I tend to leave out the likes of Mao and Stalin - and, God forbid, Pol Pot - because they're not really useful as illustrations of what's wrong with Communist regimes; they're brilliant cases-in-point of what can (and tends to) go wrong with totalitarian autocracies where absolute and unquestioned power is vested in the hands of a single wonk, which sort of setup is by no means a Communist monopoly.
Ditto for North Korea really.
Besides, Communist states have done a brilliant enough track record at not meeting even a fraction of their lofty promises (well, can't vouch for Cuba - partly as I've not a clue what Fidel et Co. originally promised, beyond replacing the universally hated assholes who ruled before them) even if you leave the genuinely bad god-emperors out of the equation to make the point somewhat moot.
Originally Posted by :
In the case of the famine in China, it's been argued that Mao did not even know of the famine, because local officials were afraid to reveal the bad news. That's hard to believe - part of me suspects that the problem with famines is that the rulers just don't care.
It actually sounds quite likely they didn't dare to tell him. It's also entirely possible they
did, and Mao simply refused to believe it - some of the stuff you hear about him, and similar virtual god-emperors, strongly suggests their grasp of reality tends to be a bit shaky. I understand he was a big believer in the excessively positivist idea at the heart of Communism which basically claims enough human faith and effort really
will move mountains (or completely change societies; about the same thing really). Assuming that certainly makes such strokes of genius as the Great Leap Forward more comprehensible.
Mind you, the Great Leader has also been quoted telling a visiting Italian Communist party chief that a worldwide nuclear war was desirable, because about three million or so Chinese ought to survive and they'd then repopulate the globe into a Communist utopia...
I understand the Italian did not find the idea quite as appealing. Wonder why ?