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It is difficult to truly determine what exactly the cause of the PRC's failures were, but I do not agree that it was solely due to the actions of Mao. Mao may have risen to power and put into law many of the policies which backfired, but the state of China before the PRC was extremely unstable, and it allowed someone like Mao to come into power. Mao was not the sole figure of authority, either. As with any head of state there were advisors who influenced Mao's lawmaking process (example being the Hundred Flowers Movement and its backlash leading to the Anti-Rightist campaign). In general, I don't agree with the Great Man Theory fully.

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It is rough to say if the Great Man Theory holds up in this part of history. While Mao was built up into an almost godly image in which what he said was practically worshipped, I still wouldn't agree with the Great Man Theory. I say this because in the Great Man Theory, a leader rises to the top by their natural attributes such as superior intellect or heroic courage. Mao's theories and ideas were full of mistakes, and while he did rebel against the Nationalists, he never fought himself so it is hard to say if he is courageous. Therefore, Mao didn't necessarily have these qualities, but through propaganda and teaching the world was convinced that he did possess such attributes as he was the political figure head of the CCP. In conclusion, If he didn't really have these qualities then it is hard to say that the Great Man Theory holds up.

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The great man theory is an idea that is present throughout many different cultural history, and I would say that it is possible to justify the theory within any of them. In terms of China and the History of the PRC I personally believe that there are a combination of many different factors that contributed to the outcome including aspects of the great man theory as well as others. To look at just the great man theory I would have to say that even within the ideas of what occurred in China a large part of it has to do with the people in power. The main people in power where the ones who helped to enforce laws and create specific ideals that people should follow. Even if not all of the happening that occurred were a direct result of the people in power the way that they came to be or the way they dealt with were. For example the things that occurred during the great leap such as the building of the damns or the creation of the communes and the pooled resources where things that were started by the people in power. Yes they ended up collapsing because of outside factors they were the overall responsibility and idea of people in power. These are more negative ideas but if we look at the actual idea of government that ended up shaping the way that people went about their daily life that was the direct responsibility of the people in power not just something that occurred out of the blue. The people in power also contributed majorly to the way that the history of the country was created. Yes there were other aspects that contributed to the way that history was shaped but in the end the major responsibility can be attributed to the people in power.

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Arguing for the Great Man Theory, I believe that individual leaders/personalities like Mao were responsible for the actions caused during the history of the PRC. Radical socialism in the form of Leninist communism was an extremely different way of organizing society than ever before in history, and while there may have been environmental factors like widespread rural poverty and longstanding governmental disarray that planted the seeds of the PRC the only way to get the masses to follow the radicalism of communism was because of the personality of Mao. Mao was extremely influential and could get people to believe and follow his ideas as shown through his campaigns. Mao's campaigns in tandem with his cult of personality are the most compelling arguments for the great man theory as Mao was able to appear as a God to the masses getting the people to do whatever he wants through these allegedly spontaneous volatile campaigns. Through these campaigns, the PRC was able to rapidly accomplish its goals shaping the foundation of the party. Mao's influence was so strong that he convinced the country to collectively starve itself in support of the "greater good". His influence and personality are what organized and shaped the PRC without Mao China may still be stuck in perpetual civil war. Without Mao, there is no PRC.

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This seems to me to be an argument similar to asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. Was it the social and environmental factors that led people to make a decision, or was it a powerful person's select decisions that led to these social and environmental factors? I want to preface by saying that I don’t necessarily agree with the great man theory, but I do think there are valid arguments rationalizing it. While history is made up of many factors, nothing would be the same without the decisions of a select few leaders. Mao is a perfect example of this, as who's to say that without him China would look anything like it does today? Mao was the one that focused on the farming working class, at a time where many others were still intent on communism in urban centers. Mao was the one who created this cult of personality that would keep the people in fear of saying anything wrong, leading to the death of millions in “natural events”. People arguing against the Great Man Theory could claim that without Mao, a similar situation would have ended up based on the situations at hand. To that I raise the question about how exactly did these issues appear? In class we have listed many of China's problems, both internal and external. Every single one can be directly linked back to a select group of people, who are usually leaders of their countries.

