Do we like them?

Do we like Mao Zedong?

Our score: 0 out of 10. Historians' archival work ties his policies to tens of millions of famine deaths, and the Cultural Revolution brought more persecution.

Mao Zedong led China's Communist Party and the country until his death in 1976, so almost everything that happened to hundreds of millions of people in that era sits at his door. The party itself, in a 1981 resolution, called the Cultural Revolution a catastrophe and said Mao made mistakes, though it has since kept public debate on him tightly controlled.

The Great Leap Forward (1958 to 62) is the big one. Historian Frank Dikötter, working from party and provincial archives, concludes it was responsible for at least 45 million deaths, with two to three million of those tortured to death or summarily executed. Demographers working from census figures have put the toll lower, at 20 to 30 million, but nobody serious disputes it was tens of millions.

What makes it worse is what the records suggest he knew. Dikötter's research indicates Mao received reports of the starvation and of local officials' violence against farmers, yet pushed for more grain to be taken. Yang Jisheng has said Mao ordered large grain exports while people went hungry. At a March 1959 meeting, the minutes Dikötter quotes have him saying it was better to let half the people die so the other half could eat.

Then came the Cultural Revolution, which he launched in the spring of 1966. In Tibet, Red Guards ransacked Lhasa's Jokhang Temple in August 1966, people were pushed to denounce teachers, friends and relatives, and in early 1968 Mao sent troops in, who carried out public executions according to Radio Free Asia.

On the harm test, we found nothing specific on his words about LGBTQ+ people, so that's a gap. It doesn't change the result, though: the harm to millions of people, the damage to a minority culture and the persecution of those branded enemies is the whole story here. Campaigns like these don't get a pass because the leader also pushed other policies.

Fair is fair: supporters credit him with leading the revolution that unified China, and the official party line is that he made mistakes but mostly benefited the country. That's the party's line, and we couldn't verify the claimed gains for women or literacy from a page we opened, so we've left them out of the evidence file. Even taken at face value, they don't offset the famine.