Talk:Mao Zedong

New infobox Photo

On what grounds was the old photo removed? The new one is of a lower quality and at a funny angle. 90.212.103.38 (talk) 09:50, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree, I think an official portrait rather than some random photo would be better, as that’s the standard for other political leaders of the era (ex: Chiang Kai-shek and Zhou Enlai). I’ll take the liberty to change it. Bagabondo (talk) 12:34, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

The primary image should not be airbrushed or photoshopped. The current image is both. Rochambeau1783 (talk) 22:48, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

It is neither, as it was taken by a foreign press photographer (from AFP). — Goszei (talk) 09:50, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

Wrong, even the photograph details itself says its origin is unknown, if not, please add the relevant attribution AlbusWulfricDumbledore (talk) 09:22, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

A series of official portraits of Mao, along with other PRC political figures, was recently deleted from Commons on copyright grounds (PRC copyright law does not make such images public domain). It is unlikely we will be able to use any officials here. — Goszei (talk) 09:51, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

There's been a whole saga of discussions here using heavily edited, airbrushed photos, when there is a clear precedent with other political leaders as you point out. The origin for this random infobox photo is not even certain. AlbusWulfricDumbledore (talk) 09:22, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Should there be a pinyin transcription of his name in the beginning paragraph

thoughts? Gumminggooner (talk) 05:36, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

It is in the efn note, which is an acceptable choice per MOS:ZH. Yue🌙 07:45, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

"Legacy" section

There are some egregious misdirections and weasel words in the top few paragraphs of that section. For instance, the description of the vast majority of deaths coming from famine needs serious contextualization. Most of these deaths came from the Great Leap Forward, which was the *cause* of the concurrent famine. "Famine", especially when wikilinked to a list of Chinese famines from 2000+ years ago to the early 1900s, connotes a disaster largely out of human control; this was very much *not* what happened in the GLF. I don't have my Dikotter in front of me and I don't want to start drastically rewriting when I don't have the sources on hand to back it up; I have, however, started tightening and clarifying some of the worst sentences, and I wanted to flag the "famine" piece as particularly egregious. Wanderer V8 (talk) 22:30, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Don’t use Dikötter that’s a dreadful source, my goodness. JArthur1984 (talk) 22:34, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

There is academic consensus that what occured in China in those years was in fact a famine. Removing any mention of it is unjustified. Genabab (talk) 05:34, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Adjacent but differing view: it should link to Great Chinese Famine, which is the only famine that occurred during Mao's leadership. (sic)Sea (talk) 13:08, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

There's been a brouhaha on Twitter about the Legacy section, culminating in this Substack article which I think makes some valid points. Obviously the article comes from a past critic of Wikipedia and we shouldn't take a single random article as a reason to change everything, but I think its points on the bias in the Legacy section are worth considering.

Personally, I think there are currently several issues that need urgent attention:

• I'm not sure the "one paragraph of good things, then one paragraph of bad things" format really works, especially when later on we have a bunch of sources talking about the complexity of Mao and the difficulty of separating his positive and negative accomplishments.
• The two lines cited to Philip Short need to go. "He made few direct orders to kill" and "he believed he was doing the right thing" are the last resort of scoundrels, and could just as easily be said about Hitler.
• The sentence about Mao being compared to Qin Shi Huang needs context about whether the comparison is a positive or negative one (from the Qin Shi Huang article, it could be either depending on the speaker).
• The [b] footnote is very odd; it quotes a critical statement of Michael Lynch without any context or in-text attribution, and is placed under the sentence about Qin Shi Huang, which it has no obvious relevance to.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 18:26, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Oh, off-wiki canvassing explains the style of editing I suppose. JArthur1984 (talk) 18:46, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

I was part of the brouhaha on Twitter that led to the Substack article. (I'm the one who posted the link to the 2011 version of the Mao entry that is discussed in the article.) I'm not here to debate the merits of tracewoodgrains' critique (though I largely dispute it as overly provocative: https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/how-wikipedia-whitewashes-mao/comment/140119166). I'm here to share some exciting (at least to me) LLM capabilities for analyzing discussion threads on Wikipedia Talk pages.