There were a few instances of events that were largely driven by the populace rather than leaders. I would argue here that these instances, like the great leap forward, while driven by the people, were reliant on these leaders. It took someone like Mao and his cult of personality to inspire the people to act the way they did. It wouldn't make sense for a phenomenon this large not to have a centrifugal effect, with a powerful person at the center. This was the effect of Mao and other powerful figures like him; almost every single thing that occurred was influenced by him. Whether it was shaped in fear of how he would react to something, or inspired by his policies, society was dominated by Mao at this time. People may claim that this line of thought serves to direct the blame for the deaths and trauma people experienced away from other people, but it holds true that Maos decisions were ultimately responsible, and if it wasn’t a decision made by Mao then it was one made by the top leaders of the country working with him.

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Team 3, About Historical Inevitability and Historical Occasionality

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Team 3, About Historical Inevitability and Historical Occasionality

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I view the Great Man Theory of History as a part of correct way to look at histroy, because Hero are heros because of conditions, if there aren't right condition, Heros can not be rised from people.
Engles's theory can be seen as a great comment to the Great Man Theory of History, that, history is created by collision of many individual, and each of the individual become the way they are because of the time background......Each Individual, wants to  achieve a situation......essentially economically....and these individuals eventually cooperate to make history. Such united forces, even those some contribute less and some contriute more, are account into the united forces.
So, it is not fair to say only Great Man changed history, even in the case of Chinese which it seems like the great men can change things with only their action and idea. Because, we can clearly see that, even though it is them who started the campaigns, it is very common for people to get out of control. Another clear example is, Mao did not predict that people's commune  to appear, he found out that, and decided to advocate for that.
Another thing we need to focus on is, no matter which view we adapt, we should notice that the direction of history can not be evaluated by simply good or bad, or progression and retrogression, because there are no standard at that time, and such united force can lead things to anyway, it is a kind of occasionality, which no one is able to predict at the time.

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Material for the great man theory:Within the reading assigned for this week, it is said that the famine was the worst in Chinese history... Most tragically it is man made. Chairman Mao's Utopian dreams of a communist paradise produced communal mess halls that ate up too much food.At this specific moment, I believe that Mao is putting his ideology and his power above the well-being of the people as he constantly does after 1949. The well-being of the people and the economy of the state are secondary. Power and ideology first for Mao. Deng and Liu did not have a chance standing against Mao. out Mao was using the Cultural Revolution as a purge to his critics.Again if the campaign or the movement is not supporting Mao, then he is not going to allow it to happen. Thousands committed suicide because of the humiliation they suffered in the culutural revolution. The retoric of the cultural revolution put great stress on the individual's capacity to earn merit and advance through correct political behavior. Mao creates enemies of the party and the state but in fact he is only securing his ideology and others from critics. The people had no chance against him; nor would they get close to what Mao truly thinks. 

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Material for the great man theory:Within the reading assigned for this week, it is said that the famine was the worst in Chinese history... Most tragically it is man made. Chairman Mao's Utopian dreams of a communist paradise produced communal mess halls that ate up too much food.At this specific moment, I believe that Mao is putting his ideology and his power above the well-being of the people as he constantly does after 1949. The well-being of the people and the economy of the state are secondary. Power and ideology first for Mao. Deng and Liu did not have a chance standing against Mao. out Mao was using the Cultural Revolution as a purge to his critics.Again if the campaign or the movement is not supporting Mao, then he is not going to allow it to happen. Thousands committed suicide because of the humiliation they suffered in the culutural revolution. The retoric of the cultural revolution put great stress on the individual's capacity to earn merit and advance through correct political behavior. Mao creates enemies of the party and the state but in fact he is only securing his ideology and others from critics. The people had no chance against him; nor would they get close to what Mao truly thinks. 

