# Why did Mao inflict the horrors of the Cultural Revolution on China?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-mao-inflict-the-horrors-of-the-cultural-revolution-on-china/798734>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 13, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-mao-inflict-the-horrors-of-the-cultural-revolution-on-china/798734 "2017-10-13T15:40:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2017, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-mao-inflict-the-horrors-of-the-cultural-revolution-on-china/798734/21 "2017-10-15T18:46:27Z")

</div>

> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> In Russia they still have a positive opinion of Stalin. I don’t get it. Mao and Stalin caused so much damage to their nations. Whatever good they caused could’ve been done by someone less incompetent and destructive.

That is to assume the same sort of information, in the same sort of framework of values, is made generally available to the people as we have access to. In Russia, it’s all about the development of national economic strength and the defeat of the Nazis; in China, substitute Japanese for Nazis and it’s not very different. It may well be that as much could have been achieved without mass forced labour and paranoid political repression disguised as fighting off saboteurs and enemies, but no-one can know that for sure, and as ever it’s the victors that write history. And it suits the people in charge now to tell the story this way.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-mao-inflict-the-horrors-of-the-cultural-revolution-on-china/798734.md?page=1)