Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:51, 22 April 2020

History of the People's Republic of China
1949–1976: Mao era Revolution Land Reform Movement Proclamation Korean War Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns First five-year plan Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Bandung Conference Sufan movement Hundred Flowers Campaign Anti-Rightist Campaign Canton Fair Great Leap Forward Great Chinese Famine Two Bombs, One Satellite Seven Thousand Cadres Conference Socialist Education Movement Third Front Cultural Revolution UN representation Richard Nixon visit
1976–1989: Deng era Gang of Four Boluan Fanzheng 1978 Truth Criterion Controversy New Enlightenment Reforms and Opening Up Special economic zones China–United States relations Three Communiqués Four Modernizations Sino-Vietnamese War Beijing Spring Strike Hard Against Crime Campaign Sino-British Joint Declaration Campaign against spiritual pollution Bourgeois liberalization Opposition 863 Program 1986 Chinese student demonstrations Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
1989–2002: Jiang era Shanghai Stock Exchange Pudong New District Deng's southern tour 1992 consensus One country, two systems Handover of Hong Kong Handover of Macau 1998 floods US bombing of the Belgrade embassy Persecution of Falun Gong China Western Development Hainan Island incident APEC China 2001 Accession to the WTO Forum on China–Africa Cooperation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
2002–2012: Hu era 2002–2004 SARS outbreak Shenzhou 5 Visit of Lien Chan South–North Water Transfer Project Qinghai–Tibet railway 2008 Sichuan earthquake Three Links with Taiwan 2008 Summer Olympics Expo 2010 BRICS Three Gorges Dam West–East Gas Pipeline High-speed rail
2012–present: Xi era Anti-corruption campaign Belt and Road Initiative Chang'e 3 Supercomputing APEC China 2014 Meeting with Ma Ying-Jeou 2016 G20 Hangzhou summit Xiong'an 9th BRICS summit Persecution of Uyghurs Xinjiang internment camps China–United States trade war China International Import Expo Space program 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests 2020 Hong Kong national security law COVID-19 pandemic 2020–2021 reform spree 2022 Winter Olympics
Constitution Beijing Shanghai
Culture Economy Education Geography Politics
China portal
v t e

The Great Chinese Famine (Chinese: 三年大饥荒, "three years of famine") was a period in the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1959 to 1961 (Great Leap Forward) characterized by widespread famine. The Great Chinese famine is widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest disasters in human history, with estimated death toll ranges in the tens of millions due to starvation. In 1958, some areas in the southern coast of China received intense rainfall over the span of just a few days, causing crops and citizens to drown in flooding. In 1959 and 1960, nearly two thirds of China's farmland received little to no precipitation, especially in northern China. Before this time, most of the farmland in China was not irrigated, so was dependent on the natural rainfall. In response to the dramatic weather events, the central government mandated policies which resulted in making the situation much worse. In 1961, Liu Shaoqi, the 2nd Chairman of PRC attributed the famine 30% to natural disasters and 70% to man-made policies ("三分天灾, 七分人祸").

Terminology

Besides the name "Three Years of Great Famine" (simplified Chinese: 三年大饥荒; traditional Chinese: 三年大饑荒; pinyin: Sānnián dà jīhuāng), the famine has been known by many names.

The government of the People's Republic of China called it:

• Before the 1980s, "Three Years of Natural Disasters" (simplified Chinese: 三年自然灾害; traditional Chinese: 三年自然災害; pinyin: Sānnián zìrán zāihài).
• After the 1980s, "Three Years of Difficulty" (simplified Chinese: 三年困难时期; traditional Chinese: 三年困難時期; pinyin: Sānnián kùnnán shíqī).

Extent of the famine

Production drop

Harmful changes in farming organization and policies were made in response to grain shortages and adverse weather patterns, including droughts and floods. Year over year grain production dropped in China as a result of conditions and bad policies. 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 thousands of kilometers of new irrigation had been built, weather patterns improved, and the Great Leap Forward was declared over by the Central government. According to the China Statistical Yearbook (1984), crop production decreased from 200 million tons in 1958 to 143.5 million tons in 1960.

