the day after tomorrow will be the 30 years anniversary of Mao's pass away.
although, for legitimacy or whatever reason, "Mao's body still occupies pride of place in a mausoleum in the centre of Beijing, while his visage adorns both the nearby Gate of Heavenly Peace and every new banknote in the land.", ccp did a lot of work since then to rectify the system and prevent chaos derived mostly from one person to happen again.
chinese public outside of ccp was basically divided into two camps, one goes for 7-good-3-bad and the other goes for 3-good-7-bad, both failed to understand Mao and the chaotic and tragic period from a system-person perspective.
as for the rest of the world, except a few officially approved mao bio translated from foreign editions, all i know is the "private life" and "unknow story", both protrait mao in a tabloid style, so i really can't comment.
most of people here who read the "private life" were not shocked. before that, china translated books like the "gulag island" and published numerous literatures and testimonies of the wrongdoings and tragedies of the CR, often connected with the then top leader in one way or another. even so, there are still a lot of people who see Mao in a more positive way and hope that china could maintain some of his
related links:
the last ten years of mao (in chinese),
China | Big bad wolf