Slide from my government class where Bernie Sanders is more left wing than China, Pinochet is extreme right wing authoritarian and Milton Friedman is a sweet right wing libertarian despite advising and defending Pinochet. Obama is more authoritarian and right wing than Washington as well.
I'm always surprised that Mao is out at less "authoritarian" than Stalin. On what basis do libs make that distinction?? Is the Leap Forward seen as libertarian or something? Just nonsense lol
All vibes based, one's Y position in the chart seems to be mostly a function of how many times the liberals making it have heard you called an authoritarian in the news
I think this is the correct response lol. There might be some reasons that it's used more for Stalin than Mao (likely because Stalin was a much more widely adored figure around the Imperial core than Mao ever was). But libs don't know that
They think Stalin killed everyone and sent them to Siberia
It is not a crazy thing to say. Mao had fundamental disagreements with Stalin and was frequently worried that the party would become dogmatic and lose revolutionary fervor. That was the point behind the Cultural Revolution after all. Mao experimented with new forms of governance and codified New Democracy. He ended up often cracking down on the movements he allowed when things got messy, but he was always trying to encourage radicalism within the PRC.
It's hard to say, but I think that you can make an argument with Mass Line and his tendency for Campaigns where he just kind of nebulously encouraged people to do this and that. I don't think they are talking about re-education during the Cultural Revolution or anything like that.
Yeah if you can convince yourself that Stalin is uniquely authoritarian compared to capitalist leaders, Mao would likewise be targeted by every criticism one could make from that angle. Really strange