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Against it: Enthusiastic cadres exaggerated the productive achievements of the new communes, leading to excessive state collection of grain.  Also, the party grants Mao to do whatever he wanted to do, if most people of the party want Mao, I believe that it could be done. Thousands committed suicide because of the humiliation they suffered in the cultural revolution, but the Mon enjoyed it. The fact that people within the party did not stop Mao at all and lied to him about the big leap forward's bloody truth suggest that other people are supposed to be hold accountable as well and it is not purely the fault of Mao. In the hundred flower, the crticis should not go all out on him and the party. They were too naive. What Mao truly wanted to hear is people may affirm him as a great leader, but what they thought he can tolerate all forms of critic. Their critic without knowing what Mao truly think tremendously increase the insecurities that Mao has. I have also believed this sense of political insecurities that Mao has is the reason why he continues to launch the campaigns and revolutions.

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According to the need for economic development, the country's founding took into account the international context that China was facing at the beginning. I maintain that the Great Man Theory of history should not be attributed to individuals. Because the new China, under the leadership of the Communist Party and in partnership with the Soviet Union, changed its primary mode of production from agriculture to the development of the heavy industry. It was quite difficult for the new China to develop rapidly from an agricultural power to heavy industry in a short period. The Great Leap Forward Movement, for example, was positive in its purpose. Still, its implementation was not well-grounded in theory. The decision-makers did not have a lot of experience in governance, thus causing a series of adverse effects and severe catastrophic consequences.

In the cultural revolution, in order to prevent the resurgence of capitalism. China was a socialist country to prevent the re-emergence of the bourgeoisie, and the Communist Party hierarchy, such as Liu Shaoqi, promoted the privatization of the means of production (factories, land, farmland), which was contrary to Mao's ideas. Besides, to some extent, the two theoretical bases and ideologies were not compatible because of the international camp.

Although the public ownership system has caused a certain degree of harm, the people are recognized. Before the reform and opening up, the public ownership economy was not flexible enough before the Cultural Revolution. In the process of moving towards prosperity, there were some problems and drawbacks, such as the endless needs of people. Therefore, China needs to adjust the planned economy and the activation of the market economy.

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I want to preface my argument with the fact that I don’t agree with almost everything Mao did during his reign. But, he was an extremely effective leader when looking at it through a lens of influence, power, and control. The Great Man Theory is a belief that, whether hero or villain, great leaders are born possessing certain traits that not everyone has. These abilities allow them to gain power and change the course of history. The Great Man Theory revolves around two main assumptions. According to Villanova University, they go as follows.  One, Great leaders are born possessing certain traits that enable them to rise and lead. Two, Great leaders can arise when the need for them is great. Both of these assumptions were fulfilled by Mao.

As we read in Jonathan Spence’s “Mao Zedong,” from a young age he was not like other kids. He had an extremely political mind and was constantly learning, thinking, and discussing the future of China. He established several student organizations, including the New People’s Study Society where many members would eventually join the communist party. He clearly had natural leadership ability from a young age. Additionally, he arose during a time where China needed a leader to step up. He saw a group of people, the Peasantry, itching for revolution and was able to amass a following, grow the Red Army, and establish an entire new republic in China.

I don’t think it is fair to say that Mao’s rise to power was simply happenstance. So, why would the results and tragic outcomes of his years of power be considered a coincidence either? The Great Leap forward was Mao's second Five year plan to convert China into a communist society using the people's communes. The collectivization goals, unattainable crop yield strategies, backyard furnaces (which took farmers away from the fields), and water conservancy infrastructure were all ideas straight from Mao. Despite the clear red flags in all of these growth strategies, millions of people still went along with his foolish ideas. As a result, China experienced up to 30 million avoidable deaths due to famine and extensive economic downfall.

