Mao Zedong was a Chinese communist Revolutionist, who was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of China, had governed as the Chairman of the People’s
Republic of China since 1949. As a revolutionist, he launched several revolutions such as the
Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution which ended in catastrophes, whilst he contributed much to the communist party as well as China. So, was Mao Zedong a hero or a tyrant? A hero should have leadership skills, be visionary, progressive, and would strike for national interest, justice and glorify the nation. On the contrary, a tyrant is a dictator, aggressive, inhumane, and rule by terror, neglect citizens’ interest and uses power unjustly. Michael Lynch thought that Mao had
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Thus, he was not a hero, but was a tyrant as he used power unjustly.
However, the success of the First Five Year Plan was solely a coincident. Mao usually made plans that were too radical. After the great achievement of the First Five Year Plan, there was a false optimism that goals could be easily achieved. He, thus, decided to achieve his aim by mobilizing people to participate mass movement to change China to a socialist modernized nation. He then launched the Great Leap Forward and set unrealistic goals and ended up in 3 years economic hardship. Had Mao be considered as a hero only if he set realistic and progressive goals in most cases. Hence, he was not a hero.
General view towards Mao was that the cultural and educational policy of Mao taught knowledge and skills needed for war and reamed national pride as he allocated students with work in army and military training. Inasmuch as the enthusiasm in resisting Japan, it increased nationalistic epistasis.
I, thus, believed that he was a tyrant in accordance to his selfish acts of sacrificing national interests to cope for his personal