laogai Philip Short famine Cultural Revolution prison labour
His policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in China during his 27-year reign, according to some sources, more than any other 20th-century leader; estimates of the number of people who died under his regime range from 40 million to as many as 80 million, done through starvation, persecution, prison labour in laogai, and mass executions. Mao rarely gave direct instruction for peoples' physical elimination. According to biographer Philip Short, the overwhelming majority of those killed by Mao's policies were unintended casualties of famine, while the other three or four million, in Mao's view, were necessary victims in the struggle to transform China. Mao's China is described as an autocratic and totalitarian regime responsible for mass repression, as well as the destruction of religious and cultural artifacts and sites (particularly during the Cultural Revolution).