By disagreeing with the great man theory, you are saying that even with a completely different leader, these tragedies would have still taken place. How is that possible? We say Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust and that Abraham Lincoln was responsible for the emancipation proclamation, so why should we not hold Mao responsible for the millions of lives lost and the terrible economic policies? By claiming these outcomes were due to cultural, institutional, and social factors, you are claiming that you believe these outcomes were unavoidable and inevitable. You don’t think there is any leader in the world or even just in China that could have stepped in and made a positive difference? That to me is extremely hard to believe.

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The idea of how Mao and his inner circle were able to greatly influence the early days of the PRC is one that from my point of view makes sense. When we read about Mao's redistribution of land and hunting of the landlords in both the Oxford Illustrated book as well as its effects on the Ye family in Ancestral leaves. While the peasants were in favor of land redistribution, the way it was done through government run struggle campaigns, shows how much of a top-down movement and policy it was. The result being that any and all people including peasants who had more land than was deemed acceptable had to give up the land or have it taken from them. People got behind Mao because of his promise to redistribute land as well as his ability to rally people together. The anti-rightist campaign that resulted from Mao's own reactions to the avalanche of criticisms, both of which were of his own design and decree, would see any and all dissent rooted out and force what remained of the dissident forces to go completely underground. It was Mao who would forge a cult of personality just like Stalin did in the Soviet Union. A cult which was as successful if no more so than Stalin's at keeping the masses loyal to him. Although the Great Leap Forward was not of Mao's design, it was still done by local cadres of the party who ran the villages that initiated the program which Mao enthusiastically supported. Following the failure of the GLF, Mao did not blame the policies which had no logical basis to them but rather the people who carried them out. At this point in particular Mao had a split with the other members of his inner circle who understood the GLF was a highly flawed policy to begin with. The GLF also had turned the rural peasants into a class that did not have the same fervor for Mao as they did before. In order to silence anyone who criticized his thought, Mao would launch the infamous Cultural Revolution to cement his cult of personality and to silence all opposition within the party. He would initially use students to attack their elders and teachers for being "reactionary". Not long after, he'd send all of the students who were a part of the Red Guards, the organization which Chinese youths joined and then went about destroying any and all of China's cultural heritage they could find. The Maoist years of the PRC from 1949-'76 when Mao died were meant highly centrally planned and while not everything that happened came from the top down, the idea of bottom-up reforms and campaigns was an idea of Mao's he championed. Due to this great centralization and governmental command over the entire nation especially the economy, this is why the Great Man Theory applies to the Maoist years of the PRC.

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Though as a dictator, Mao had a lot to say in China at the time, his actions and reach were limited. We learned even though many of the campaigns were his orders, the people's reaction had effect on how it turned out. Not only that, but he was also very isolated from the people and the rest of the world. His judgements were based on the reports shown to him and most of them were falsified to satisfy him. There were also campaigns that were started from the bottom-up, one big example is the Great Leap Forward which resulted in the catastrophic famine wiping millions of people out. He had very little to do with how it started, and also was not capable of doing anything to mitigate for the consequences; hence we can say that even in the world of full control the people's actions still had more influence than one leader, disproving the Great Man Theory. The reason most people might support the great man theory in China's situation is because of the idea that Mao tried to put out to people. The image he showed the world that he was in full control to everything that happened in China, which is a good strategy for maintaining power, but in reality he was sometimes confused. He sometimes tend to watch how people reacted to something then act on it. One example is the Anti Rightist Movement that came right after the 100 Flowers campaign.

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I intend to believe that both supported a lot in shaping the PRC. However, the years of the establishment of the PRC were mainly shaped by leaders. Mao and state planners were standing on the same side, although they manage the different parts of China. From my point of view, during the war with Japan, the economy and other institutions were awful. Keep surviving was the only thing. At the beginning of the PRC, the leaders design an appropriate plan by learning about the Soviet Union and brought an obvious development to the country.