During the Twitter debate, I tweeted ( https://x.com/ironick/status/1950026143765049579 ), "It would be fascinating to ask an LLM to read all the Talk Page discussions from 2011 until today and perform an analysis of the *apparent* reasoning behind the evolution of the Mao entry over that time period. Hopefully, in a few years, this will be as easy as a simple prompt." Well, someone responded ( https://x.com/ConcurrentSquar/status/1950270974525313406 ) with a series of prompts that produced this amazing report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oftgGhnF87xkftALsScahxkXxuQ4AoZAcP2bj2mts40/edit?usp=sharing

Here are the individual ChatGPT links from the Tweet if you want to try them yourselves for details:

Creating the prompt to search and analyze Talk pages from 2011-Present: https://chatgpt.com/share/68891808-7728-800f-830f-452087447395

Executing the prompt to generate the report (it takes ~6min): https://chatgpt.com/share/688918c4-2e8c-800f-8f5b-25bd828daa18

Comparing the ChatGPT report to a report that I created with Grok: https://chatgpt.com/share/68891ad9-13fc-800f-bd0a-a54dc19046e8

So we can't analyze Talk pages histories with a single prompt yet, but we're pretty close! I share this as a heads up to the potential (good and bad) for analyzing Talk pages histories. Nick (talk) 14:43, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Why should anybody care what chatbots have to say about anything? Simonm223 (talk) 14:57, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

LLMs are notorious for hallucinations. Nothing they say can be treated as reliable without verifying it yourself. Genabab (talk) 14:02, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Agree with your points, especially the second, as "mitigating factors" are very often arbitrary; re. "But," no intention to 20-50 million dead as a mitigating factor Zilch-nada (talk) 15:07, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Surely there exists a better source than blog.eteacherchinese.com? Used to cite the phrase "He was credited and praised for driving imperialism out of China," ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 23:51, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

I'll just state that I've read the Tracing Woodgrains Substack article, and I think he's not wrong, either about this article or about Wikipedia political bias in general. Complain about "canvassing" all you want, but outside attention to the dysfunctional culture of Wikipedia is not a bad thing, just like daylight being shed on abuse and dysfunction within any established institution. As to this article, the lines of gushing hagiography toward a man who was, in the end, a mass murderer is pretty disgusting. Yes, some positive achievements need to be acknowledged, but "visionary", for fucks sake? It's like calling Hitler a visionary because the Nazis built the Autobahn. Peter G Werner (talk) 13:37, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Saying "but the canvassers are right!" is not a defense of canvassing. And I would note that Substack is the platform that keeps promoting actual nazis. Which makes it even more dubious UGC than normal. Simonm223 (talk) 13:40, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Ah, so you're repeating the "Substack promotes Nazis" lie, not to mention the implication that Tracing Woodgrains is in some way a Nazi sympathizer. Your hateful and Wikipedia:UNCIVIL rhetoric underscores the need for outside attention here. Of course, those carrying out and benefiting from the abuse don't like that attention, hence, stock complaints about canvassing.

If you have any evidence that this article is suddenly being flooded by new accounts or single purpose accounts due to Trace's article, then provide proof. Otherwise, this is just a case of being buthurt over bad behavior that's getting some outside attention. Peter G Werner (talk) 13:56, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I criticized a source as being from a site with more dubious UGC than normal. You are being rude, insulting and uncivil to me as a person. You raised canvasing to defend it. I pointed out your defense of canvasing was contrary to policy. I think you might want to step away from this conversation for a few hours and calm down a bit. Simonm223 (talk) 14:02, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I think it's you who need to tone it down. Your Nazi accusations are inflammatory, and you need to stop it. "Rude, insulting and uncivil to me as a person"? Look in the mirror!

For my part, I'm not going to take marching orders from someone who is acting in an an extremely uncivil way toward me. I'm willing to step away or engage civillay as you see fit, but not with someone who's taking an condescending tone and leading with false accusations of fascist sympathies.

