The fact that 30,000,000 people died during the Great Leap Forward is astonishing. This event was caused by a great famine. On the short list of things that come to mind (The Holocaust, the Great Purges, the Genocide in Rwanda, etc.), there beings to develop a border with which we can begin to differentiate between these different kinds of things that are the same. I would argue that the deaths surrounding the Great Leap Forward belong to the other camp of atrocities. It seems to me that these atrocities were committed in a (slightly more) favorable light compared to the others, for at their end, even though governments can be used at the expense of people for the attainment of personal power, a dictatorial ruler must still operate within a system designed to help them. The Great Leap Forward which took place in 1958 was Mao's attempt to modernize China's economy so that by 1988 it would out-do the american economy. However I believe that it wasn't Mao's intention to kill humans unlike Hitler who was out to get millions of people. Mao got caught up with his projects and probably didn't think of all the consequences that would come along with them. He did do a terrible thing and in my opinion did not care about humans and only cared about his projects in hopes to make him a better leader. However not to the extent of Hitlers, who had a very cold heart.
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