Memes

This is the kind of analysis you get when you have no understanding how organizations work. Mao was not some lone actor who miraculously acquired supreme power, and then starved "half of China" for shits and giggles apparently.

Anyone familiar with the way that Mao operated knows that he made frequent use of the mass line and mass mobilisation. He also made use of the collective leadership of the party, and was often frustrated by their lack of cooperation with him (at one point even threatening to launch a revolution against the party). Even anti-communists who have at least studied China in detail know that the lone dictator nonsense is well, nonsense. It is just great man theory of history. A society is made of many moving parts.

As to the failures of the glf, they were entirely technical. The rush to industrialise in a decentralised manner left agricultural production vulnerable to poor weather conditions. This was compounded with the fact that much of the country at the time had poor transportation and communications, and ruled by corrupt cardie, leading to a disastrous lack of effective coordination across the nation. It is only with higher level organization today that countries can mount effective disaster responses. The glf proves the opposite of your point.