I realize that canvassing is against policy, and I think edits that can be demonstrated to be the result of canvassing can be dealt with accordingly. But I'll just say that I don't agree with the larger policy that's effectively "What happens on Wikipedia stays on Wikipedia". That's just a recipe for a damaging status quo and if that upsets people who benefit from that status quo, oh well. Peter G Werner (talk) 14:14, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I did not accuse anybody on the wikipedia project of anything. If you believe I was suggesting you sympathize with Nazis let me assure you I had not such intent at all and am sorry if that's how you took it. However Substack is a UGC platform with a very bad reputation (which was my actual point) and I will adamantly assert we should not be using anything published on Substack to make editorial decisions on Wikipedia. If you are not proposing we should use material published on Substack to make editorial decisions then we can end this discursive cul-de-sac. Simonm223 (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

You certainly seem to be making fascist allegations against Tracing Woodgrains, and that's an incredibly inflammatory thing to lead with. The idea that Substack is a "Nazi" platform is one of the biggest pieces of nonsense trotted out by progressive left types I've seen in the last few years, and yes, I actually have previously read the articles making this claim and the articles rebutting them. Based on the many Substacks I've read, there is simply no way of inferring a blog's ideological slant from the fact that it's on Substack - yes, there are some far-right substacks, but there are also far-left ones, but the majority are normie centrist or non-political blogs. Not terribly different from Wordpress, really, except that it uses more modern code. So trotting out accusations of Nazi sympathies when you have no evidence for that is really bad form.

Now as to Substack blogs being UGC, you're absolutely correct, but I don't think anybody in this conversation is saying use Tracing Woodgrains article as a source for this article, which of course would violate policy. But I don't see any reason to treat Trace's article any differently from critiques found on Wikipediocracy or any number of other outside sources. Wikipedia obviously does not need to alter an article just because it gets bad press. But Wikipedia doesn't exist in a vacuum either - many experienced editors, myself being one of them, see the many problems with this project (bias and drift from NPOV being big ones) and take outside critiques on board.

And what I really don't like about the rhetoric about "canvassing" is that it is likely to be used as an excuse to simply block any editor who shares the criticisms raised in that article, and a reason to double down on edits that veer toward a sympathetic POV to Mao. Peter G Werner (talk) 14:45, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

See this is the thing: I see no need for us to "take outside critiques on board" in this case. Wikipedia is independent and operates according to Wikipedia's principles, not those of actors from without the project. If you have issues with article neutrality then you should handle those within the frame of the project - by a demonstration either of unsourced statements, sources misrepresented, sources that should not be used or of sources that should be used and are not. Simonm223 (talk) 15:45, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

And if the internal process is broken? That's what sources like Wikipediocracy and the Tracing Woodgrains article are getting at, and I don't think that's unfair at all. Right now, those of us who are critical of the problems with Wikipedia are told to just suck it up or GTFO. That's dysfunctional, and kudos to good-faith critics like Tracing Woodgrains for bringing that to light.

As to the hagiographic language used in parts of this article, I think it's a problem, and based on conversations I'm seeing here, I'm not the only one who feels that way. And in terms of scholarly sources, there are at least as many that acknowledge Mao as a dictator and mass murderer as those few that hail him as a "visionary". Peter G Werner (talk) 17:06, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I repeat my request. If you have neutrality concerns can you please identify in WP terms what those are? I do prefer to pretend Wikipediocracy doesn't exist and care even less for the opinions of random anti-WP blogs. This is all WP:NOTFORUM stuff. But your concerns as a Wikipedia editor should be considered if you have specifics beyond complaints of vague hagiography and your personal belief that Mao was a "mass murderer". So. Are there sources being overlooked. Are there non-RS that should be removed? Are there unsourced statements or statements that misrepresent their sources? Simonm223 (talk) 17:28, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

So the view that Mao is a mass murderer is a mere "personal belief", but the claim that Mao was a "visionary" is somehow objective truth? Good grief, the bias and double-standards in that very framing are self-evident, and only act as confirmation of the problems some of us have been pointing to. Peter G Werner (talk) 17:38, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

This is not an actionable discussion for edits at this time. Simonm223 (talk) 17:43, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't see how that's relevant; if there are unjust or inaccurate claims made by the post, address that. Zilch-nada (talk) 15:09, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

