Great Chinese Famine

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Great Chinese Famine
三年自然灾害
Country China People's Republic of China
Location Mainland China
Period 1958–1961
Total deaths 15 million excess deaths (government statistics)
20 and 43 million (scholarly estimates)
at least 45 million (Dikötter)
Observations Considered China's most devastating catastrophe by Frank Dikötter. A part of the Great Leap Forward movement.
Relief Four Pests Campaign (worsened the famine). Increase in food export to other socialist states.
Consequences Termination of the Great Leap Forward movement

The four Years of Great Chinese Famine (simplified Chinese: 三年大饥荒; traditional Chinese: 三年大饑荒; pinyin: Sānnián dà jīhuāng), referred to by the Communist Party of China as the Three Years of Natural Disasters or Three Years of Difficult Period (simplified Chinese: 三年自然灾害; traditional Chinese: 三年自然災害; pinyin: Sānnián zìrán zāihài or simplified Chinese: 三年困难时期; traditional Chinese: 三年困難時期; pinyin: Sānnián kùnnán shíqī) by the government, was the period in the People's Republic of China between the years 1958 and 1961 characterized by widespread famine. Drought, poor weather, and the policies of the Communist Party of China contributed to the famine, although the relative weights of the contributions are disputed due to the Great Leap Forward.

According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in this period.[1] Unofficial estimates vary, but scholars have estimated the number of famine victims to be between 20 and 43 million.[2] Historian Frank Dikötter, having been granted special access to Chinese archival materials, estimates that there were at least 45 million premature deaths from 1958 to 1962.[3][4] Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng concluded there were 36 million deaths due to starvation, while another 40 million others failed to be born, so that “China’s total population loss during the Great Famine then comes to 76 million.”[5] The phrase "Three Bitter Years" is often used by Chinese peasants to describe this period.[6]

Contents

Causes[edit]

The great Chinese famine was caused by social pressure, economic mismanagement, and radical changes in agriculture. Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese communist party, introduced drastic changes in farming which prohibited farm ownership. Failure to abide by the policies lead to persecution. The social pressure imposed on the citizens in terms of farming and business, which the government controlled, lead to state instability. Due to the laws passed during the period and Great Leap Forward during 1958-1962, according to government statistics, about 36 million people died in this period.[7] Until the early 1980s, the Chinese government's stance, reflected by the name "Three Years of Natural Disasters", was that the famine was largely a result of a series of natural disasters compounded by several planning errors. Researchers outside China argued that massive institutional and policy changes which accompanied the Great Leap Forward were the key factors in the famine, or at least worsened nature-induced disasters.[8][9] Since the 1980s there has been greater official Chinese recognition of the importance of policy mistakes in causing the disaster, claiming that the disaster was 30% due to natural causes and 70% by mismanagement.[citation needed]

During the Great Leap Forward, farming was organized into communes and the cultivation of private plots forbidden. Iron and steel production was identified as a key requirement for economic advancement. Millions of peasants were ordered away from agricultural work to join the iron and steel production workforce.

Yang Jisheng would summarize the effect of the focus on production targets in 2008:

In Xinyang, people starved at the doors of the grain warehouses. As they died, they shouted, "Communist Party, Chairman Mao, save us". If the granaries of Henan and Hebei had been opened, no one need have died. As people were dying in large numbers around them, officials did not think to save them. Their only concern was how to fulfill the delivery of grain.[10]

Along with collectivisation, the central Government decreed several changes in agricultural techniques based on the ideas of Soviet pseudoscientist Trofim Lysenko.[11] One of these ideas was close planting, whereby the density of seedlings was at first tripled and then doubled again. The theory was that plants of the same species would not compete with each other. In practice they did, which stunted growth and resulted in lower yields. Another policy was based on the ideas of Lysenko's colleague Teventy Maltsev, who encouraged peasants across China to plow deeply into the soil (up to 1 or 2 meters). They believed the most fertile soil was deep in the earth, allowing extra strong root growth. However, in shallow soil, useless rocks, soil, and sand were driven up instead, burying the topsoil.

