Do Your Own Research: The Mao Era – Catastrophe or Necessity? w/ Rebecca Karl

No one is disputed like Mao. Was he a mass murderer, a Communist hero, a charlatan, or a great poet? The saviour of the peasants, or the man who extracted from them all that he could?

Mao’s biography is a nest of contradictions. He led the largest revolution in world history, then presided over its largest famine – and even then, life expectancy rose 20 years over the course of his rule. He launched rebellions – against a government he already controlled. He purged his enemies and friends alike.

Some 50 years after his death, he remains a central figure in Chinese politics. The Communist Party of China posthumously declared him to be 70% right and 30% wrong, but his face still hangs over Tiananmen Square.

In this second episode on China’s history, Rebecca Karl – author of China’s Revolutions in the Modern World – returns to tell Richard Hames about the Mao era, with all its promises, contradictions and catastrophes.

Watch the previous episode with Rebecca, on China’s century of revolutions. (novaramedia.com/2026/10/17/chinas-century-of-r…)

Explore the map we’re making throughout this series of DYOR (novaramedia.com/dyor), of all the people, events and ideas of the Mao era.

00:00 Intro

4:00 Who Was Mao?

10:52 The 1950s: Land Reform & Early Socialism

24:27 Gender, Class Divides & Welfare

38:37 The Hundred Flowers Campaign Explained

50:15 Famine & The Great Leap Forward

1:03:09 Was the Famine the End of Socialism? Cold War & the Third Front

1:15:02 The Cultural Revolution Explained

1:28:57 How the Cultural Revolution Ended

1:37:30 Jiang Qing, the Gang of Four & Deng Xiaoping’s Return

1:47:49 Mao’s Legacy: Is China Socialist Today?

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