Mao was the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century

Scholars estimate that 16.5 to 40 million people died during the great leap famine. In his October 2005 essay in COMMENTARY, Arthur Waldron describes the architect of Chinas Cultural Revolution this way: Mao was the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century. Much of the killing was direct, as in the torture and purges at Yanan. After the Communist seizure of power in 1949, the practice became countrywide.