Death toll

Due to lack of food and incentive to marry at that time, according to China's official statistics, China's population in 1961 was about 658,590,000, approsimately 14,580,000 less than the population in 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. Unofficial estimates vary, but scholars have estimated the number of famine victims to be between 20 and 43 million. It is widely believed that the government seriously under-reported death tolls: Lu Baoguo, a Xinhua reporter based 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?

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.

• Li Chengrui (李成瑞), 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 27 million.
• Yang Jisheng, senior journalist from Xinhua News Agency, 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."
• Cao Shuji, Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, estimated 32.5 million.
• Patricia Buckley Ebrey, professor at the University of Washington, estimated that about 20–40 million people had died of starvation caused by bad government policies and natural disasters.
• Frank Dikötter, Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong, estimated that, at minimum, 45 million people died from starvation, overwork and state violence during the Great Leap Forward, claiming his findings to be based on access to recently opened local and provincial party archives. His study also stressed that state violence exacerbated the death toll. Dikötter claimed that at least 2.5 million of the victims were beaten or tortured to death. His approach to the documents, as well as his claim to be the first author to use them, however, have been questioned by some other scholars. Dikötter 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.

• Judith Banister, Director of Global Demographics at The Conference Board, estimated that this number is about 23 million.
• Utsa Patnaik, an Indian Marxist economist, wrote "he figure of 30 million has passed into popular folklore...The fact that 19 million of them never existed because they were never born in the first place, is not conveyed by the formulation." She criticized the equating of China's "missing millions" with famine deaths, rather than people who were never born due to declining birth rates. Patnaik concluded that the figures were ideologically derived in attempts to discredit communism, while similar excessive deaths in 1990s Russia, following the collapse of the USSR, were routinely ignored.

Cannibalism

There are widespread oral reports, and some official documentation, of human cannibalism being practiced in various forms, as a result of the famine. 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".

Causes of the famine

The Great Chinese Famine was caused by a combination of natural disasters, widespread drought in farming regions, social pressure, economic mismanagement, and radical agricultural changes in regulations imposed by the government.

Natural disasters

In July 1958, the Yellow River flooded in East China (1958 Yellow River flood), leading up to the famine. This flood affected 741,000 people, submerged over half a million acres of crops (3.04 million mu), and destroyed over 300,000 houses in 1708 villages. It was reported as the most severe flood since 1933. During this flood, records were kept of torrential rains beginning on July 14, and by July 16 exceeding 100mm of rain per day, flooding more than 400km of the Yellow River and additionally several smaller rivers. Rain continued for more than two weeks, with flooding finally peaking on July 27.

Time: July 1958; Location: Middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River; Disaster type: Flood; Disaster situation: Flood peak flow reached 22,300 cubic meters per second. The Beijing-Guangzhou railway bridge across the Yellow River was interrupted by flooding for 14 days. In the Yellow River beach area and Dongping Lake area of ​​Shandong and Henan provinces alone, 1,708 villages were inundated, 740,800 people were affected, 3.04 million mu of cultivated land was inundated, and 300,000 houses collapsed. A thousand times: the Changyuan impoundment area is about to be used, and millions of Limin people are about to evacuate, and the water situation is changing sharply; Dongping Lake Hongtao jumps the embankment, Huayuankou dam foundation collapses, 2 million people go to the embankment to fight floods; the iron bridge is cut!

July 20th to 18:00 on the 17th, the main rain areas are in the main stream of the Sanhua section and the middle and lower reaches of the Yi, Luo, and Qin Rivers, the middle and lower reaches of the Fen River, the Beiru River and Shahe River in the Huaihe River Basin, and the upper Tangbai River in the Han River. The intensity of the heavy rain was heavy, with 249 millimeters of rainfall in the center of the rainstorm.

