Mao

He’s quite the character. Always playing whichever side works better in his favor. In the beginning, he was dedicated to the peasant revolution. This aim contradicted the pro-Moscow factions in thr CCP which believed that the urban workforce should lead the revolution. In fact, Mao frequently defied orders, choosing to base the CCP activities in rural areas rather than towns like he was instructed to do. Power corrupted him though, or he had corrupt ideas and simply used them once he was in power. In 1930 he ordered 4,000 Red Army troops to be tortured. The Futian Incident was only the beginning, during his Rectification Campaigns in 1942 his opposition was removed and people were forced to confess to “crimes” whether they committed them or not. While he may have started out as a “power to the people” type, he ended up being a “I have all the power over the people” dictator.