One of the thing people forget about Mao's raise to power, was he did it via a peasant revolt that he had lead for almost 20 years by the time the Communists took over China. This is important, for in the eyes of Marx, such peasants revolts are always suppressed. China has always been the exception to that rule, peasant revolts in China have lead to change of Governments (Often in conjunction with foreign invasion). It was a peasant revolt that brought the Ming to power in 1368
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty
Like the Ming Dynasty, once the original leaders were dead and buried, the grand children found themselves in charge of an efficient and powerful economy. The at the cost of the peasants who had put them in power. Thus when the last Ming Emperor was killed in 1644, the Manchus took over and put down yet another peasant revolt.
Now, China was at its height of power under the Ming. The Ming had the support of the peasants till the end of the Dynasty but as the Little Ice age reached its peak, the situations of peasants deteriorated and the last Ming emperors did nothing to relieve the economic pressure (Much like to day in China, the Grandchildren of people who were with Mao in the 1920s and 1930s are more worried about their own income and status within China, then the conditions of the Chinese Peasant or worker).
Anyway, Mao lead a peasant revolt against the Government of China, not a Workers rebellion. The difference is important, for in Russia you had two revolution, the first one was in March 1917, but it was lead by the workers in the urban areas of Russia. Everyone hears about the Provisional Government that replaced the Czar, but they ignore the various Soviets set up throughout Russia to run various businesses. These Soviets were committees of workers who took over they own factories. In many ways they were STRONGER then the provisional government. The October Revolution was less a revolution then a coup against an unpopular government. The Result was Lenin was in Control of the Government of Russia, but the Soviets remained in control of the Country. That is when the Russian Civil War started (aspects of it had started in the Summer, but it only really started as Lenin had Trotsky sign the peace treaty with Germany in January 1918). The Civil War, forced the various Soviets to end up supporting Lenin, who used that support to expand his power base and force even more of the Soviets to support him. Since Lenin forces had control of the Cities, they also had control over the lines of Communications and Supply (the two things denied to most peasant revolts and the reason most such revolts fail). Thus the Communists under Lenin took over Russia.
Notice the key difference. The Workers took over the major cities and then used those cities as bases to take over the whole country. Marx had made the observation that Peasant revolts tended to fail NOT because the majority of people did not support them, but the ruling elites kept hold of the Cities and thus controlled the lines of Communications and Supply. With the peasants unable to unite do to the Ruling Elite having control of the lines of Communications and Supply, Peasants revolts tended to fail (For example the only successful Slave revolt in History is Haiti and that is only after the Slaves had been freed and some had moved to the urban areas of Haiti, so when, under the Directory, Slavery was reinstated, the slaves revolted and took over Haiti for they held the Capital. Even then the Slave revolt was almost suppressed except for Yellow Fever killed off most of the French Troops AND the British blockade prevented any reinforcements from being sent).
Anyway, when the Mongols took over China, as least, you had a drop in population of 32 million going from 110 million in the last census of the Song Dynasty to 77 million in the first Census under Kublai Khan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Dynasty 77 Million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Dynasty_(960-1279) 110 Million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty#Revolt_and_rebel_rivalry
Another drop in population occurs between the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty and the Ming, from 82 million in 1350 to 65 million in 1393. That is over 20% of the population.
Between 1600, the last Census of the Ming where the population was estimated to be 165 Million to 1750, the first census of the Manchu, where the population was only 140 Million. That is a drop over over 11% of the population.
China's Population in 1949 was 541 million, thus 40 million deaths is just over 8.8% of the population. That is NOT high given the losses when you had other peasant revolts or foreign invasions that changed the Government of China. In such revolution 5% loss of life is considered normal, for the powers that be will do all it can to stay in power, no matter how many people they have to kill to do so, and sooner or later the economics of the peasants get so bad, they are willing to take huge losses to wipe out the ruling elites. That is what China needed in 1949 and what Mao gave them. A little excessive, but low compared to other previous Chinese peasant revolts,
We are confused by the American Revolution, which was less of the Revolution then a termination of a long term alliance. The Colonies has been de facto (in fact) independent since the English Civil War of 1640-1650 but stayed allied with England do to fear of the French in Canada and Louisiana (and to a lesser degree the Spanish in Florida). The American Revolution was more a rejection of British Plans to make the Colonies actual Colonies of Britain as opposed to Independent States allied with Britain. i.e Defense of the Country against an invading enemy, an enemy who had supporters among the colonists do to the effect of the long term alliance.
Such breakups can lead to some nasty wars. The War of the Spanish Armada, for example, was less an invasion by a Foreign invader then Spain trying to get England back into its traditional alliance with Spain against France (the English-Spanish Alliance had existed since the Black Prince of the 1300s, thus was over 200 years old by the time of the Amanda). The USSR's invasion of Check slovakia in 1968, its threats to invade Poland in 1958 and again in the 1970s with Solidarity, and the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 were all attempts to restore a long term alliance as opposed to invading a foreign country. These were all long wars and bloody, and had aspects of a Civil War, but were more efforts to restore an alliance then to revolt against the ruling elite.
In a true revolution, where the ruling elite is directly attacked, that ruling elite will do all it can to stay in power and they do NOT care how many people are killed doing so. Thus such revolutions are bloody, as was the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution and China after the end of the Chinese Civil War, as China adopted reforms that stripped power from the old ruling elite (and most of the rights being taken away were property rights, who had the right to the money gained by the work of people who worked the land? i.e the person who did the work, the Government or some landlord? It was at that level where most of the killing occurs in any revolution and why most revolution sees a 5-10% loss of life.
I am not saying it is right, but that is what happens.
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