Mao's integrity

In class one day someone raised the interesting question if Mao had integrity. The initial response from most of the class was no. Millions died under his reign, how could a man with integrity allow that to happen. But when I examined the question more I began to look at it from a different angle. Yes a huge number of people died under Mao's rule but Mao said that people were going to die from the beginning. In one of his speeches he says that violence might have to happen for goals to be reached. This is honesty. Mao is not promising that he will achieve what he wants through non-violnent means. Mao was being honest. Part of having integrity is being honest. The other part is having strong moral values and in Mao's mind he did have them. The Great Leap Forward, while being a complete and utter failure and causing the death of millions of people, had good intentions. Mao was only thinking of his country. He saw that China was behind the rest of the world and he tried to get it up to pace. He could've been selfish and only be interested in his own personal gain. But he kept his own personal interests at bay and while many of his decisions are very questionable in his mind they were always for the better of his country.

Was Gandhi a Failure?

Gandhi was able to accomplish manny wonderful feats in his life. He had accomplished things like the Salt March and fighting against the Rowlatt Acts that helped in the fight for India's independence. But from the start Gandhi made it clear that he wanted to not only for India to gain independence but for it to be done without violence. And with all the violence and death that happened in Gandhi's campaign for independence it raises the question, was Gandhi a failure? The immediate response would be no due to Gandhi's fame and the fact that India did gain his importance. And while it is true that Gandhi became an idol for non-violence protest and that India did indeed gain its freedom, they did it with violence. That is why I believe that Gandhi was indeed a failure with his attempt to liberate India. Even Gandhi himself considered him to be a failure. In satyagraha Gandhi stresses the importance of non-violence. "Satyagraha is gentle, it never wounds." (Quote from the Satygraha handout) Gandhi failed to do what mattered most, to protest peacefully. But during his fight for freedom there was countless violence especially at the end when thousands of Indians died when the separate state of Pakistan was created. In Gandhi's eyes this was the biggest failure possible. All of his hard work had ended up in the killing of thousand of Indian's, the very people he was trying to free. This tragedy out weighed all the good things that Gandhi was able to accomplish. Because Gandhi was unable to liberate India without violence he was a failure.


Links about Salt March and Rowlatt Acts:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Satyagraha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowlatt_Act