Hassan Picker for Axios:

When I say Mao is a great leader, I mean he is a great historian.

I think there are things that Mao Zedong did that were incredibly impressive.

Having said that, of course, the Cultural Revolution was an abject disaster. I mean, it was a completely destructive policy.

The industrialization policy led to the great leap forward and the industrialization policy also led to horrific numbers of excess casualties, excess death.

So the argument I'm making is that if these things hadn't happened, I think we'd be looking at Mao Zedong as probably one of the most impressive historical forces, but these things happened, nonetheless.