In his March 8 op-ed, “The rebirth of the ‘bad emperor,’ ” Francis Fukuyama wrote, “Deng Xiaoping and other senior leaders of the party vowed they would never let a single individual accumulate as much charismatic power as Mao.” Spot on. The cult of Mao Zedong’s personality has as much to do with his long and destructive reign as any policy he espoused.
As a teacher at the Landon School in Bethesda in the 1970s, I showed my students a documentary by an American journalist in China during the years of the Cultural Revolution. The filmmaker visited a rural school where he encountered a deliriously happy group of 7-year-olds who were dancing and singing their hearts out. The teacher explained that the beautiful song they were singing went something like this: “I woke in the night to see my little brother laughing. What makes you smile so? Said he, ‘I dreamed of Chairman Mao.’ ” President Trump watchers’ take note.
Bob Wipfler, Bethesda
