can anyone point me to readings or resources?

The black book of communism where everyone gets the "communism killed 100 million" from, you should know it counts nazis among those victims of communism AND the soviets who were fighting against those nazis AND both sides' theoretical children that weren't born. It's an absolute joke and like half of its authors have disavowed it.

here's a working link to one of the ones that is broken on the other github list:

https://mronline.org/2006/09/21/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/

and here's an old article about the fabricated narrative of the Holodomor even though you didn't ask about that: https://www.villagevoice.com/in-search-of-a-soviet-holocaust/

You may find something of interest in here: https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/README.md, or specifically here for things on Mao: https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/socialism_faq.md#on-mao-maoism-and-marxism-leninism-maoism-and-the-prc Dessalines is one of the creators of Lemmy.

You'd likely enjoy Inventing Reality. Its a good starting point.

Feel free to make another post asking specific questions, as people here are good for providing sources, etc.. I don't have the time right now. You can also search hexbear for things like "Mao" etc., though you may need to do it from www.hexbear.net as older posts may not be synced to your instance. There have been a lot of effort posts, reading lists, etc.. posted over the years. No one here "denies genocide" though.

“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”

Parenti is great, highly recommend.

Another I'd recommend is Vijay Prashad. Washington Bullets is a great book for deprogramming. Also this great 5 minute speech by Prashad

The people who come up with the Mao gazillion deaths stuff for some reason don't have any numbers on the greatest genocides in history such as the British Crown slaughtering Indians, or the US almost completely wiping out the Native American population. China's life expectancy almost doubled during Mao's time, if he was slaughtering people at the rate they claim this would not be possible.