Quote about Mao’s legacy

Explain this quote and its context

Had Mao died in 1956, his achievements would have been immortal. Had he died in 1966, he would still have been a great man but flawed. But he died in 1976. Alas, what can one say?

— Chen Yun

Here’s what the line is getting at—and why those three years matter.

Who’s speaking. Chen Yun was one of the CCP’s senior leaders and the party’s top economic hand both before 1966 and again after Mao’s death. He was sidelined during the Cultural Revolution and later helped steer the early-reform era. The remark is widely attributed to him in mainstream references, though the exact original venue isn’t pinned down. (Wikipedia)

1956 → “immortal achievements.” If Mao had died then, his legacy would have centered on victories and early state-building: unifying the PRC, land reform, surviving the Korean War, and successful early industrialization under the First Five-Year Plan. 1956 also saw his speech “On the Ten Major Relationships,” emblematic of confident—still largely successful—socialist construction. This is all before the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957) and the Great Leap Forward (1958–61). (Marxists)

1966 → “great but flawed.” Dying at the outset of the Cultural Revolution would still leave Mao responsible for the disasters already underway—the Anti-Rightist purge and especially the Great Leap Forward and ensuing famine—but not for a decade of Cultural Revolution turmoil that followed. Hence: still “great,” but clearly blemished. (The wording and dating track closely with how many Chinese insiders have periodized his rule.) (The Economist)

1976 → the full burden. Because Mao actually died in 1976, he also bore responsibility for the entire Cultural Revolution (1966–76): mass political persecutions, the Red Guards’ chaos, institutional breakdown, and the Lin Biao crisis—compounding the judgment from earlier mistakes. That’s why the line ends with a resigned “what can one say?” (The Economist)

Official context. After Mao’s death and the rise of Deng Xiaoping, the party issued its 1981 “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party,” which affirmed Mao’s foundational contributions but condemned the Cultural Revolution as “a grave error… comprehensive in magnitude and protracted in duration.” The shorthand that followed—“70% achievements, 30% mistakes”—captures the same balancing act that Chen Yun’s quip dramatizes. (Wikipedia)

So the quote is a compact, insider’s periodization of Mao’s legacy: pre-1957 triumphs (immortal), 1957–65 failures (great but flawed), and the 1966–76 calamities (a damning coda).