As for Mao Zedong, I now see him as both a brilliant leader and a scheming tyrant. He blazed the trail to the Promised Land but could not take his people there. Under his leadership, China grew united and strong, life expectancy lengthened, and hundreds of millions were rescued from pauperdom. At the same time, his wild social experimentation was responsible for the misery and deaths of millions, or possibly tens of millions. Never a true friend, he twice threw me into wrongful isolation in prison when it suited some political purpose. Mao was a thinker, philosopher, analyst, general, political leader, poet, and a connoisseur of great stature. He unified and led the revolution through unbelievable hardships, overcoming unthinkable odds, to achieve victory over the established powers in China that had the support of virtually all the world's governments. If he had died before coming to power, he would probably still be remembered as a prophet and as something close to a saint. Even so, it is still he, not Sun Yat-sen, whom most Chinese still look on as the "George Washington of China." But today I believe that Mao was a tragic figure of Aeschylean proportions. Having preached and warned for years against the corruption that usually follows power, having inveighed against arrogance and exaggeration of the role, prowess, and wisdom of any single individual, he became their victim and in turn victimized the Chinese people. With unimaginable hubris, he thought of China-and the world-as an experimental laboratory in his hands. None of the ordinary human relationships of family, community, and friendship were important to him, but only the moving of people through the motions of carrying out his own grand designs. The results was that, in the end, with his formidable powers of introspection, he saw himself gradually turn into the very embodiment of what he had despised and fought against as a young Hunanese patriot-a crabbed old despot, friendless, clueless, disenchanted.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "As for Mao Zedong, I now see him as both a brilliant leader and a scheming tyrant. He blazed the trail to the Promised Land but could not take his people there. Under his leadership, China grew united and strong, life expectancy lengthened, and hundreds of millions were rescued from pauperdom. At the same time, his wild social experimentation was responsible for the misery and deaths of millions, or possibly tens of millions. Never a true friend, he twice threw me into wrongful isolation in prison when it suited some political purpose. Mao was a thinker, philosopher, analyst, general, political leader, poet, and a connoisseur of great stature. He unified and led the revolution through unbelievable hardships, overcoming unthinkable odds, to achieve victory over the established powers in China that had the support of virtually all the world's governments. If he had died before coming to power, he would probably still be remembered as a prophet and as something close to a saint. Even so, it is still he, not Sun Yat-sen, whom most Chinese still look on as the "George Washington of China." But today I believe that Mao was a tragic figure of Aeschylean proportions. Having preached and warned for years against the corruption that usually follows power, having inveighed against arrogance and exaggeration of the role, prowess, and wisdom of any single individual, he became their victim and in turn victimized the Chinese people. With unimaginable hubris, he thought of China-and the world-as an experimental laboratory in his hands. None of the ordinary human relationships of family, community, and friendship were important to him, but only the moving of people through the motions of carrying out his own grand designs. The results was that, in the end, with his formidable powers of introspection, he saw himself gradually turn into the very embodiment of what he had despised and fought against as a young Hunanese patriot-a crabbed old despot, friendless, clueless, disenchanted." in the context of "Sidney Rittenberg and Amanda Bennett, The Man Who Stayed Behind (2001), Epilogue" to mean that wisdom is timeless.