These radical changes in farming organization coincided with adverse weather patterns, including droughts and floods. In July 1959, the Yellow River flooded in East China. According to the Disaster Center, the flood directly killed, either through starvation from crop failure or drowning, an estimated 2 million people, while other areas were affected in other ways as well.[12] It could be ranked as one of the deadliest natural disasters of the 20th century.[13]

In 1960, an estimated 60% of agricultural land in northern China received no rain at all.[14] The Encyclopædia Britannica yearbooks from 1958 to 1962 also reported abnormal weather, followed by droughts and floods. This included 760 millimetres (30 in) of rain in Hong Kong across five days in June 1959, part of a pattern that hit all of Southern China.

As a result of these factors, year over year grain production dropped in China. The harvest was down by 15% in 1959. By 1960, it was at 70% of its 1958 level. There was no recovery until 1962, after the Great Leap Forward ended.[15]

According to the work of Nobel prize winning economist and expert on famines Amartya Sen, most famines do not result just from lower food production, but also from an inappropriate or inefficient distribution of the food, often compounded by lack of information and indeed misinformation as to the extent of the problem. In the case of these Chinese famines,[citation needed] the urban population had protected legal rights for certain amounts of grain consumption. Local officials in the countryside competed to over-report the levels of production that their communes had achieved in response to the new economic organisation, and thus local peasants were left with a much reduced residue.

Outcome[edit]

According to the China Statistical Yearbook (1984), crop production decreased from 200 million tons (1958) to 143.5 million tons (1960). Due to lack of food and incentive to marry at that point in time, the population was about 658,590,000 in 1961, about 13,480,000 less than the population of 1959. Birth rate decreased from 2.922% (1958) to 2.086% (1960) and death rate increased from 1.198% (1958) to 2.543% (1960), while the average numbers for 1962–1965 are about 4% and 1%, respectively.

The officially reported death rates show much more dramatic increases in a number of provinces and counties. In Sichuan province, the most populous province in China, for example, the government reported 11 million deaths out of the average population of about 70 million during 1958–1961, one death in every seven people.[citation needed] In Huaibin County, Henan province, the government reported 102 thousand deaths out of a population of 378 thousand in 1960. On the national level, the official statistics imply about 15 million so-called "excess deaths" or "abnormal deaths", most of them resulting from starvation.[citation needed]

Yu Dehong, the secretary of a party official in Xinyang in 1959 and 1960, stated,

I went to one village and saw 100 corpses, then another village and another 100 corpses. No one paid attention to them. People said that dogs were eating the bodies. Not true, I said. The dogs had long ago been eaten by the people.[10]

It is widely believed that the government seriously under-reported death tolls: Lu Baoguo, a Xinhua reporter in Xinyang, told Yang Jisheng of why he never reported on his experience:

In the second half of 1959, I took a long-distance bus from Xinyang to Luoshan and Gushi. Out of the window, I saw one corpse after another in the ditches. On the bus, no one dared to mention the dead. In one county, Guangshan, one-third of the people had died. Although there were dead people everywhere, the local leaders enjoyed good meals and fine liquor. ... I had seen people who had told the truth being destroyed. Did I dare to write it?[10]

Some Western analysts, such as Patricia Buckley Ebrey, estimate that about 20-40 million people had died of starvation caused by bad government policy and natural disasters. J. Banister estimates this number is about 23 million. Li Chengrui, a former minister of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, estimated 22 million (1998). His estimation was based on Ansley J. Coale and Jiang Zhenghua's estimation of 17 million. Cao Shuji estimated 32.5 million. The aforementioned Yang Jisheng (2008) estimated the death toll at 36 million.[16]