However, while Mao and his state planners started to support different ideas, the PRC was mainly shaped by society. For example, the Great Leap Forward is a local initiative but not a command from the committee. Although Mao's support and encouragement of the Great Leap Forward let more and more people join in this campaign, it still shows that social factors mainly affect the PRC. After the good reputation of the PRC decreased(The hundred Flower Movement and the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution), the influence of the leaders decline more obviously and quickly.

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The history of the PRC cannot be explained without social and cultural forces, that much is true. But where did those social and cultural forces originate from? Yes, the Great Leap Forward was started by local communes, but it is unreasonable to think that the peasantry would ever have come together to discover such ideas if Mao had not ordered the creation of communes and socialist education that emphasized revolutionary fervor. It was then Mao that took these isolated events of social formation and standardized it, leading to the great importance (and tragedy) that we now consider the Great Leap Forward. The campaigns of the 1950's, again involving complex and strong social and cultural movements, were clearly planned and orchestrated by a handful of higher-ups in the Party in order to individually target party enemies. It was Mao who created heavy censorship, and Mao who took it away, then persecuted intellectuals, leading to the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward. It was also Mao's fear of ostracization from the Party and his legacy that led to his organization of the Cultural Revolution, and it was his sayings and beliefs that made up the Little Red Books used for educating the masses on how to act. While social and cultural forces determined how those sayings would be implemented, the movement was clearly driven by an allegiance to Mao and was started (and later ended) based on his orders. Yes, these social and cultural factors are important, but the way in which they shaped history was determined by the ways in which Mao and a handful of other Party officials chose to use them or exclude them.

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I think that each side contributed to the downfall of the other. One couldn’t have happened without the other. As one part of society began to fall it influenced another and they fell farther down together.

For the sake of taking a side, I would say that this shouldn’t be attributed to an individual. Through the campaigns and the Great Leap Forward, it wasn’t just one person or one group of people creating problems for everyone else. There was those who tossed wood into the fire and those who stood by and did nothing about it. For example, during the Great Leap Forward, it wasn’t Just Mao ZeDongs leadership that caused the disaster. It happened over time and it is important to note the cadres influence. Many of them altered numbers and statistics and relayed false numbers to Beijing to make it look like the country side was prospering when it was infact not. There was that and the people within the coops that hid lack of progress and those who didn’t contribute at all. There was also the disregard for scientific evidence when trying to improve the growth of crops. Then things just kept getting worse because there was that false impression going around that everything was fine.

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Generally speaking, the biggest criticism why great man theory is flawed is that it's all the people who acted the history instead of some "great men". Billions of people used to live on the earth but every few of them became great men. They did give orders and instructions to the commoners but it would be commoners themselves to implement great men's order. If the people are not willing to obey to the great men, they can be against the Great men and the so-called great men will not longer be great. Therefore, it's commoners who believe and hold opinions that is "created" by great men and it's commoners who choose the great men instead of great men creating a theory and instructing people.
Now let's be more specific on the Case of modern China and explain why great men theory is problematic.
In the view of Chinese students who grew up with internet and modern media, the autocracy of Mao is the biggest reason why China was flawed before the reformation and open. It's purely Mao's reason why China would step into the swamp of Great Leap Forward. However, in a large extent, the failure should not be completely blamed on Mao. The economic success and military success of China in the past twenty years(winning of Sino-Japanese war, Korean war, five year plan) gave all the people in China faiths that China is being increasingly stronger and the population in China gave the country potentials. That is the main reason why Mao, the leader of all Chinese people, would launch the Great Leap Forward. It is the blind confidence of all the people other than Mao himself.

