The Great Chinese Famine
In recent years, famines have only occurred as a result of wars. The last major non-war famine was the Chinese Great Leap Forward famine.
The Great Famine of China, which took place from 1958-61, is one of the greatest tragedies of recorded history, killing between 14 and 40 million people. The typical estimate is generally placed around 30 million people. To compare this number with other major human death tolls, World War II may have killed 80 million people in total. But while these people were starving, information about the famine was greatly suppressed and what did get out about the harvest figures was manipulated. The true extent of what happened was only discovered decades later by the world and it is still difficult today to find information about this specific famine.
The "Great Leap Forward" was a campaign undertaken by the Chinese Communists in this time to organize China's vast population and to meet its industrial and agricultural problems - they wanted to increase China's agricultural production while still maintaining high industrial growth. The Chinese people hoped that they would develop methods of industrialization which would emphasize manpower rather than machines. hoped that this effort would help his nation and people out of poverty; but instead, the system failed and brought about a human catastrophe.
These communes turned out to be very inefficient as the large-scale diversion of farm labour into a small-scale industry disrupted the country's agriculture so seriously that many people died of starvation.
The famine has remained one of the least known episodes of modern history.
While the number of deaths was highest among peasants, death rates doubled in both rural and urban areas. This suggests that food shortages were very widespread. In famines elsewhere, cities have usually tended to do better, both because urban people have greater purchasing power and because governments are especially anxious to avoid urban unrest.
Since 1988, death rates have been examined for 18 Chinese provinces. 'These show that Sichuan and Gansu began to suffer as early as 1958, and those two provinces, together with Hunan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Anhui, had levels of deaths during the whole period which were more than two-and-a-half times the normal ones. The crisis was most acute in the north and west of China. Provinces of the far north and south east escaped relatively lightly.
Because of the famine, in many areas marriages were postponed. Even when a couple did marry, births were postponed or avoided. In the years 1959 to 1961, there were between 21 million and 34 million fewer births than would have been expected by comparison with 'normal' years.
On average during the 1950s, national grain surpluses exceeded regional deficits by the small margin of just over a million tons. Any one of the factors described here would probably have been enough to tilt the balance and result in severe hunger in parts, at least, of China. In combination, they brought grain output down from around 190-200 million tons in a 'normal' year to 170 in 1959 and less than 150 million in 1960 and 1961. The result was the greatest - if not the most acute famine in modern history.
"Three Years of Natural Disasters", was that the famine was largely a result of a series of natural disasters compounded by several planning errors. Some researchers outside China argue 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.[
These radical changes in farming organization coincided with adverse weather patterns, including droughts and floods. In July 1959, theYellow River flooded in East China. According to the Disaster Center,[10] 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.
In 1960, an estimated 60% of agricultural land in northern China received no rain at all.[12] 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.
This accompanied by new flawed cultivation method of the Soviets which the Chinese adopted caused massive problem in both quality and quantity of the crop and also led to degradation of the soil.
Quotes –
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. – Yun Dehong
The Great Famine of China, which took place from 1958-61, is one of the greatest tragedies of recorded history, killing between 14 and 40 million people. The typical estimate is generally placed around 30 million people. To compare this number with other major human death tolls, World War II may have killed 80 million people in total. But while these people were starving, information about the famine was greatly suppressed and what did get out about the harvest figures was manipulated. The true extent of what happened was only discovered decades later by the world and it is still difficult today to find information about this specific famine.
The "Great Leap Forward" was a campaign undertaken by the Chinese Communists in this time to organize China's vast population and to meet its industrial and agricultural problems - they wanted to increase China's agricultural production while still maintaining high industrial growth. The Chinese people hoped that they would develop methods of industrialization which would emphasize manpower rather than machines. hoped that this effort would help his nation and people out of poverty; but instead, the system failed and brought about a human catastrophe.
These communes turned out to be very inefficient as the large-scale diversion of farm labour into a small-scale industry disrupted the country's agriculture so seriously that many people died of starvation.
The famine has remained one of the least known episodes of modern history.
While the number of deaths was highest among peasants, death rates doubled in both rural and urban areas. This suggests that food shortages were very widespread. In famines elsewhere, cities have usually tended to do better, both because urban people have greater purchasing power and because governments are especially anxious to avoid urban unrest.
Since 1988, death rates have been examined for 18 Chinese provinces. 'These show that Sichuan and Gansu began to suffer as early as 1958, and those two provinces, together with Hunan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Anhui, had levels of deaths during the whole period which were more than two-and-a-half times the normal ones. The crisis was most acute in the north and west of China. Provinces of the far north and south east escaped relatively lightly.
Because of the famine, in many areas marriages were postponed. Even when a couple did marry, births were postponed or avoided. In the years 1959 to 1961, there were between 21 million and 34 million fewer births than would have been expected by comparison with 'normal' years.
On average during the 1950s, national grain surpluses exceeded regional deficits by the small margin of just over a million tons. Any one of the factors described here would probably have been enough to tilt the balance and result in severe hunger in parts, at least, of China. In combination, they brought grain output down from around 190-200 million tons in a 'normal' year to 170 in 1959 and less than 150 million in 1960 and 1961. The result was the greatest - if not the most acute famine in modern history.
"Three Years of Natural Disasters", was that the famine was largely a result of a series of natural disasters compounded by several planning errors. Some researchers outside China argue 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.[
These radical changes in farming organization coincided with adverse weather patterns, including droughts and floods. In July 1959, theYellow River flooded in East China. According to the Disaster Center,[10] 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.
In 1960, an estimated 60% of agricultural land in northern China received no rain at all.[12] 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.
This accompanied by new flawed cultivation method of the Soviets which the Chinese adopted caused massive problem in both quality and quantity of the crop and also led to degradation of the soil.
Quotes –
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. – Yun Dehong