Hong Kong based historian Frank Dikötter (2010) estimates that, at minimum, 45 million people died from starvation, overwork and state violence during the Great Leap, claiming his findings to be based on access to recently opened local and provincial party archives.[4] However, his approach to the documents, as well has his claim to be the first author to use them, have been questioned by other scholars.[17] Dikötter's study also stresses that state violence exacerbated the death toll. Dikötter claims that least 2.5 million of the victims were beaten or tortured to death.[18] He provides a graphic example of what happened to a family after one member was caught stealing some food:

Liu Desheng, guilty of poaching a sweet potato, was covered in urine ... He, his wife, and his son were also forced into a heap of excrement. Then tongs were used to prise his mouth open after he refused to swallow excrement. He died three weeks later.[19]

There are widespread oral reports, and some official documentation, of cannibalism being practiced in various forms, as a result of the famine.[20][21][22] Due to the scale of the famine, the resulting cannibalism has been described as "on a scale unprecedented in the history of the 20th century".[20][21]

Political Movement[edit]

The Great Leap Forward was initiated in 1958, after the First Five Year Plan had been declared successfully completed. One point of the Great Leap was starting to set up People's Communes in the countryside. However, the Party had optimistically over-estimated the country's productivity during the First Five Year Plan. In reality, farming activity had gone down due to the All-Canteen.

Some activists went against the Great Leap Forward movement, but they were seen as the opponents of Mao and were silenced in the purges of the following "Anti-Rightist Movement".

After the Famine, then-Chairman of the People's Republic of China Liu Shaoqi concluded that the reason for the calamity was "30% natural disaster, 70% policy". In the later Cultural Revolution, Liu was denounced as a traitor and an enemy agent going against the Three Red Banners.

Further perspectives[edit]

History of the People's Republic of China
National Emblem of the People's Republic of China.svg
1949–1976, The Mao Era
1976–1989, Era of Restructuring
1989–2002, A Rising Power
2002–present, China Today
See also
Generations of leadership

Some argue that the famines in the Republican Era caused a death rate of about five millions/year, the same as in the Great Famine. The famine in northern China in 1920–1921, for example, caused 10 million deaths.[23]

Famine scholar Cormac Ó Gráda noted that even prior to the Great Chinese Famine, famines were "recurrent features of Chinese history during the previous century or so". He noted the "apocalyptic" nature of such famines, including Great North China Famine of 1876–79, which was estimated to have caused between 9.5 and 13 million deaths. Citing Yang Jisheng, Ó Gráda also noted that between 1920 and 1936, 18.36 million people died due to famines caused by crop failures, while the 1942 Henan famine "produced its own catalogue of atrocities".[24]

Former Chinese dissident and political prisoner, Minqi Li, a Professor of Economics at the University of Utah, and a supporter of Maoist policies,[25][26] has produced data showing that even the peak death rates during the Great Leap Forward were in fact quite typical in pre-Communist China. Li (2008) argues that based on the average death rate over the three years of the Great Leap Forward, there were several million fewer lives lost during this period than would have been the case under normal mortality conditions before 1949.[27]