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It would be ahistorical to analyze the history of the PRC, just like any other collective (whether that be a nation, group of people, empire, etc.) purely through the lens of the Great Man Theory despite its dominance in certain historical discourse. Especially when talking about the PRC and CCP, it is easy for historians to become absorbed by the cult of personality built around Mao and perpetuate such a notion that the history of the PRC was mainly shaped by the actions, ideas, and decisions of specific leaders like him, for instance. However, history is a process. It is not the agency of one man. It is a force that is evolved from several factors and conditions within society including social, economic, institutional, cultural, etc. These factors in the lifetime of the PRC included post-imperialism nation building, the unification of a fractured nation that saw years of war and violence in the buildup to the CCP’s victory, cultivating a supportive and “competitive” economy* which included the process of industrialization, and existing as one of two primary representations/authorities of the communist ideology amidst one of the most divisive periods of history: the Cold War.

*Competitive not in a capitalist sense of growth and output, but rather in the regard of the governments need to legitimize the economy on the world stage for a multitude of reasons, including in part in the spirit of competition, or comparatively with the USSR.

The lean for many to consider the Great Man Theory comes from two distinct motivations. One of these motivations is the desire to delegate responsibility for dramatic and disastrous events in history. In allocating blame to one, or a select few individuals for the results of their rule, one doesn’t have to consider the complexities of said rule. People might hesitate, in other words, to look at this period of history closely and dissect the factors that contributed to these choices specifically because it might feel as though they are removing blame or justifying said events. It feels more absolute to put the blame on one individual, in the sense that they don’t have to consider external reason for their agency, only create conspiracies or psychoanalyze the leader, and not have to give any credence to the conditions of the time itself.

The Great Man Theory perpetuates the notion that there are characteristics inherent to certain people, catalyzing them into a position of “greatness” or “heroism”. It is a theory deeply rooted in biases for even evident in its title, who usually gets highlighted for greatness in history- people who have power. This means it is often men, or people of wealth who are upheld through this narrow lens. It removes the agency of the people that in fact influence history greatly. It is a narrative often perpetuated for purposes of nationalist retellings of history, and theories of exceptionalism within history.
At the start of the PRC, the new government was faced with a number of priorities such as curbing inflation, gaining popular support, national unification, industrialization, maintaining law and order, and building a national government. It was essential that their first priority be ensuring the immediate security and order of the state which emerged from years of war and chaos. For them this meant taking drastic action such as classifying people into distinct categories to ensure the enemies of the regime- those that would threaten its power and authority and by extension the safety and prosperity of the people, be made known. The bad classes thus were an example of an action taken by leaders because of internal political and social factors. It could also be seen as an action taken to unite the people around a new structure and signify the new era of harmony the regime hoped to create, even if it ultimately did quite the opposite.

The Hundred Flowers campaign and the anti-rightest campaign that followed, while considered often through the lens of the Great Man Theory, can more accurately be attributed to economic and international political factors as opposed to a single person like Mao. Mao sought with the Hundred Flower campaign to solve economic and political troubles by inviting non-communist and intellectuals to provide feedback and criticism of the party.  He understood recent Hungarian uprisings in terms of a lack of ideological training among the people and felt that his power was secure enough to withstand feedback from the populous for the sake of its future prosperity and security. It in some regard was an effort to appear more democratic. He also saw a need for the floor to be opened to intellectuals for help with planning, which was failing at the time. The other line, the state planners, did not see this was a good plan nor did Soviet leaders. It ultimately got out of hand, and he came back with the anti-rightest campaign- a movement designed to target those that spoke out and anyone that criticized the party from that point forward. He claimed it was a trap planned all along. It would be easy to see this period as driven by his actions purely. However, one must return to the challenges the PRC faced from the beginning of its rule- those of international legitimacy and stability concerning external threats (like the Nationalist party). Collectively state planners and Mao were concerned with maintaining stability and suppressing the possibility of uprisings.

