Mao Zedong’s Regime

ND – MPE (without Chinese Civil War and WWII): 40

Matthew White provides a comprehensive overview of expert estimates on the the number of people killed by Mao Zedong’s communist regime in China. He cites estimates that range from 30 to 65 million victims of Mao’s regime. He explains his view that 40 million is the most plausible estimate. This number includes 30 million famine victims. It does not include the victims of Mao’s communist forces before they took power in 1949. These victims are included in the numbers for World War II and the Chinese Civil War.

In his fact-filled and magisterial book “China under Mao” China expert Andrew G. Walder estimates that 1 to 2 million people were killed during the mass killings of the early 1950’s and 1.1 to 1.6 million during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1971. He also discusses smaller episodes of mass killings, in which hundreds of thousands were killed. He considers 30 million famine victims to be the most plausible estimate.

But famine expert Cormac Ó Gráda convincingly shows in his book “Eating People is Wrong – and Other Essays on Famine, its Past and its Future” that the estimate of 30 million famine deaths during China’s Great Leap Forward is probably too high. He also discusses his view that Frank Dikötter’s estimate of 45 million famine victims in the book “Mao’s Great Famine” is almost certainly much too high. In his study “Making Famine History” Ó Gráda explains that plausible estimates range from 15 million – his own calculation – to 23 million victims. He claims that there is no scientific basis for much higher numbers. Ó Gráda also presents evidence that bad weather shocks explain a significant proportion and potentially half or more of all excess deaths.

Jung Chang and Jon Halliday estimate in their controversial book “Mao: The Unknown Story” that Mao was responsible for “well over 70 million deaths in peace time”. China experts Gregor Benton and Lin Chun have edited a book called “Was Mao Really a Monster?”, which contains over a dozen reviews of Chang and Halliday’s book. Most of the reviews, which were written by historians and experts, are highly critical of the book and point out numerous mistakes, distortions and unproven claims. Jin Xiaoding’s review “A critique of Jung Chang
and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story” convincingly shows that the book’s estimates for the number of people who were directly killed or died from famine and disease are almost certainly too high.

Plausible estimates for the victims of the Maoist regime in China range from 20 to 60 million. I choose 40 million as the most plausible estimate.