Compounding the damage in 1958, two million workers were ordered away from the fields to work on repairing the levies of the Yellow River. Because they were repairing the banks of the river instead of tending to their fields, "crops are neglected and much of the harvest is left to rot in the fields."

Despite many evidential records of torrential rain, including several days of more than 100mm per day, Frank Dikötter argued that most floods during the famine were not due to unusual weather, but to massive, poorly planned and poorly executed irrigation works which were part of the Great Leap Forward. At this time, China was building thousands of kilometers of new irrigation canals in an attempt to move water from wet areas to areas that were experiencing drought.

In 1960, at least some degree of drought and other bad weather affected 55% of cultivated land, while an estimated 60% of agricultural land in northern China received no rain at all. In 1961, the weather improved slightly. The Encyclopædia Britannica yearbooks from 1958 to 1962 also reported abnormal weather in China, followed by droughts and floods.

However, the severity of the drought was only considered "mild" compared to that in other years, and the significance of the drought and flood in 1960 in causing the famine have been disputed. According to published data from Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (中国气象科学研究院), the drought in 1960 was not uncommon, and was less serious than those in 1955, 1963, 1965-1967 and so on. According to Yang Jisheng who was a senior journalist from Xinhua News Agency, Xue Muqiao, then head of the National Statistics Bureau of China, said in 1958 that “we give whatever figures the upper-level wants” to overstate natural disasters and relieve official responsibility for deaths due to starvation. Yang claimed that he investigated other sources including a non-government archive of meteorological data from 350 weather stations across China and found that the drought from 1958-1961 wasn't more severe than previous droughts in China.

Many foreign observers felt that these reports of weather-related crop failures were designed to cover up political factors that had led to poor agricultural performance. They also suspected that local officials tended to exaggerate such reports to obtain more state assistance or tax relief. Clearly, the weather contributed to the appalling drop in output, but it is impossible to assess to what extent.

Great Leap Forward

Mao Zedong, Chair of the Chinese Communist Party, introduced drastic changes in farming policy which prohibited farm ownership. Failure to abide by the policies led to punishment. The social pressure imposed on the citizens in terms of farming and business, which the government controlled, led to state instability. Owing to the laws passed during the period and the Great Leap Forward during 1958–1962, about 36 million people died of starvation in this period, according to an analysis by journalist Yang Jisheng.

People's commune

During the Great Leap Forward, farming was organized into people's communes and the cultivation of privately owned 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.

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

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.

In fact, the topic of the people's commune and the degree in which it influenced the famine holds contention in regards to its overall influence. Each region dealt with the famine differently and timelines of the famine are not uniform across China. The overarching argument is that excessive eating that took place in the mess halls directly led to a worsening of the famine and that if excessive eating did not take place then, "the worst of the Great Leap Famine could still have been avoided in mid-1959." However, dire hunger did not set into places like Da Fo village until 1960, and the public dining hall participation rate was found to be meaningless in terms of causation in Anhui and Jiangxi. In Da Fo village, "food output did not decline in reality, but there was an astonishing loss of food availability associated with Maoist state appropriation"

Agricultural techniques

Along with collectivization, the central government decreed several changes in agricultural techniques that would be based on the ideas of later-discredited Russian agronomist Trofim Lysenko. 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 natural cycles they did fully compete, which actually stunted growth and resulted in lower yields.

Another implemented policy (known as "deep plowing") was based on the ideas of Lysenko's colleague Terentiy Maltsev, who encouraged peasants across China to eschew normal plowing depths of 15–20 centimeters and instead plow extremely deeply into the soil (1 to 2 meters). The deep plowing theory stated that the most fertile soil was deep in the earth, and plowing unusually deep would allow extra strong root growth. However, in shallow soil, useless rocks, soil, and sand were driven up instead, burying the fertile topsoil and severely stunting seedling growth.

Four Pest Campaign

Additionally, in the Four Pests Campaign, citizens were called upon to destroy sparrows and other wild birds that ate crop seeds, in order to protect fields. Pest birds were shot down or scared away from landing until dropping in exhaustion. This system failed and resulted in an explosion of the vermin population, especially crop-eating insects, which consequently had no predators.