The Great Leap Forward is another instance of the Great Man Theory being perpetuated. However, immediately one essential thing to point out about the conditions which the Great Leap Forward emerged from was that it started as a local project. Local peasants were mobilized by local cadre to completely collectivize for better production output. Mao saw this and catalyzed it into a national movement through his comments that these were the first sprouts of natural born communism. The campaign to create high quantities of steel and eliminate the four pests are also included and can be seen as a development of environmental and cold war conditions for instance and more broadly economic and political motives. However, it is again essential to note in this instance, local cadre were more responsible for the horrible reality which was the conditions that developed from GLF policies. They lied about the production quantities and success of new agricultural techniques. Though their desire to please Mao and be seen as loyal party cadre drove this action, they still illustrate independent decision making and external motivations mirrored by Mao. For instance, the development of technology, specifically photography and international press amidst the global political conditions with calls for and the imposition of democracy by the west, were factors that informed the action of many individuals within the population.

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There are several important questions to answer when it comes to the Great Man Theory in terms of the early PRC. For one, would a Communist party lead by a different leader enact land reforms? I say yes, as the reforms themselves were partly built out of promises during the war and partly out of attempts to curry favor with the people of China. These policies were ideological, personal project of Mao or the party leadership- they were somewhat "inevitable," at least under a Communist China. Beyond that, the war itself had already gutted China's gentry class, with many of them already fleeing the country or dying during the war. It makes sense that the peasant class would absorb their land to some degree.
Another question is whether the campaigns post-war were the unique product of Mao or a historical inevitability. I think the latter is closer to the truth. The individual campaigns were probably not historically determined, but it is reasonable to infer that the targets of these campaigns- ideological opponents, subversives, and local leaders- would face the ire of the CCP after the war. They did, after all, pose the greatest threat to the stability of the state (at least in the logic of totalitarianism). The mechanism of mass movement too is closely tied to the ideology of Communism.
A third question is whether the great Leap Forward would have happened without Mao's involvement. I think the answer to this is yes, for a few reasons. For one, the origins of the movement were spontaneous and socio-economic. Conservation projects necessarily lead to the entrance of women into the workforce which in turn necessarily lead to communization. The media environment then spread this, and the incentive structures put into place by the government did the rest. Mao played a minimal role in the famine's rise. But what about the languid response? Well, the totalitarian nature of the CCP heavily discouraged speech against the party line. I do not think this was a product of Mao- rather, it seems more like a cultural product of the Long March, which ideologically hardened the party's leadership. This ultimately lead to a system of ideological chest-beating where accusing someone of being "anti-communist" is a deadly effective mode of discrediting them. Thus, people were afraid to speak out against the party / ideological line. I think this, more than anything, slowed the government's response to the famine and lead to millions of deaths.

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The PRC itself is a result of war and disaster which allowed Mao to become leader. With this people looked up to him as leader. With this notion of the great man theory it would insinuate that Mao overturned the free will of his people. The first 30 years were not a direct result of Mao himself but instead, it was due to ill guidance on all parts. As China looked up to Soviet rule, pushing communism into China and attempting to industrialize and expand their communist economy in such a short period of time is what lead to the dark years of the first 30 years of the PRC. With the Great Leap Forward in mind, Cadres were not being directed by one person and instead on their own created this idea of mass production working for the farmers. This expectation expanded into a national campaign that was then endorsed by Mao, but it is important to keep in mind that he was not the master behind this plan. It was poor economic planning and the freewill of the Cadres. To add to this, socially farmers became less and less inclined to work as they were not motivated since they had little reward for their work. It would be wrong to blame a single man for such a situation as it was the Cadres who started the movement. Even before the Great Leap Forward farmers created their own communities where they all depended on one another which is not sustainable without government help. These communities were created on their own without any influence from Mao.
Another aspect to look at is the support the PRC had in their efforts to continue to outsource goods to other countries in order to "keep appearances" if China were to have become more isolated instead of worrying about international politics and economics, China could have sustained itself in agriculture and industrialized work. As China's attempts to outsource goods would have been better to be allocated to the people. Which is the fault of the government as a whole and not a singular person. Implying that Mao was the only one at fault would to not acknowledge that he did step down from his position after the Great Leap Forward only to then create a revolution after. Students who participated had their own free will to see that Mao's push for complete communism and anti-capitalism had its own faults and yet they chose to join him.

