Mao’s Great Famine

Title: Mao’s Great Famine – The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62

Author: Frank Dikotter

Publisher: Bloomsbury 2010 (First)

ISBN: 978-1-4088-1219-8

Pages: 348

The product of deep research into the communist party’s archives in China! Dikotter delved into the long hidden data recently declassified by the party and thrown open to researchers. It describes how China slid into its worst famine during Mao’s industrializing initiative, called ‘Great Leap Forward’. Though the official line always was that natural factors were to blame for the disaster, the author lays threadbare the misguided and faulty programs undertaken by Mao and implemented ruthlessly by the grassroots cadres which were the real reason behind the huge human losses faced by any nation anywhere on the globe.

Ever since capturing power by military means in 1949, Mao was under the shadow of Stalin. When he died in 1953, Mao aspired to step in to his shoes in leading the communist world. Assuming leadership involved transforming China from the peasant country as it was to a fast moving industrialized nation. In 1956, the ‘Socialist High Tide’ was announced to increase production of corn, cotton, coal and steel. This required collectivization of resources in the countryside. Personal property was denounced and anyone holding on to them were labelled as rightist conservatives and purged. The program was a disaster and called off in 1956 itself. The year was also marked by the Hungarian revolution which was brutally put down by invading Soviet troops. Mao decided to preempt any such disturbances on home soil and announced his ‘Hundred Flowers’ campaign. Everybody was urged to come out with criticism of the system, but the output was unprecedented and threatened to unsettle Mao. He quickly called it off and took on en elimination drive against people who voiced their dissent.

The 40^th anniversary of the Russian Revolution unfolded in 1957 in Kremlin. Khrushchev declared a program to overtake the U.S. in industrial production in 15 years. Mao didn’t lag behind and immediately announced that China will similarly overtake Britain, which was still a major industrialized nation then, in 15 years. Thus started the Great Leap Forward. Opponents of the program were purged at every level of party and government by labelling them ‘rightist conservatives’. Liu Shaoqui, the No.2 in the party and Zhou En Lai, the prime minister were publicly humiliated and compelled to tow the chariman’s line. The project began with a ‘water conservancy drive’, in which rivers, streams and large water bodies were diverted to arid regions for increasing agricultural output. China was very primitive in the use of machines then, and all the work was done by manual labour, often through compulsion and forced labour. Millions of farmers were called off from their fields and put on backbreaking irrigation programs, exposed to sun and harsh winter. Thousands died due to hunger and illness. Mao was insensitive to such human suffering, he mused, “Wu Zhipu claims he can move 30 billion cubic metres (of earth), and I think that 30,000 people will die. Zeng Xisheng has said that he will move 20 billion cubic metres, and I think that 20,000 people will die. Weiqing only promises 600 million cubic metres, maybe nobody will die” (p.33). Ever rising targets listed only the quantity of earth moved and the places of work were dubbed ‘killing fields’ by the people. To increase farm production, Mao proposed a three-pronged strategy, increase fertiliser use, close cropping and deep ploughing. Every conceivable nutrient, including human and animal waste and mud-baked homes were pulled down and thrown on the fields. The confiscation extended even to human hair, as in Guangdong, women were forced to shave their heads to contribute fertiliser or to face a ban from the public canteen. The people’s communes were organized in military style and they declared a war on nature. Wages were at rock bottom and the farming activities were given a military charade.

