Talk:List of dictators/Mao

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[edit] Mao years

According to the Mao article:

Following these events, other members of the Communist Party, including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, decided that Mao should be removed from actual power and only remain in a largely ceremonial and symbolic role. They attempted to marginalize Mao, and by 1959 [...]

Facing the prospect of losing his place on the political stage, Mao responded to Liu and Deng's movements by launching the Cultural Revolution in 1966. This allowed Mao to circumvent the Communist hierarchy [...]

I certainly take that to mean that Mao shared authority with other prominent CP members before his 1966 consolidation of power. Whatever the nature of the Chinese state itself, if power was in a party structure rather than with an individual, that person isn't a dictator. I argue, therefore, that we ought to list 1949-1966 as years when Mao was head-of-state (or equivalent), but not as a dictator. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

There was the threat that Mao would become marginalized, but that threat never materialized. Following the disastrous Great Leap Forward, Mao simply delegated more powers to Liu, Zhou, Deng, and others and took a back seat, but he never lost his personal authority. Before that, no one dared to speak up or defy Mao (especially after what happened to Peng Dehuai). Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and others all thought what Mao was doing during the Great Leap Forward was bad, but no one would take the political (and personal) risk to tell him that all those numbers were inflated and that people were starving to death by the tens of millions. Implementation of the People's Communes, for example, was basically ordered by Mao without consultation with the other leaders who favored more orthodox Soviet-style state socialism. I would say that this leadership style and inner-party culture of not being able to question the leader goes as far back as the Thought Rectification Campaign in 1942 when Mao was still in Yan'an. Perhaps the initial years of the PRC, prior to the Great Leap Forward, etc., the leadership ruled more or less through committee, but the exact date where Mao can to have overstepped his legal authority is difficult to pinpoint.--Jiang 06:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Does Yuan Shikai fit the profile of a dictator? BlueShirts 21:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

the reasons have been provided on the page, do you have reasons why he does not?--Jiang 22:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

His reign was relatively short and he did not have a firm control over entire China. He had far less power and influence than Mao or Chiang did. I don't know much detail about him but wasn't his reign generally accepted as some kind of sick joke? At least that's what I got from history textbooks BlueShirts 23:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)