Mao Zedong Dies: China's Revolutionary Era Ends
Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, from 1958 to 1962, killed between 15 and 55 million people — the largest famine in human history — through a combination of agricultural collectivization, wildly unrealistic grain quotas, and the execution or imprisonment of anyone who reported the death toll accurately. He knew. Meetings were held at which officials reported the starvation. He continued. He died in September 1976, at 82, having ruled China for 27 years, having also launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, which destroyed a generation of Chinese intellectuals and killed hundreds of thousands more. His embalmed body lies in Tiananmen Square. His portrait still hangs above the square's entrance. The estimate of total deaths from his policies ranges from 40 to 80 million.
September 9, 1976
50 years ago
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