Famine killing millions in China (1959–1961)
The Great Chinese Famine (Chinese : 三年大饥荒 ; lit. 'three years of great famine') was a famine that occurred between 1959 and 1961 in the People's Republic of China (PRC).[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Some scholars have also included the years 1958 or 1962.[7] [8] [9] [10] It is widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated death toll due to starvation that ranges in the tens of millions (15 to 55 million).[note 1] The most stricken provinces were Anhui (18% dead), Chongqing (15%), Sichuan (13%), Guizhou (11%) and Hunan (8%).[1]
The major contributing factors in the famine were the policies of the Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1962) and people's communes , launched by Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong , such as inefficient distribution of food within the nation's planned economy; requiring the use of poor agricultural techniques; the Four Pests campaign that reduced sparrow populations (which disrupted the ecosystem); over-reporting of grain production; and ordering millions of farmers to switch to iron and steel production.[4] [6] [8] [15] [17] [18] During the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in early 1962, Liu Shaoqi , then President of China , formally attributed 30% of the famine to natural disasters and 70% to man-made errors ("三分天灾, 七分人祸").[8] [19] [20] After the launch of Reforms and Opening Up , the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially stated in June 1981 that the famine was mainly due to the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward as well as the Anti-Rightist Campaign , in addition to some natural disasters and the Sino-Soviet split .[2] [3]
^ a b 曹树基 (2005). 大饥荒:1959–1961年的中国人口 . Hong Kong: 時代國際出版. pp. 46, 67, 117, 150, 196. ISBN 978-9889828233 . An excerpt, which calculates death rate between 1958 and 1962, is published as: 曹树基 (2005). "1959–1961 年中国的人口死亡及其成因" . 中国人口科学 (1).
^ a b "关于建国以来党的若干历史问题的决议" . The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 22 October 2019. Retrieved 23 April 2020 .
^ a b "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" (PDF) . Wilson Center . 27 June 1981.
^ a b c Smil, Vaclav (18 December 1999). "China's great famine: 40 years later" . BMJ: British Medical Journal . 319 (7225): 1619–1621. doi :10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1619 . ISSN 0959-8138 . PMC 1127087 . PMID 10600969 .
^ a b Gráda, Cormac Ó (2007). "Making Famine History". Journal of Economic Literature . 45 (1): 5–38. doi :10.1257/jel.45.1.5 . hdl :10197/492 . ISSN 0022-0515 . JSTOR 27646746 . S2CID 54763671 .
^ a b c Meng, Xin; Qian, Nancy; Yared, Pierre (2015). "The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959–1961" (PDF) . Review of Economic Studies . 82 (4): 1568–1611. doi :10.1093/restud/rdv016 . Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 March 2020. Retrieved 22 April 2020 .
^ Kung, Kai-sing; Lin, Yifu (2003). "The Causes of China's Great Leap Famine, 1959–1961". Economic Development and Cultural Change . 52 (1): 51–73. doi :10.1086/380584 . ISSN 0013-0079 . JSTOR 10.1086/380584 . S2CID 9454493 .
^ a b c Cite error: The named reference :11
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^ Yang, Jisheng (2012). Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 . Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-374-27793-2 .
^ "45 million died in Mao's Great Leap Forward, Hong Kong historian says in new book" . South China Morning Post . 5 September 2010. Archived from the original on 26 February 2020. Retrieved 23 April 2020 .
^ Hasell, Joe; Roser, Max (10 October 2013). "Famines" . Our World in Data . Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 22 April 2020 .
^ Dikötter, Frank. "Mao's Great Famine: Ways of Living, Ways of Dying" (PDF) . Dartmouth University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2020. Retrieved 22 April 2020 .
^ Mirsky, Jonathan (7 December 2012). "Unnatural Disaster" . The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331 . Archived from the original on 24 January 2017. Retrieved 22 April 2020 .
^ Branigan, Tania (1 January 2013). "China's Great Famine: the true story" . The Guardian . ISSN 0261-3077 . Archived from the original on 10 January 2016. Retrieved 22 April 2020 .
^ a b "China's Great Famine: A mission to expose the truth" . Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 21 April 2020. Retrieved 22 April 2020 .
^ Huang, Zheping (10 March 2016). "Charted: China's Great Famine, according to Yang Jisheng, a journalist who lived through it" . Quartz . Archived from the original on 25 May 2020. Retrieved 22 April 2020 .
^ Bowman, John S. (2000). Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture . Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-50004-3 .
^ Kung, James Kai-sing (2022), Ma, Debin; von Glahn, Richard (eds.), "The Political Economy of China's Great Leap Famine" , The Cambridge Economic History of China: 1800 to the Present , Cambridge University Press, pp. 642–684, doi :10.1017/9781108348485.019 , ISBN 978-1-108-42553-7 , S2CID 246670673
^ Sun, Zhonghua. "刘少奇"三分天灾,七分人祸"提法的由来" . Renmin Wang (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 14 December 2012. Retrieved 8 January 2021 .
^ Sun, Zhonghua. "刘少奇"三分天灾,七分人祸"提法的由来(2)" . Renmin Wang (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 15 September 2019. Retrieved 22 April 2020 .
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