From 1958 to 1962, the Great Chinese Famine swept through the land and caused approximately 15 to 55 million deaths. To this day, it is the single most devastating famine in recorded history.
Great Leap Forward
Several factors are responsible for causing the famine to occur, most of which stemmed from Mao Zedong’s, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, plan known as the Great Leap Forward. Mao’s plan called to transform China from an agrarian economy to a communist society.
The first changes came in the people’s inability to purchase land. Then, the people were organized into communes. This was only the beginning, however, and soon Chinese citizens had little to no personal belongings, only what they shared in the communes.
People’s Communes
In Mao’s new communist plan, all resources were to be sent to a central system. Once the resources were inventoried, exact amounts would be distributed to the people’s communes as necessary, and only as much as the people needed.
Farmers were stripped of their land, and many were forced to give up their harvests to this central system. The others were forced to switch to iron or steel production, as Mao also desired to industrialize China more. Wages were replaced with work points.
Production Quotas
Once everything was worked out, and the people’s communes got to work, the Chinese government created very high production quotas that the communes were required to reach. But these quotas became near impossible to accomplish, and the communes fell behind.
Meanwhile, pressure from superiors caused the Chinese Communist Party to begin falsely stating that production was increasing, when it was actually decreasing. Simultaneously, grain crops were switched out for cash crops such as cotton and sugarcane. Grain exports were also increased to meet with the new demands from industrialization.
Increases in grain exports with decreases in grain production quickly led to a shortage in grain supply.
Imaginary Abundance
Mao’s system created an illusion of superabundance, allowing the Chinese government to believe that the people were receiving enough food, when in fact they were not. Soon, the food ran dry, and people had nothing to eat. They could only watch the grain crops that they grew be sent to the central system and exported for profits, leaving none for the communes.
The Chinese people began to starve, and the death rate rose rapidly.
There are many reports of people starving to death in front of grain storages that were packed full with food capable of feeding the masses. As they begged for food, and even dropped dead at the doors, Chinese officials refused to share, as they claimed the grain was needed for productivity.
Changing Nature
Other events helped to fuel the famine. Part of Mao’s plan was to also change certain ecological aspects to increase agricultural productivity. Most of these ideas failed and only resulted in decreased productivity.
The most notable example of these ideas was Mao’s Four Pests Campaign. The four pests to be eliminated were rats, flies, mosquitos, and sparrows.
For sparrows, the idea was that they ate grains, and therefore eliminating them would increase productivity. However, an indirect effect happened: without sparrows to eat them, the locust population skyrocketed, swarming the country and contributing to an ecological imbalance.
Another concept of Mao’s was deep rooting. Mao mistakingly believed that deeper soil had better nutritions than top soil. This is false, however, and Mao’s belief in deep rooting caused a further decrease in agricultural harvests.
Conclusion
The Chinese Communist Party became far more concerned with meeting its production quotas than about the rapidly increasing death rate of its starving people. Officials essentially allowed the Great Chinese Famine to persist.
Mao’s failed attempt at the Great Leap Forward led to the deaths of millions. He never publicly stepped forward to apologize for his actions, and only blamed “counter-revolutionists” as the problem. The Great Leap Forward was finally ended in 1962, after four years. Afterward, the famine slowed to a stop. The people’s communes were disbanded, and farmers could once again keep their harvests.