Illusion of superabundance

Since 1957, the Communist Party of China had begun to report excessive production of grains. However, the actual production of grains throughout China was decreasing from 1957–1961. For examples,

• In Sichuan Province, even though the collected grain was decreasing from 1958–1961, the numbers reported to the central government kept increasing.
• In Gansu, the grain yield declined by 4,273,000 tonnes from 1957 to 1961.

This series of events resulted in an "illusion of superabundance (浮夸风)", and the Party believed that they had an excess amount of grains. On the contrary, the crop yields were in fact lower than average. For instance, Beijing believed that "in 1960 state granaries would have 50 billion jin of grain," when they actually contained 12.7 billion jin. The effects of the illusion of superabundance were significant, leaving some historians to argue that it being the major cause of much of the starvation throughout China. Yang Dali states that there were three main consequences from the illusion of superabundance:

First, it led to planners to shift lands from grain to economic crops, such as cotton, sugarcane, and beets, and divert huge numbers agricultural laborers into industrial sectors, fueling state demand for procured grain from the countryside. Second, it prompted the Chinese leadership, especially Zhou Enlai, to speed up grain exports to secure more foreign currency to purchase capital goods needed for industrialization. Finally, the illusion of superabundance made the adoption of the commune mess halls seem rational at the time. All these changes, of course, contributed to the rapid exhaustion of grain supplies.

More policies from the central government

Economists Xin Meng, Nancy Qian and Pierre Yared argued that, much like Amartya Sen's earlier claims, aggregate production was sufficient for avoiding famine and that the famine was caused by over-procurement and poor distribution within the country. This claim was made in the face of reports of the worst flooding since 1933, and aforementioned evidence that crop yields had fallen by at least 30%. They claim that unlike most other famines, there were more deaths in places that produced more food per capita and argue that the inflexibility in the centrally planned food procurement system explains at least half of the famine mortality. Economic historians James Kung and Shuo Chen show that there was more over procurement in places where politicians faced more competition.

In addition, policies from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the central government that were implemented, particularly the Three Red Banners and the Socialist Education Movement (SEM), proved to be ideologically detrimental to the aggrevating famine. The Three Red Banners of the CCP "sparked the fanaticism of 1958" and the implementation of the Mass Line, one of the three banners which told people to, "go all out, aim high, and build socialism with greater, better, and more economical results" directly links to the pressures officials felt when reporting a superabundance of grain. The SEM, established in 1957, also led to the severity of the famine in various ways, including causing the "illusion of superabundance (浮夸风)". Once the exaggerations of crop yields from the Mass Line were reported, "no one dared to 'dash cold water'" on further reports. The SEM also led to the establishment of conspiracy thoughts in which the peasants were believed to be pretending to be hungry in order to sabotage the state grain purchase.

Power relations in local governments

Local governments had just as much, if not more, influence on the famine than did agriculture and higher forms of government. As the Great Leap Forward progressed, many provincial leaders began to extend their reach by working closely with Mao and higher Party leaders; which, in turn resulted in these provincial leaders abusing power that they did not actually have. This abuse of power caused passivity on the local level. Local landlords began "denouncing any opposition as 'conservative rightism,'" which is defined broadly as anything anti-communist. With the ongoing conspiratorial theories revolving around peasants, it was seen that saving extra grain for a family to eat, the belief that the Great Leap Forward should not be implemented, or merely not working hard enough could all be seen as forms of 'conservative rightism.' This hatred led to peasants becoming unable to openly speak on collectivization and state grain purchase. By enforcing such passivity at a local level while there already was passivity at an official level, speaking and acting against the famine became a seemingly impossible task.

