China: | Mao's Legacy

He looked at the portrait on the wall. Mao's face smiled back, serene and omniscient. To dismiss him was impossible; he had forged the very foundation of the modern state. To praise him without reserve felt like a betrayal of the millions who had vanished into the dust of his grand experiments.

: He remembered standing in Tiananmen Square. The electric roar of the crowd as Mao proclaimed that the Chinese people had finally stood up. The end of centuries of foreign humiliation. Hope was a physical thing then, thick in the air. China: Mao's legacy

Chen closed his eyes, and his mind drifted back over the decades. He looked at the portrait on the wall

We could explore a of the "70% good, 30% bad" official evaluation by the CCP, or pivot to the economic reforms that followed under Deng Xiaoping. China: Mao's legacy в Steam To praise him without reserve felt like a

: He remembered the frantic, exhausting energy of the Great Leap Forward. Villagers melting down their cooking pots in backyard furnaces to make steel. Then came the silence. The terrible, hollow silence of the famine years that followed.

: He remembered the sea of Red Guards. Young boys and girls waving the Little Red Book, screaming slogans. Chen had hidden his ancient poetry books under the floorboards to save them from the flames of the Cultural Revolution. He had watched his own brother, a quiet schoolteacher, being dragged away to a re-education camp. The Unending Echo Chen opened his eyes. The room was deathly silent.