Dude, it's in the fecking diary, reviewed by Craig Brown, as cited in my prior comment. Benn wrote, in 1976:
‘In my opinion, Chairman Mao will undoubtedly be regarded as one of the greatest – if not the greatest – figures of the 20th century.’
There's no getting round this. No ambiguity about *greatest*. He doesn't mean "horrific but important". He means "greatest".
And this is in 1976, at the height of the the Maoist Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia, when Maoists were smashing babies against trees. And therefore many years after the horrors of Mao's Famine and the Cultural Revolution.
Benn was at best delusional, at worst very seriously malignant. Sorry if he's your hero and all, but there you are.
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Once more you demonstrate that you are a writer of fiction, not fact.