The first question we must answer is, how does one begin to evaluate a concept as hazy and ill-defined as human rights? As Mao Zedong said (and I believe any scientific-minded person would agree):

Where do correct ideas come from? Do they drop from the skies? No. Are they innate in the mind? No. They come from social practice, and from it alone; they come from three kinds of social practice, the struggle for production, the class struggle and scientific experiment.

Where Do Correct Ideas Come from? (May 1963), 1st pocket ed., p. 1.

Perhaps the capitalist camp's favorite example is that of the Great Leap Forward, which they claim killed more than 15 million Chinese. For those of you still awash in this capitalist FUD, the Great Leap Forward was a brilliantly conceived plan by Mao to vastly increase China's agricultural and industrial production, commencing in 1958. It very nearly succeeded, and was only derailed in 1960 by a series of massive droughts that sent agricultural outputs plunging. This was used as an excuse by counterrevolutionary pro-democratic elements in the Communist Party, led by the US puppet Liu Shaoqi, to seize control. They proceeded to reverse nearly all of the reforms made during the Great Leap Forward, which, together with the damage from the droughts, led to the starvation of tens of millions of Chinese in the early 1960's. (These traitors were, fortunately, removed from power during the Cultural Revolution.) Yet, somehow, Mao and the Communist Party leadership are blamed for these deaths, a so-called massive violation of "human rights."

The hypocritical US stooges who denounce Mao and other upstanding revolutionaries for that tragedy then proceed to compare China to India over the same time period. This comparison does have its merits: both countries have approximately the same number of people, both countries have approximately the same arable land area, both governments came into power at approximately the same time -- India's in 1947, China's in 1949 -- and, at the time, both countries had roughly comparable literacy rates, death rates, and GDPs. The anti-socialist camp points out that China had an excess of 20 million deaths over India during the early 1960's, the "aftermath" of the Great Leap Forward. This was mainly because India enjoyed the advantages of a modern democratic state -- a free press, a strong opposition -- making it impossible for them to centralise production along Chinese lines.

What these economic imperialists fail to mention is that, since 1950, India has averaged four million more deaths per year than China -- 200 million deaths! The reasons are mostly consequences of India's lauded democratic capitalist ideology, namely, a weak central government and a failure to distribute resources, including food and medical care, anywhere close to equitably. But is India violating "human rights" in this manner? Not according to the US. But the 200 million "missing" Indians -- dead through famine and disease as a result of the "Democratic Holocaust" might beg to disagree.

These same democracy-loving hatemongers then turn around and complain about "human rights violations" when China dares to enforce its own drug laws. Ironically, these drug laws are the only effective way to combat the same sorts of drug problems that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every single year. The US could fight its drug problem with much less human suffering and loss of life by instituting Chinese-style "Strike Hard" drug laws instead of criticizing them -- but the US government's relationship with the horribly corrupt and abusive prison industry (industry!) makes this less than likely. On top of this, we have the unofficial US death penalty: the 31,000 innocent people killed every year by handguns in the United States. For comparison, China, a nation with five times as many people, executes less than 5,000 people each year, even by the most extreme estimates. Somehow, it is a "human rights" violation for a country to execute several thousand of its worst drug offenders, but a country that sentences millions upon millions of its citizens to ineffective prison terms while sponsoring the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocents is to be applauded!

All of these cases point to the same conclusion: "human rights" are completely arbitrary and utterly useless as a moral yardstick. They exist solely as a propaganda tool for the use of the Western democratic nations. And, what is more interesting, is that the democratic capitalists use this tool for one primary purpose: to hide the fact that socialism is demonstrably better than democracy in every way that counts. Returning to the China vs. India comparison above, note that both countries were in almost identical situations in 1950, the principal difference being that China had a strong socialist government, while India had a weak democratic one. According to the CIA World Factbook 2000 (India, China), China's average life expectancy is currently almost 10 years longer than India's, China's literacy rate is 30% higher, and China's GDP per capita is more than twice India's. Damning evidence indeed.

It's time to face the facts: democracy has failed. It has failed to provide peace, justice, freedom, or a higher quality of life, and has been responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths during its disastrous years of domination in the name of "human rights", while allowing all the actual humans who might have had those rights to die a lingering death. And it is indeed a formidable adversary; overcoming it will not be easy. But as Chairman Mao wrote:

Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.

"The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains" (June 11, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 321.