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After the defeat of the KMT in 1949 by the PRC, Mao Zedong took power in China as the head of the communist party. He ruled as chairman of the party for decades until his death in 1976, leaving behind a historical legacy of being one of the most authoritarian dictators in history, being responsible for millions of lives being lost and millions of livelihoods being destroyed.

Mao Zedong is infamous for being one of the most totalitarian dictators in history. The policies he enacted caused so much destruction that many sources consider him to be the biggest mass murderer in history. His campaign of the Great Leap Forward was concocted and enacted by his core policy. In fact, in order to ensure his maintenance of power in the aftermath of the disaster that was the Great Leap Forward, he initiated the Cultural Revolution, which according to some estimates caused up to 20 million deaths. Under this campaign, individuals who spoke out against Mao's rule and Mao's word, and many individuals who didn't, were heavily prosecuted, tortured, and/or killed. Mao had advisors and individuals who assisted him in enacting policies, but to say that they had real individual power is senseless. They could only make use of the power they were given so long as it fit within Mao's beliefs, and did not challenge any of his actions.

To put the blame of the disasters occurring during these times on the populace of the PRC at the time is simply unfair. Surely Mao could not have enacted the policies he thought of on his literal own. Other individuals throughout China needed to physically enforce and enact the policies he created, which gives them some fault as well. However, the system in which they existed was organized and brought about by Mao, and within that system, the individuals had no real say. Mao was the only individual with real conceivable power to enact change in the country, and it was his actions that lead to the tragedies that occurred at the time. To say that there were no other factors would be a bit ridiculous, as Mao was certainly influenced by other things, however the major political shifts that occurred at the time happened out of Mao's own will.

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When looking at the context of what allowed Mao Zedong to become a leader in the first place, there are a lot of factors to consider. Before Mao’s rise, the Qing was becoming increasingly forced to open to the West and other foreign powers. The Qing’s supremacy was threatened. This was a problem that had never been so eminent in the history of the Chinese dynasties. In the opening of China to foreign powers through unequal treaties, treaty-ports, and colonization, there was a stream of new ideas that we brought to China. For example, Marxism and Leninism was an import from the West. Industrialization techniques and structures were imported. In general, China was exposed to a lot of new things had had to adapt in order to survive in the face of Western and foreign powers. The cultural, economic, and political changes that gave rise to the PRC were directly related to the Japanese invasions, the Opium War, and general Western threat. During the PRC, the disasters that occurred were also brought on by outside pressure. For example, even during the famine, China kept exporting grain to maintain the image that China was prosperous.

Regarding the very root of the Great Man Theory, question raises philosophical issues of the individual versus the collective and freewill versus determinism and has often become an ideological shibboleth. The Great Man thesis ultimately says more about the patriarchal and individualistic assumptions of society than it informs about the progression of historical events. I think this theory has a lot of backing simply because it is so deeply engrained in the historical field from the beginning - Herodotus literally created history to memorialize great men. In that sense, I think it may be difficult for some people to conceptualize a narrative that isn’t great man centered, but that does not mean that it is inherently superior. There is a lot of bias in creating a narrative around one person (a man) because that is what traditionally has been funded and given merit. The Great Man theory is just one model to analyze history, albeit a very narrow way of analyzing history. Other models can include cultural historians, Marxist historians, feminist and women’s history historians, all of which have all worked really hard to dismantle this hegemonic way of looking at history and the world.

It may be even more dangerous to not give agency to the masses (or common people) that were the ones who were actually affected by these leaders. In fact, it is rather ironic that the Great Man theory be applied to Mao Zedong because Mao himself was a proponent of the masses rising up to form a Marxist revolution. Although that may not have been the reality, Mao still understood the importance of mobilizing the masses throughout his time as a leader. It was in fact the masses who instilled the actual change. Though it was under the leadership of Mao, why take away the agency that the masses had on creating change in the PRC.