Nobel Prize winner economist Amartya Sen puts this famine in a global context. His book Development as Freedom argues that lack of democracy is the major culprit: "Indeed, no substantial famine has ever occurred in a democratic country—no matter how poor." He adds that it is "hard to imagine that anything like this could have happened in a country that goes to the polls regularly and that has an independent press. During that terrible calamity the government faced no pressure from newspapers, which were controlled, and none from opposition parties, which were absent."[28] Nevertheless, in his work Hunger and Public Action (co-author Jean Drèze), Sen also noted that "despite the gigantic size of excess mortality in the Chinese famine, the extra mortality in India from regular deprivation in normal times vastly overshadows the former."[29] This view was also reflected by Noam Chomsky in Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs[30]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Ó Gráda, Famine: A Short History, p.95
  2. ^ Peng Xizhe (彭希哲), "Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces," Population and Development Review 13, no. 4 (1987), 639-70.
    For a summary of other estimates, please refer to Necrometrics [1]
  3. ^ Akbar, Arifa (17 September 2010). "Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'". The Independent (London). Retrieved 20 September 2010. 
  4. ^ a b Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62. Walker & Company, 2010. p. 333. ISBN 0-8027-7768-6
  5. ^ Mirsky, Jonathan (December 9, 2012). "Unnatural Disaster: ‘Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962,’ by Yang Jisheng". The New York Times Sunday Book Review. pp. BR22. Retrieved December 7, 2012. 
  6. ^ "Different Life of Scientist Yuan Longping" (in Chinese). Guangming Daily. 22 May 2007. Retrieved 16 March 2012. 
  7. ^ Jisheng, Yang "Tombstone:The Great Chinese Famine,1958-1962"Book Review.New York Times.Dec,2012.March 3,2013.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/books/review/tombstone-the-great-chinese-famine-1958-1962-by-yang-jisheng.html
  8. ^ Sue Williams (director), Howard Sharp (editor), Will Lyman (narrator) (1997). China: A Century of Revolution. WinStar Home Entertainment. 
  9. ^ Demeny, Paul; McNicoll, Geoffrey, eds. (2003), "Famine in China", Encyclopedia of Population 1, New York: Macmillan Reference USA, pp. 388–390 
  10. ^ a b c Translation from "A hunger for the truth: A new book, banned on the mainland, is becoming the definitive account of the Great Famine.", chinaelections.org, 7 July 2008 of content from Yang Jisheng, 墓碑 －－中國六十年代大饑荒紀實 (Mu Bei - - Zhong Guo Liu Shi Nian Dai Da Ji Huang Ji Shi), Hong Kong: Cosmos Books (Tian Di Tu Shu), 2008, ISBN 9789882119093(Chinese)
  11. ^ Lynch, Michael (2008). The People's Republic of China 1949-76 (second ed.). London: Hodder Education. p. 57. 
  12. ^ "The Most Deadly 100 Natural Disasters of the 20th Century". 
  13. ^ "Top 10 Deadliest Natural Disasters". 7 September 2007. 
  14. ^ Liu, Henry C K (1 April 2004). "Part 2: The Great Leap Forward not all bad". Asia Times online. 
  15. ^ Lin, Justin Yifu; Yang, Dennis Tao (2000). "Food Availability, Entitlements and the Chinese Famine of 1959–61". The Economic Journal (Royal Economic Society) 110 (460): 136–158. doi:10.1111/1468-0297.00494. 
  16. ^ "A hunger for the truth: A new book, banned on the mainland, is becoming the definitive account of the Great Famine.", chinaelections.org, 7 July 2008
  17. ^ Dillon, Michael. "Collective Responsibility“ "The Times Literary Supplement" January 7 (2011), p. 13.
  18. ^ Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62. Walker & Company, 2010. p. 298. ISBN 0-8027-7768-6
  19. ^ Issac Stone Fish. Greeting Misery With Violence. Newsweek. 26 September 2010.
  20. ^ a b Bernstein, Richard (February 5, 1997). "Horror of a Hidden Chinese Famine". New York Times. 
  21. ^ a b Becker, Jasper (1997). Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Free Press. p. 352. ISBN 978-0-68483457-3, title is a reference to Hungry ghosts in Chinese religion 
  22. ^ Dikötter, Frank (2010). "36. Cannibalism". Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962. pp. 320–323. ISBN 978-0-80277768-3. 
  23. ^ Ren Bumei, Reconsideration before a Disaster: Restate the Catastrophism (《在一场大灾变前的反思——重申“灾变论”》)
  24. ^ Ó Gráda, Cormac (15 March 2011). "Great Leap into Famine? – Ó Gráda’s review of Dikötter book". China Study Group. 
  25. ^ "The New Left in China - Interview with Minqi Li". 
  26. ^ "The Rise of the Working Class and the Future of the Chinese Revolution". 
  27. ^ Li. Minqi (2008). The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy. Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-182-5. 
  28. ^ Amartya Kumar Sen (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-289330-7. Retrieved 14 April 2011. 
  29. ^ Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen (1989). Hunger and public action. Clarendon Press. p. 215. Retrieved 14 January 2013. 
  30. ^ Chomsky, Noam (2000): Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs, pp. 177–78, Pluto Press, ISBN 978-0-7453-1708-3.

