Success, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is the prosperous achievement of a goal. (Oed.com 1968) According to this definition, the Chinese revolution of 1949 was certainly a successful revolution. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been incredibly successful in its attempt to replace the bourgeoisie-dominated nationalist government – ​​the Kuomintang (KMT) – with a communist government led by the proletarian class. However, it is necessary to further analyze whether achieving this goal will prove beneficial to China and its peoples. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the legitimacy of the revolution on which it was based has been perpetually questioned. For example, in a 1999 issue of Millions of people were falsely accused and persecuted during the political movements of the Mao period because the CCP focused on class struggle instead of economic development during that period and tens of millions of people died of starvation as food shortages were widespread there during the Great Leap Forward movement. This raises the question: does the cost of the revolution outweigh the benefits, and if so, the revolution can still be considered a success. This is a very difficult question since the value of human lives cannot be quantified and therefore comparing costs and benefits automatically creates a very dire dilemma. However, a study conducted by Barrington Moore in his classic The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy demonstrated India's experience during the same time period. India shares many similarities with China in terms of population, land size and geographical proximity and hence the economy of the two countries is highly comparable. India, which has not gone through a socialist reform, nor a land reform, hence a weak industrial base and low economic growth, is currently in an economic situation where half the country is “slowly starving”, i.e. say more than half a billion people are chronically malnourished and will die prematurely. Comparing China with India, it can be argued that the revolution brought more benefits than costs to China and its people and is therefore a success, even though the misconduct and terrors created during the Mao era were indefensible and can argue that socialist reform can happen without there being any more persecution and famine, however it must be kept in mind that history cannot be taken for granted and therefore one can only analyze what has already happened