User:Mjs

The Britannica on Mao, edition of 1985:

While the Cultural Revolution can hardly be seen as the logically inevitable outcome of Mao’s previous ideas and career, he so thoroughly identified himself with this attempt to transform the whole spirit and structure of Chinese society that assessment of the man and his life work must begin with it.

Edition of 2002:

While the Cultural Revolution was an entirely logical culmination of Mao’s last two decades, it was by no means the only possible outcome of his approach to revolution, nor need a judgment of his work as a whole be based primarily on this last phase.

mjs (Michael Stillwell) is a feckless dilettante. His website is https://beebo.org/.