We all know about Mao’s record of unity and progress 🤦‍♂️ During the 1948 siege of Changchun, Lin Biao’s forces blocked civilians from escaping, and at least 160,000 reportedly starved to death in five months. Land reform between 1947 and 1952 killed an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people, while the Campaign to Suppress Counter-Revolutionaries led to hundreds of thousands more executions. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), factional violence and massacres in Guangxi reportedly killed over 80,000 people, alongside an estimated 400,000 deaths in rural collective killings. Mao’s claim to have freed China from foreign influence also needs context. Under the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty, the USSR retained strategic interests in Port Arthur and Manchurian railways, while Soviet akso got privileges in Xinjiang’s mineral resources and legal immunity for Soviet advisers. During the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), an estimated 45 million people died from famine, overwork and state violence, yet China continued exporting grain, pork and edible oils to the Soviet Union, East Germany and Cuba. Infact before changing into market economy China was big importer. In 1961 China reportedly imported nearly six million tonnes of grain from countries such as Canada, Australia and Argentina. The economic damage was just as severe. The Great Leap Forward reportedly destroyed up to 40% of rural housing in some accounts, wiped out large numbers of trees in several provinces and left poorly built dams that contributed to flooding and silting. Backyard furnaces consumed farming tools to produce poor-quality iron, while reports from Henan and Kaifeng allegedly found that over 70% of some factory output was defective. The Cultural Revolution also devastated education. Chinese government statistics cited in the original account reportedly showed that by 1978, 30% to 40% of children and young people were illiterate or semi-literate, with figures exceeding 50% in some areas. Mao’s image of universal public reverence was maintained through propaganda, compulsory study of the Little Red Book, censorship and the persecution of critics labelled rightists or counter-revolutionaries, many of whom were sent to labour camps or executed. Ordinary people nevertheless resisted through black markets, rumours and everyday acts of non-compliance. When Zhou Enlai died in April 1976, mass protests erupted in Tiananmen Square against the Maoist leadership. China’s later economic transformation came after Mao’s death, when Deng Xiaoping introduced market reforms, reduced the role of collective farming and expanded private enterprise. Modern China’s rise owes much to these reforms, not simply to Mao’s economic legacy.