism. When Mao came to power, the people looked to him for a solution.


Yet he failed them....
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When Pol Pot came to power, Cambodia was a wreck, when he left it, it was worse off than before.
 
But that's like saying that the 40 million who died under Stalin died from bad economic planning!

They died because they didn't want the government seizing what resources they harvested and was rightfully theirs.

You see, any plan of collectivization is doomed cause human deaths on a massive scale.
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No, this is not why people died in the Great Leap Forward.
Basically what happened Mao gave the hugely ambitious aim of turning the colllective farms which already existed into communes, which were organised on a much larger scale and involved a great deal more distributive system.

This aim was passed down to the regional government to which power was devolved, because in the belief that complete control from the central government was bad (a rejection of the Soviet form of communism).

The regional authorities carried out this break neck communalisation of agriculture, which had disasterous effects, but reported back to the central government that everything had gone well.

The result of this was that the central government belived communalisation had been carried out (which it had) and that food production was greatly increased (which it wasn't). The belief in this non-existant surplus of grain, food etc, meant that the central government exported a much larger amount of food in the years of the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) to fund its industrial growth.

The result of an actual decrease in food production and an increase in food exports was famine.
 
Pol Pot "outshines" everyone in my book.
Compared to him, Stalin and Mao appear nice guys, and Hitler at least as someone who wanted what he considered the best for his people.
Pol Pot wasn't only fanatic, he also hadn't the slightest idea what he tried to achive.
His goal was to restore the glory of the Khmer empire; and most people died while buildings dams for rice plantations - only because PP thought the Khmer had that as well (complete nonsense)...
 
Yom said:
The second most murderous? Hitler has him beat by a clear margin.
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The Chinese communist regime killed substancially more then the Nazi regime. Of course they had more time, though.
 
luiz said:
The Chinese communist regime killed substancially more then the Nazi regime. Of course they had more time, though.
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Can I have some figures and a link?

Edit: Besides, old Leopold II could very well have killed more than Hitler (8-20 million).
 
Simple as that, there were never ever so many Jews that Hitler could kill more than Chinese could kill Chinese.
 
Longasc said:
Simple as that, there were never ever so many Jews that Hitler could kill more than Chinese could kill Chinese.
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Hitler killed 12 million in concentration camps alone, and I bet luiz is counting the 20 million who starved from the Great Leap Famine (which I would not count). If you don't include those who starved on accident, and if you include in addition to the deaths of those who were put in concentration camps the democide carried out in Eastern Europe, then Hitler has Mao beat hands down.
 
I want to point out that we already measure up Stalin against Hitler.

Go and get some proper figures if you really want to convince me, until then I will consider you as biased because Jews had to suffer among Hitler and not Mao.
 
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