'We thought Mao was doing a wonderful thing,' says British Red Guard 50 years (after, trunc)

The Telegraph ^ | 5-16-16 | Neil Connor

[Gay State Conservative]

China,like Russia,is a nation of savages ruled by savages...and has been for centuries.Having visited the country a half dozen times,the first being in 1980 and the most recent being in 2014,I think I know a little bit (but *only* a little bit) about the country.My belief is that China will never,not even in centuries,elevate herself to a level that can be called “advanced” or “civilized”.And that's true regardless of how high her per capita GDP might be.

And for the record I'm speaking about China *the nation*,not the Chinese people.Hong Kong and Taiwan are two excellent examples of what Chinese people can do when given some political and economic freedom.

[Mmmike]

A wise society will banish people like this, forcing them to find a place to build their own society from nothing instead of cheating by staying put in a real one.

[rlmorel]

Mao was a green toothed, child-molesting monster. Your account has plenty of parallels to it. In “The Gulag Archipelago”, there were men given 20 year terms to the gulag, and still worshiped Stalin.

Hard to understand, but true.

[Fai Mao]

Mao was bad. And you are right the continued worship of despotic leaders is scary. When I was in Wuhan I would occasionally eat at a restaurant with a bust of Mao in the corner. The locals burned joss sticks to it like a Buddhist god.

It was both really sad and really surreal. But at that time in rural China the peasants would still ask; “How is the emperor?” if they found you were from Beijing. They thought Mao was just another Emperor.