[mmooss]

They were awful and achieved almost nothing but ruin, so by definition they were unnecessary.

But are you saying reform and change were unnecessary? The people of China were suffering immensely; the country had been in a state of domestic violent conflict, on and off, since before 1911 (as of 1949). The Communist Party became more corrupt.

Mao's policies and politics made all that much worse, but that doesn't mean nothing needed to be done.

[peterfirefly]

China was already developing economically and technologically -- especially in coastal areas and in Manchuria (there was a large migration of Chinese to the area after it came under Japanese control).

That development would have continued.

I understand the anger and the desperation that made the Communist takeover possible but doing nothing at all and keeping all the elites in charge (instead of replacing them with new ones) would have been better.

[mmooss]

What sources are there?

> China was already developing economically and technologically

That's an odd version of history. China just went through WWII, including the awful Japanese invasion, which interrupted a massive civil war that restarted afterward, and which followed decades without a real national government.

> there was a large migration of Chinese to the area after it came under Japanese control

Japanese control didn't work out well for Chinese people, to say the least.

> keeping all the elites in charge

The elites had led China to disaster for a century, 'the century of humiliation' it's called (though blaming outside forces, which do deserve some blame).

> replacing them with new ones

Here we agree.

> would have been better

Certainly there is no source that can more than guess at that.

The better option would have been true democratic reform. It has worked superbly well in parts of China - Taiwan and Hong Kong. It was starting to work in 1989, and leaning in that direction before Xi.