Mao re-reconsidered
August 21, 2008
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PATRICIA WEN'S "Cultural evolution: a look at Mao" (Page A1, Aug. 18) shows the personality cult surrounding Mao Zedong that exists in China even today. In the story Mao's granddaughter refers to him as "a complicated person." It's estimated that from 1958 to 1963, 20 million people starved to death under Mao's Great Leap Forward. Jung Chang writes in his 2005 Mao biography that 70 million people died as a result of his policies and that China was basically left in a shambles. Mao Zedong is no more complicated than Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, or Pol Pot.
JOE LUKASZEVICZ
Plymouth
Correction: An Aug. 21 letter misidentified Jung Chang, the author of a biography of Mao Zedong, as male.
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