Agreed, there was definitely a lot of needless suffering. Most places go through that at some point though... look at America's war against drugs, pharmaceutical industry out of control and gun laws for instance. Or the great depression. The communist period was China's way out of what had in some measurable senses degenerated in to a highly insular and corrupt feudal aristocracy punctuated by armed, roving wardlord bands and extreme religious groups declaring the nth coming of the lord... so you could look at it as an extended great depression for the average Joe, not really too far from more familiar experiences in America, without being too far off the mark. Much of China was something a lot more like poorer parts of like India a hundred years ago... people dying on the street.