My interpretation is the the life in the US has been so good that Americans could never imagine what it was like living in 1950's Cuba, 1960's China, 1970's Cambodia, and North Korea. Do people really think that people in those countries were evil or were crazy? The truth is, the people there started with good intentions. They wanted to have equity. They were pained by all kinds of oppression. They genuinely believed that "anti-revolutionary" people or "anti-progressive" people can be educated. Then, it started with your neighbor reporting your indecent behavior to the authority, or your neighborhood organized to educate you. Then it went on, and elementary school students beat their school principals to death. Your neighborhood looted your family for the cause. You lost your right to go to university or get a job because your great grandpa owned properties. Ironically, no one in such nation ended up living well, except the top few. That road to hell is paved with good intension is really not a cliche.
I am sure that "the people" had good intentions. However, you can be sure that the sociopaths running the show knew perfectly well what they were doing. It's not like Mao wanted to save the people from oppression and ended up screwing everybody by mistake.
A cliche is a saying, idea, or artistic component that has lost its meaning from overuse. The way you used “the path to hell is paved with good intentions” points to the fact that it is a cliche and that you want people to be aware of that and consider it instead of reading past it.
