To be fair a crook would most likely killed way less people, having a competent crook in charge is generally by far not the worst option.
Re:The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
by FreshStart on Sunday June 11, 2023 @10:21AM
(#36281671)
He did neither, the revolutionaries kept out of all major battles, letting the nationalists and Japanese duke it out and then mop up the remains. He believed in violence and power and that everyone was like him.
Wikipedia lists multiple battles between the Chinese Red Army and the Nationalists, and also states they joined together to fight the Japanese. It lists multiple engagements/actions from 1927 to 1936.
Claiming Mao "believed in violence" adds nothing new, really. Most revolutionaries believed in violence as a means to reach an end. Nationalists did, too.
I think it's not controversial that Mao had a vision for his country which he tought would make China great, he was a visionary and an ideologue. You don't have to agree with his vision to acknowledge he had one.
I don't think Mao was a crook in the sense of "stealing money and the country be damned". I think he was motivated by a vision for his country, why else fight so fiercely against the nationalists and the Japanese? He believed in something.
Whether the Great Leap Forward or any one of his policies was a disaster is orthogonal to whether he believed in doing a great good for China.