Stalin promoted industry at the expense of agriculture, while Mao decided to bring industry to the countrysides by whipping up steel production in the backyard furnaces of the communes. Every available piece of scrap iron including pots, pans and farm implements were melted. To provide fuel for these kilns, trees were indiscriminately felled and a great ecological disaster was caused. However, much of the produced steel was slag and useless for further use. As farmers were forcibly diverted to these programs, agricultural output plummeted, though the overzealous party cadres made up for the shortfall by fabricating data of a bumper crop on paper. Mao was so overtaken by joy that he lost all touch with the reality. He asked the people to eat five meals a day to bring down the ‘surplus grain stock’! State levy was based on the fictitious accounts, causing a great deal of grain to be robbed from the countryside. The regime allocated food generously to the cities, while expecting the rural people to live off their ‘bumper harvests’. The problem was exacerbated with export of grain, mainly to the Soviet Union which trebled in three years, to provide money for the increasing import of machinery. When the real problem was perceived by the party, it exhorted the people to ‘eat less’ to meet foreign commitments. Mao urged people to be vegetarian, when he said, “We should save on clothing and food to guarantee exports, otherwise if 650 million people start eating a little more, our export surplus will all be eaten up. Horses, cows, sheep, chicken, dogs, pigs: six of the farm animals don’t eat meat, and aren’t they all still alive? Some people don’t eat meat either, old Xu didn’t eat meat and he lived till he was eighty. Can we pass a resolution that nobody should eat meat, and that all of it should be exported?” (p.81-82). When the famine reared its horrible head, Mao said, “When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill” (p.88). Sino-USSR relations soured in 1960, forcing the bigger brother to pull out its advisers from China, which retaliated by accelerated repayments of its loans. When people were dying from famine, China advanced its repayment schedules.

Chinese industry also suffered from the overdrive. Product quality dwindled, as the net produce was the only term of comparison. Newly imported machinery performed poorly due to lack of infrastructure and mediocre maintenance. Welfare facilities were nonexistent or meagre. Transportation was a bottleneck and the product wasted on godowns and railway stations. All these factors caused a slump in industrial output in 1961 and 62, from a boost in 1958 and 59. All large shops were collectivised, with fall in quality of service. Repair shops of even personal items struggled to cope with the increasing demand. The author claim that even graves were destroyed to make way for farm land and corpses turned to fertiliser. Mao put forward another campaign to eradicate pests, rats, flies, mosquitos and even sparrows, which was included in the list as they ate grain! Masses sounded drums and scared them until they dropped from the sky due to sheer exhaustion. It was only after the insects mushroomed that the party realised that sparrows ate insects too. They were promptly taken off the list.

When famine began to ravage the countryside, people ate tree bark, mud and even resorted to cannibalism. The book abounds with gruesome detail of how the need of survival forced people to shake off even the last vestiges of civilized notions. While the country was undergoing a terrible ordeal, the party leaders were steeped in luxury. Dikotter says, “Above them (the party officials) was Mao, living in opulence near the Forbidden City where emperors had once dwelled, his bedroom the size of a ballroom. Sumptuous villas, staffed with chefs and attendants all year round, were at his beck and call in every province or major city” (p.192). Brutal collectivization and replacement of family by state overturned traditional ties of family. The young and elderly were left uncared for in times of famine. Medical facilities were unable to cope with increasing incidence of diseases. Estimates of the dead range from 23 to 36 million based on party’s public statistics. A figure of 46 million was declared by Chen Yizi, one of the party statisticians who compiled reports and who afterwards fled to the USA. The author estimates the number to be about 45 million, based on analysis of the now declassified party archives. The Great Leap Forward came to an end in 1962 when Liu Shaoqi, now head of state openly denounced the program and spoke directly to party leaders.

The book is well researched, and the horrifying details of the famine are always accompanied with anecdotes pulled out from party archives. He fully utilised the open archives and complemented with data gained interviews with famine survivors. The style is concise and lucid, with a doleful tinge. It exposes the pretensions of party leaders, including its supremo, Mao. His cultureless utterances are also found expression in the pages. When Mao fell out with the Soviets, he spewed out and accused his colleagues to “uncritically thinking that everything in the Soviet Union is perfect, that even their farts are fragrant” (p.19, based on Mao’s speeches in the Gansu province).

On the negative side, the book is purely one-sided, designed to put uncorrupted blame on the party and its leadership. However harshly the Great Leap Forward was put in practice, there were some good results coming from it, which is not mentioned in the book. Some glimpses of the gains can be gleaned between the lines. Though the famine was mainly man-made, a part was definitely due to natural factors. The author is silent on what those factors were, whether drought or flood. Also, it doesn’t accommodate the mechanism through which the country escaped the grips of famine. Overall, one gets the impression that the sole objective of the author was to malign the Chinese leadership.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star