Nevertheless , Mao has also been praised as a political intellect , theorist , military strategist , poet and visionary . Mao has been variously described as a " great historical criminal " , " both monster and a genius " , who was also " a great force for good " , a " great leader in history " and a " great criminal " as well as " one of the great tyrants of the twentieth century " , comparable to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin , with a death toll surpassing both . However , others reject such comparisons , arguing that whereas the deaths caused by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were largely systematic and deliberate , the overwhelming majority of the deaths under Mao were unintended consequences of famine , noting that the landlord class was not exterminated as a people due to his belief in redemption through thought reform . Instead , Mao has been compared to 19th-century Chinese reformers who challenged China 's traditional beliefs in the era of China 's clashes with Western colonial powers as well as to United States President Andrew Jackson . Maoist economics polices are likewise controversial , with supporters arguing that life expectancy greatly improved under Mao and that such policies rapidly industrialized China and laid the groundwork for the country 's later rise to become an economic superpower while critics argue that policies such as the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were impediments to industrialization and modernization that delayed economic development and claim that China 's economy underwent its rapid growth only after Maoist policies had been widely abandoned . All in all , both supporters and critics alike generally agree that the human cost has been staggering . Maoism is largely an adapted , Sino-centric version of Marxism – Leninism . While believing in democratic centralism , where party decisions are brought about by scrutiny and debate and then are binding upon all members of the party once implemented , Mao did not accept dissenters to the party 's decisions . Through the Cultural Revolution and the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries , Mao attempted to purge any subversive idea — especially capitalist or Western threat — with heavy force , justifying his actions as the necessary way for the central authority to keep power . At the same time , Mao emphasized the importance of cultural heritage and individual choice as a way of creating this national unity . He described his ideal system as " a political situation in which there is both centralism and democracy , both discipline and freedom , both unity of purpose and personal ease of mind and liveliness to facilitate the socialist revolution " . While the system advocates contradiction , Mao believed the state above all could provide the masses with the tools for their own expression , but his own brand of self-expression was wholly manufactured , built largely on replacing traditional practices and artifacts with his own . Through this , transformation of the people towards an internal party collectiveness was possible
landlord class
Mass killings of landlords under Mao Zedong
Authoritarian socialism