Jay: Whether Mao was better at dancing or at swimming, I would not venture to judge. His skill as a poet, however, was memorably judged by the Belgian Sinologist Pierre Ryckmans, an expert on medieval Chinese poetry. Asked whether Mao’s poetry was any good, Ryckmans replied: “If poetry were painting, Mao was better than Hitler…but not as good as Churchill.” (You can hear me reading one of Mao’s poems here.) Meanwhile, that limerick of Robert Conquest’s in your post brought the Muses a-winging:

On the dance-floor Mao cut a poor figure – Zero skill yoked to maximum vigor. “Homicide,” he confessed, “Is what I do best (if somebody else pulls the trigger).”