70:30 as party doctrine confusions

@Wanderer V8, firstly, I take it in good faith but given you seem to agree your cited source doesn't actually verify the content added, please take a look at WP:BURDEN. Secondly, I really suspect you have made a leap of logic (i.e. WP:SYNTH) from the sources you have perused, because the resolution in question simply does not contain that phraseology or one another it meaningfully "follows"—instead, the latter of course initially appeared in an off-the-cuff remark by Deng. Please self-revert, as the assertion is quite acutely misleading in addition to not being verified. Remsense 🌈 论 22:34, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

@Wanderer V8 that's significantly better, thank you. Remsense 🌈 论 22:48, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

" In China, Mao is frequently assessed as 70 percent right and 30 percent wrong.". What does this even mean? Does it mean 70% of population thinks he was right and 30% that he was wrong? Or does it mean that each person in China thinks that Mao was 70% good and 30% bad? If nothing else, this is extremely bad writing. Volunteer Marek 23:50, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Per the sources:

Marquis & Qiao 2022: To this day, it is frequently said that Mao was 70 percent right and 30 percent wrong, although there is no official statement on this matter.

Meisner 1999: In the years following the promulgation of the Resolution, it came to be a popularized orthodoxy that Mao had been 70 percent correct and 30 percent wrong.

Lee 2016: Second, Mao’s life is commonly assessed as composed of 70 percent accomplishments and 30 percent errors, a schizophrenic formulation that seems to trouble few, resting as it does on the political theology of Mao’s two bodies.

So somewhere along the lines of the latter. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 00:07, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

So this is some official position? Whose? Also, probably good idea to include the "schizophrenic formulation". Volunteer Marek 01:25, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

It stems from an off-the-cuff remark made by Deng Xiaoping made around 1981 and has since become, if not quite official doctrine, a widely used formulation by party-backed and state-backed organs and media outlets. It's become such a widely used summation that it's probably worth a short paragraph in the "Legacy#In China" subsection. Wanderer V8 (talk) 01:54, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Then that's what we write. "Around 1981 Deng Xiaoping made the remark that ... and that became a common expression in China". Of course, needs a source which says that. Volunteer Marek 18:08, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Poverty in Mao's China

I'm sorry but how is the text sourced to Kent Deng "much worse" than the stuff by Carmelo Mesa-Lago [1]? Mesa-Lago is an expert on *Cuba*, not China. The text based on him is based on an offhand remark. On the other hand, Kent Deng is an expert on economic development in China, Chinese economic history and poverty in China. At the LSE. The information from Deng is based on actual data and evidence (which basically means they cannot be "exceptional"), Mesa-Lago's is... just an offhand remark, an empty assertion. How can Deng's text be "much worse"?

As far as wikivoice, there's all kinds of sketchy stuff in this article, including this section that's said in Wikivoice. But fine, if you need to attribute, attribute. But don't just remove it. It is a highly reliable source from an expert in the field, and a paper that is wholly dedicated to the topic in question (poverty in China), unlike the cherry picked stuff from Mesa-Lago.

And what's wrong with comparison with India and USSR? These are not "extraneous". As with all comparisons, their purpose is to contextualize the information and make it easier to comprehend. If you just quote a poverty statistics that is kind of meaningless unless you can compare it to some baseline or a point of reference. In this case India, another developing country whose path of economic development is very very very often compared to that of China (see for example classic works by Amartya Sen) in the economic development and poverty literature, and Soviet Union, the other "big" communist country. Calling these "extraneous" is off base.

I would appreciate it if the text was restored. After all it is based on a high quality reliable source from an expert in the subject so removing it nilly willy appears to be a violation of Wikipedia policy. Volunteer Marek 18:16, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

I do not wish to seem abrupt, but assertions like "the government instead engaged in "campaigns of class struggle" to distract the people" are silly in the extreme. Whether the Mao-era emphasis on class struggle is good or bad is a different question. To think to assert in Wikivoice that the purpose of Mao-era class struggle is to distract, suggests that the Wikipedian may not know enough about this topic yet.

The Mesa-Lago text is explicitly comparing economic approaches of Cuba-China-Vietnam, and with a Chinese researcher. What a shame that Bingzi He did not receive full co-author credit! I suppose that's the "politics" of academic publishing for you.