The influence of local government in the famine can be seen in the comparison between the provinces of Anhui and Jiangxi. Anhui, having a radical pro-Mao government, was led by Zeng Xisheng who was "dictatorial" with ties to Mao. Zeng firmly believed in the Great Leap Forward and tried to hold relationships with higher officials rather than keep close local ties. Zeng proposed agricultural projects without consulting colleagues which caused Anhui's agriculture to fail terribly. Zhang Kaifan, a party secretary and deputy-governor of the province, heard rumours of a famine breaking out in Anhui and disagreed with many of Zeng's policies. Zeng reported Zhang to Mao for such speculations which led Mao to label Zhang "a member of the 'Peng Dehuai anti-Party military clique,'" resulting in him being purged from the local party. Zeng was unable to report of the famine when it became an emergency situation as this would prove his hypocrisy and caused him to become a "blatant political radical who almost single-handedly damaged Anhui."

Jiangxi encountered a situation almost opposite to that of Anhui. The leaders of Jiangxi publicly opposed some of the Great Leap programs, quietly made themselves unavailable, and even appeared to take a passive attitude towards the Maoist economy. As the leaders worked collaboratively among themselves, they also worked with the local population as well. By being able to create an environment in which the Great Leap Forward did not become fully implemented, the Jiangxi government "did their best to minimize damage…" These findings concluded that much of the severity of the famine came down to provincial leaders and their responsibility for their regions.

Aftermath

Initial cover-ups

Local party leaders, for their part, conspired to cover up shortfalls and reassign blame in order to protect their own lives and positions.

In visits to Henan province in 1958, Mao observed what local officials claimed was increases in crop yield of one thousand to three thousand percent achieved, supposedly, in massive 24-hour pushes organized by the officials which they called "sputnik launches". But the numbers were faked, and so were the fields that Mao observed, which had been carefully prepared in advance of Mao's visit by local officials, who removed shoots of grain from various fields and carefully transplanted them into a field prepared especially for Mao, which appeared to be a bumper crop.

The local officials became trapped by these sham demonstrations to Mao, and exhorted the peasants to reach unattainable goals, by "deep ploughing and close planting", and other techniques. This ended up making things much worse, the crop failed completely, leaving barren fields. No one was in a position to challenge Mao's ideas as incorrect, so peasants pulled out their bedding and coats into the fields, added seeds and water, and after they sprouted, buried the materials under the soil once the seedlings were high enough.

In a similar manner to the massive Soviet-created famine in Ukraine (the Holodomor), doctors were prohibited from listing "starvation" as a cause of death on death certificates. This kind of deception was far from uncommon; a famous propaganda picture from the famine shows Chinese children from Shandong province ostensibly standing atop a field of wheat, so densely grown that it could apparently support their weight. In reality, they were standing on a bench concealed beneath the plants, and the "field" was again entirely composed of individually transplanted stalks.Aforementioned propaganda photo.

Cultural Revolution

In April and May 1961, Liu Shaoqi, then President of the People's Republic of China, concluded after 44 days of field research in villages of Hunan that the reasons for the famine were 30% natural disaster and 70% human error. The failure of the Great Leap Forward as well as the famine led Mao Zedong to withdraw from active decision making and turn many future responsibilities over to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. However, the disagreement between Mao and Liu (and Deng) gradually increased, until Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 during which Liu was accused of attributing only 30 percent to natural calamities and was accused of being a traitor and an enemy agent. Liu was persecuted to death in 1968. On the other hand, Deng was accused of being a "capitalist roader" during the Cultural Revolution and was purged.

Reforms and reflections

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the new paramount leader of China and launched by historic Reforms and Opening up program which fundamentally changed the agricultural and industrial system in China. Until the early 1980s, the Chinese government's stance, reflected by the name "Three Years of Natural Disasters", was still that the famine was largely a result of a series of natural disasters compounded by several planning errors. But academic studies on the Great Chinese Famine became more active in mainland China after 1980, and the government also released some demographic data to the public.

Researchers outside China have argued that massive institutional and policy changes that accompanied the Great Leap Forward were the key factors in the famine, or at least worsened nature-induced disasters. In particular, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen puts this famine in a global context, arguing 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." On the other hand, Sen points out that the numbers of "excess mortality" in India often surpass what they were in China during 1958–1961. Sen argued 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...India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame."

