Ask people to name the most evil person of the last century, and they’re likely to say Hitler. However, Der Führer, ungodly as he was, was small potatoes next to Mao Zedong, according to Mao: The Unknown Story. Authors Jung Chang and Jon Halliday spent ten years researching their subject, and their resulting opus is mind-numbing.

Jung Chang must’ve felt compelled to write about Mao Zedong in order to counter the devotion the left heaps upon the “Great Helmsman.” She would know, too — Chang grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution, as she described in her 1991 memoir Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. She now lives in London with her husband and co-author, the Irish historian Jon Halliday.

Mao begins with the following sentence:

“Mao Tse-Tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world’s population, was responsible for well over 7o million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth-century leader.”

And it goes on from there.

For example, the reader finds that while the “Great Leap Forward” is usually presented as a “failed” attempt to impose collectivization on China, the true reason is altogether different. What really happened is that Mao was hellbent on attaining nuclear weapons. So he took food from peasants to ship to Eastern Europe, hoping the Soviets would provide him with the means to achieve nuclear capability. Thus, according to Mao, “half of China may well have to die.” He didn’t care about his countrymen — he craved ultimate power.

We also learn about the Cultural Revolution, the heinous Madame Mao, and the Red Guards. The purges of political enemies, involving torture and murder. How Mao helped instigate the Korean War. And the vaunted “opening of China” by Pres. Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 — an event which nearly brought an alliance between China and the US. However, Nixon resigned his office in 1974 after the Watergate scandal, fortunately killing the deal.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons/public domain.

Mao: The Unknown Story is not a lighthearted, summer beach read. It is, in fact, lengthy, dense, full of details and, of course, Chinese names which are unfamiliar to Western readers. Fortunately, the 58 chapters of this book are fairly short, and broken into segments. Plus, every chapter, and I mean every chapter, comes with information which will make your jaw drop. But I’d recommend a digital download of this book — the printed paperback clocks in at over two pounds.

Certainly, the Halliday’s have certainly done their due diligence. The acknowledgements and bibliography of the printed version contain over 100 pages of citations. These include interviews with Chinese witnesses to the events of Mao’s life. They also cite interviews they held with international figures who interacted with Mao in a substantial way. And then there’s a lengthy bibliography of written Chinese-language sources. Truly their research is impressive.

Mao Zedong died in September, 1976. Upon his death, the New York Times printed a lengthy, fawning obituary which began with this:

“Mao Tse‐tung, who began as an obscure peasant, died one of history’s great revolutionary figures.”

“Born at a time when China was wracked by civil strife, beset with terrible poverty and encroached on by more advanced foreign powers, he lived to fulfill his boyhood dream of restoring it to its traditional place as a great nation. In Chinese terms, he ranked with Chin Shih‐huang, the first Emperor, who unified China in 221 B.C., and was the man Chairman Mao most liked to compare himself to.”

Mao: The Unknown Story shows that such adulation is based upon progressive dogma. Mao Zedong was one of the most wicked world leaders from a century which produced far too many of them. Kudos to Jung Chang and Jon Halliday for bringing the truth about Mao to readers who want facts, not propaganda.

Featured image: original design by Darleen Click.