References[edit]

  • Ashton, Basil, Kenneth Hill, Alan Piazza, Robin Zeitz, "Famine in China, 1958-61", Population and Development Review, Vol. 10, No. 4. (Dec., 1984), pp. 613–645.
  • Banister, J. "Analysis of recent data on the population of China", Population and Development, Vol.10, No.2, 1984.
  • Becker, Jasper (1998). Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Holt Paperbacks. ISBN 0-8050-5668-8
  • Cao Shuji, The deaths of China's population and its contributing factors during 1959-1961. China's Population Science (Jan.2005) (In Chinese)
  • China Statistical Yearbook (1984), edited by State Statistical Bureau. China Statistical Publishing House, 1984.Page 83,141,190
  • China Statistical Yearbook (1991), edited by State Statistical Bureau. China Statistical Publishing House, 1991.
  • China Population Statistical Yearbook (1985), edited by State Statistical Bureau. China Statistical Bureau Publishing House, 1985.
  • Coale, Ansley J., Rapid population change in China, 1952–1982, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1984.
  • Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62. Walker & Company, 2010. ISBN 0-8027-7768-6
  • Gao. Mobo (2007). Gao Village: Rural life in modern China. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3792-9
  • Gao. Mobo (2008). The Battle for China's Past. Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-2780-8
  • Jiang Zhenghua (蒋正华)，Method and Result of China Population Dynamic Estimation, Academic Report of Xi'a University, 1986(3). pp46,84
  • Li Chengrui(李成瑞): Population Change Caused by The Great Leap Movement, Demographic Study, No.1, 1998 pp. 97–111
  • Li. Minqi (2008). The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy. Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-182-5
  • Peng Xizhe, "Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces", Population and Development Review, Vol. 13, No.4. (Dec., 1987), pp. 639–670
  • Thaxton. Ralph A. Jr (2008). Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China: Mao's Great Leap Forward Famine and the Origins of Righteous Resistance in Da Fo Village. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-72230-6
  • Yang, Dali. Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society and Institutional Change since the Great Leap Famine. Stanford University Press, 1996.
  • Yang Jisheng. Tombstone (Mu Bei - Zhong Guo Liu Shi Nian Dai Da Ji Huang Ji Shi). Cosmos Books (Tian Di Tu Shu), Hong Kong 2008.
  • Yang Jisheng. "Tombstone: An Account of Chinese Famine in the 1960s" (墓碑 － 中國六十年代大饑荒紀實 (Mubei – Zhongguo Liushi Niandai Da Jihuang Jishi), Hong Kong: Cosmos Books (Tiandi Tushu), 2008, ISBN 978-988-211-909-3 (Chinese). By 2010, it was appearing under the title: 墓碑: 一九五八-一九六二年中國大饑荒紀實 (Mubei: Yi Jiu Wu Ba – Yi Jiu Liu Er Nian Zhongguo Da Jihuang Shiji) ("Tombstone: An Account of Chinese Famine From 1958–1962").
  • Yang Jisheng. Tombstone: The Untold Story of Mao's Great Famine, Yang Jisheng, Translators: Stacy Mosher, Guo Jian, Publisher: Allen Lane (30 Oct 2012), ISBN 978-184-614-518-6 (English Translation of the above work)
    • Translated into English and abridged. Yang Jisheng, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 30, 2012), hardcover, 656 pages, ISBN 0374277931, ISBN 978-0374277932
  • Official Chinese statistics, shown as a graph.Land Use Systems Group (LUC)[2] (Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)) http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/pop/pop_10.htm |url= missing title (help) [dead link]

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