See also

• Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–79
• Chinese famine of 1928–30
• Chinese famine of 1942–43
• Four Pests Campaign
• Holodomor
• Bengal famine of 1943
• Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine
• Mao's Great Famine
• 70,000 Character Petition
• Mass killings under communist regimes

Notes

1. The title of Becker's book is a reference to Hungry ghosts in Chinese religion.

References

1. Holmes, Leslie. Communism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press 2009). ISBN 978-0-19-955154-5. p. 32 "Most estimates of the number of Chinese dead are in the range of 15 to 30 million."
2. Songster, Edith Elena (2004). A Natural Place for Nationalism: The Wanglang Nature Reserve and the Emergence of the Giant Panda as a National Icon (thesis). University of California, San Diego. OCLC 607612241. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
3. M., J. (17 February 2015). "New (approved) assessments The great famine". The Economist. Beijing. Archived from the original on 20 January 2018. Retrieved 18 January 2018. citing Dikötter, Frank (17 February 2015). The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945–1957. London: Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 978-1-62040-349-5. OCLC 881092774. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
4. Lin, Justin Yifu; Yang, Dennis Tao (2000). "Food Availability, Entitlements and the Chinese Famine of 1959–61". The Economic Journal. 110 (460). Royal Economic Society: 143. doi:10.1111/1468-0297.00494.
5. ^ "三年困难时期"代食品运动"出台记--文史--人民网". www.people.com.cn. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
6. 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 Archived 4 August 2012 at WebCite
7. ^ Translation from "A hunger for the truth: A new book, banned on the mainland, is becoming the definitive account of the Great Famine." Archived 10 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine, 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 (in Chinese)
8. Yang, Jishen. "关于大饥荒年代人口损失的讨论". 炎黄春秋. Retrieved 22 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
9. Paine, Sarah C. M. (28 January 2015). Nation Building, State Building, and Economic Development: Case Studies and Comparisons: Case Studies and Comparisons. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-46409-9.
10. Jinglian, Wu; Guochuan, Ma (30 March 2016). Whither China?: Restarting the Reform Agenda. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-022317-5.
11. Mirsky, Jonathan (9 December 2012). "Unnatural Disaster: 'Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962,' by Yang Jisheng". The New York Times Sunday Book Review. p. BR22. Archived from the original on 8 December 2012. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
12. "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 Archived 10 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
13. "Shanghai jiaotong university institute of humanities". shss.sjtu.edu.cn. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
14. Gráda, Cormac Ó (1 March 2015). Eating People Is Wrong, and Other Essays on Famine, Its Past, and Its Future. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-6581-9.
15. Ó Gráda, Cormac (2011). Dikötter, Frank (ed.). "Great Leap into Famine: A Review Essay". Population and Development Review. 37 (1): 191–202. ISSN 0098-7921.
16. Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (24 November 2009). Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd Ed. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4391-8839-2.
17. ^ 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
18. Akbar, Arifa (17 September 2010). "Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 29 October 2010. Retrieved 20 September 2010.
19. 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
20. Dillon, Michael. "Collective Responsibility" The Times Literary Supplement 7 January (2011), p. 13.
21. Issac Stone Fish. Greeting Misery With Violence Archived 19 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Newsweek. 26 September 2010.
22. MENG, XIN; QIAN, NANCY; YARED, PIERRE (2015). "The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959–1961" (PDF). Review of Economic Studies. 82: 1568–1611.
23. "Judith Banister". www.conference-board.org. Retrieved 22 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
24. "Ideological Statistics: Inflated Death Rates of China's Famine, the Russian one Ignored".
25. ^ Bernstein, Richard (5 February 1997). "Horror of a Hidden Chinese Famine". New York Times. Archived from the original on 5 March 2009. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
26. ^ Becker, Jasper (1997). Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Free Press. ISBN 978-0-68483457-3.