Within the two page range cited in the proposed Deng edit, what is the best excerpt that supports the language you propose? Maybe we can work from there and reach an attributed version? JArthur1984 (talk) 23:20, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Here is the exact text from the source:

"As poverty perpetuated under Mao, a strategy of 'class struggle under proletarian dictatorship' was created and actively implemented to distract people's attention"

I would suggest that Prof. Deng, an expert on the topic at one of the most prestigious universities in the world [2] does actually "know enough about this topic" and it might be the Wikipedian who dismisses academic scholarship from subject experts as "silly" that fits that description better.

I also don't think it's too much to ask for someone to read two pages out of a journal article before clicking the "revert" button, particularly since about half the space of those two pages is taken up by tables. That is usually not considered too onerous. But for completeness here is the other pieces of text that the Wikipedia article was based on:

"In rural China, by 1978, two-thirds of the rural population had a living standard below that of 20 years earlier. The remaining one-third had a living standard below that of 40 years earlier" (pg. 36)

(I didn't include the second part but it actually should be included as well. And btw, the same assessment was made by the Chinese communist party in the 1990s before the resurgence of Mao-worship, so the fact is not at all exceptional)

"In terms of 'absolute poverty', to borrow Marx's terminology again, Table 29 shows that Mao's regime impoverished China more than the regimes did in the USSR and post independence India." (pg. 37)

The table has poverty rates for USSR, India and China, the last one for 1978. It's 49.3%. This is based on Chinese publications and data as well as western research. Like I already said, Mesa-Lago's claim is an offhand remark based on... vibes apparently. This here is academic work based on actual evidence.

Then, compared to Kruschev's "goulash communism" and even Kim's "apple per day communism", Deng notes that with Mao's communism:

"no attention was given to alleviating or eliminating poverty" (pg. 38)

Again, previous (and then reverted back in) text was based on a source by someone who is not an expert on China but on Cuba. It was an offhand remark. Here instead we have a scholar who's entire career has been devoted to studying this topic. Yet, you are removing him. And to top it off, the excuse being used is that comparisons with India and USSR are "extraneous" (even though this is very frequent in the academic literature) yet have no issue with using a source which is entirely based on a comparison between China and Cuba. Apparently it's fine to compare Chinese experience to Cuba, as long as the "right" conclusion is reached, but it is forbidden to make comparisons with India and USSR, especially if the "wrong" conclusions are reached.

I think I've provided enough quotations and explanation that the text can be restored, no? Volunteer Marek 02:18, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I think the text should be included, but opinions should be attributed to the author.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:33, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree with a result where we attribute the respective views. JArthur1984 (talk) 13:44, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I concur with this as well.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 13:48, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Inclusion with attribution seems wise but let's try to keep it concise. Simonm223 (talk) 17:40, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Agree with need for attribution. But giving same weight to one source by a non-expert making an offhand remark as to a source by an actual expert with a whole dedicated article to the topic violates WP:UNDUE. Volunteer Marek 17:59, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I will suggest that there's considerable overlap in academics interested in Cuba and in China as two key examples of socialist states that survived the fall of the Soviet Union so I don't think Mesa-Lago is undue on those grounds. But I do think that Deng is also due. As far as due weight between the two goes I'd be open to us workshopping mention of both in a way that would be compliant with best practice. Simonm223 (talk) 18:05, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Edit to add that comparisons between poverty issues in China and in the Soviet Union are certainly due in the context of Mao's leadership. Simonm223 (talk) 18:05, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Additional edit to add that I went back and looked at the edits in question and have to say I would concur that we should not be using Mesa-Lago alone to make Wikivoice statements regarding academic consensus, especially in an area where reasonable historians disagree. Simonm223 (talk) 18:11, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's actually my main concern with Mesa-Lago. It's not just that he states his opinion regarding poverty in China under Mao, is that he makes a claim, in an offhand way, about the entire consensus among scholars, a much stronger claim which may qualify as WP:EXCEPTIONAL, and the claim is kind of obviously not true (Deng being a counter example right there). Volunteer Marek 05:33, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Yeah I would agree using a single author's opinion, regardless of the level of expertise, to determine the consensus of an entire field of study is a WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim. Simonm223 (talk) 11:00, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

"Mao Tsé-Toung" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Mao Tsé-Toung has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 July 30 § Mao Tsé-Toung until a consensus is reached. ArthananWarcraft (talk) 18:23, 30 July 2025 (UTC)