27. 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.
28. ^ "历史上的五次黄河水灾". newpaper.dahe.cn (in Chinese). Retrieved 22 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
29. "新闻分析：做好黄河防汛工作为何不能掉以轻心？". The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China (in Chinese). Retrieved 22 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
30. "第六节 1958年黄河洪水-《中国灾情报告1949-1995》-中国经济与社会发展统计数据库". tongji.cnki.net (in Chinese). Retrieved 22 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
31. Bowman, John S (2000). Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture. Columbia University Press. p. 72. ISBN 0-231-11004-9. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
32. ^ Liu, Henry C K (1 April 2004). "Part 2: The Great Leap Forward not all bad". Asia Times online. Archived from the original on 4 February 2005.
33. Smil, Vaclav (18 December 1999). "China's great famine: 40 years later". BMJ : British Medical Journal. 319 (7225): 1619–1621. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 1127087. PMID 10600969.
34. ^ Mirsky, Jonathan (7 December 2012). "Unnatural Disaster". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
35. Branigan, Tania (1 January 2013). "China's Great Famine: the true story". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
36. "China's Great Famine: A mission to expose the truth". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
37. Mao, Yushi (2014). "Lessons from China's Great Famine" (PDF). Cato Institute.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
38. "高素华: 1951～1990年全国降水量距平变化图". 炎黄春秋 (in Chinese). Retrieved 22 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
39. ^ Huang, Zheping. "Charted: China's Great Famine, according to Yang Jisheng, a journalist who lived through it". Quartz. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
40. Ashton, Basil; Hill, Kenneth; Piazza, Alan; Zeitz, Robin (1984). "Famine in China, 1958-61" (PDF). Population and Development Review. 10: 613–645.
41. Jisheng, Yang "Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962". Book Review. New York Times. Dec, 2012. 3 March 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/books/review/tombstone-the-great-chinese-famine-1958-1962-by-yang-jisheng.html Archived 24 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine
42. Dali L. Yang (1996). Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine. Stanford University Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-8047-3470-7.
43. Ralph Thaxton (5 May 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. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-521-72230-8.
44. Kimberley Ens Manning; Felix Wemheuer; Chen Yixin (1 January 2011). "Under the Same Maoist Sky : Accounting for Death Rate Discrepancies in Anhui and Jiangxi". Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine. UBC Press. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-7748-5955-4.
45. Ralph Thaxton (5 May 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. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-521-72230-8.
46. Lynch, Michael (2008). The People's Republic of China, 1949–76 (second ed.). London: Hodder Education. p. 57.
47. Yang Jisheng (30 October 2012). Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-374-27793-2.
48. Yang Jisheng (30 October 2012). Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-374-27793-2.
49. Kimberley Ens Manning; Felix Wemheuer; Gao Hua (1 January 2011). "Food Augmentation Methods and Food Substitutes during the Great Famine". Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine. UBC Press. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-7748-5955-4.
50. Dali L. Yang (1996). Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine. Stanford University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-8047-3470-7.
51. Meng, Xin; Qian, Nancy; Yared, Pierre (1 October 2015). "The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959–1961". The Review of Economic Studies. 82 (4): 1568–1611. doi:10.1093/restud/rdv016. ISSN 0034-6527.
52. Kung, James Kai-Sing; Chen, Shuo (February 2011). "The Tragedy of the Nomenklatura: Career Incentives and Political Radicalism during China's Great Leap Famine". American Political Science Review. 105 (1): 27–45. doi:10.1017/S0003055410000626. ISSN 1537-5943.
53. Yang Jisheng (30 October 2012). Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-374-27793-2.
54. Yang Jisheng (30 October 2012). Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-374-27793-2.
55. Kimberley Ens Manning; Felix Wemheuer (1 January 2011). ""The Grain Problem is an Ideological Problem" : Discourses of Hunger in the 1957 Socialist Education Campaign". Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine. UBC Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-7748-5955-4.
56. Dali L. Yang (1996). Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine. Stanford University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-8047-3470-7.
57. Frank Dikötter (1 October 2010). Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-8027-7928-1.
58. Kimberley Ens Manning; Felix Wemheuer (1 January 2011). ""The Grain Problem is an Ideological Problem" : Discourses of Hunger in the 1957 Socialist Education Campaign". Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine. UBC Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-7748-5955-4.
59. Kimberley Ens Manning; Felix Wemheuer (1 January 2011). "Under the Same Maoist Sky : Accounting for Death Rate Discrepancies in Anhui and Jiangxi". Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine. UBC Press. pp. 212–213. ISBN 978-0-7748-5955-4.
60. Kimberley Ens Manning; Felix Wemheuer (1 January 2011). "Under the Same Maoist Sky : Accounting for Death Rate Discrepancies in Anhui and Jiangxi". Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine. UBC Press. p. 213. ISBN 978-0-7748-5955-4.
61. Kimberley Ens Manning; Felix Wemheuer (1 January 2011). "Under the Same Maoist Sky : Accounting for Death Rate Discrepancies in Anhui and Jiangxi". Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine. UBC Press. pp. 216–218. ISBN 978-0-7748-5955-4.
62. International School History (21 January 2015). "Mao's Great Famine". Archived from the original on 30 October 2018. Retrieved 19 September 2018 – via YouTube.
63. 刘少奇"三分天灾，七分人祸"提法的由来 Archived 14 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Selection of the Party History (党史博采), 22 June 2007, Accessed Sept 1, 2018, CPC News. (in Chinese)
64. "刘少奇"三分天灾，七分人祸"提法的由来(2)--中国共产党新闻--中国共产党新闻网". cpc.people.com.cn. Retrieved 22 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
65. ^ "Three Chinese Leaders: Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping | Asia for Educators | Columbia University". afe.easia.columbia.edu. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
66. Ashton, Basil; Hill, Kenneth; Piazza, Alan; Zeitz, Robin (1984). "Famine in China, 1958-61" (PDF). Population and Development Review. 10: 613–645.
67. ^ Dittmer, Lowell (1981). "Death and Transfiguration: Liu Shaoqi's Rehabilitation and Contemporary Chinese Politics" (PDF). The Journal of Asian Studies. 40: 455–479.
68. "The Man Who Re-Invented China | Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective". origins.osu.edu. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
69. "邓小平纪念网--领袖人物纪念馆--人民网". cpc.people.com.cn. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
70. Zhou, Christina; Xiao, Bang (1 December 2018). "40 years on from the 'experiments' that transformed China into an economic superpower". ABC News. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
71. Palmer, Brian (2 April 2014). "How China Went From Famine After Famine to Feast". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
72. "一段不容忽视的历史：大饥荒". BBC News 中文 (in Chinese (China)). Retrieved 22 April 2020.
73. Chang, Gene Hsin; Wen, Guanzhong James (1997). "Communal Dining and the Chinese Famine of 1958–1961". Economic Development and Cultural Change. 46 (1): 1–34. doi:10.1086/452319. ISSN 0013-0079.
74. Sue Williams (director), Howard Sharp (editor), Will Lyman (narrator) (1997). China: A Century of Revolution. WinStar Home Entertainment.
75. Demeny, Paul; McNicoll, Geoffrey, eds. (2003), "Famine in China", Encyclopedia of Population, vol. 1, New York: Macmillan Reference, pp. 388–390
76. Amartya Kumar Sen (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-289330-7. Archived from the original on 3 January 2014. Retrieved 14 April 2011.
77. Wiener, Jon. "How We Forgot the Cold War. A Historical Journey across America" University of California Press, 2012, p. 38.

Further Readings

• 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. A Holt paperback : history. Holt. ISBN 0-8050-5668-8. OCLC 985077206. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• 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. pp. 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 978-0-8248-3192-9.
• Gao. Mobo (2008). The Battle for China's Past. Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-2780-8.
• Jiang Zhenghua (蔣正華)， "Method and Result of China Population Dynamic Estimation", Academic Report of Xi'a University, 1986(3). pp. 46, 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 (in 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 October 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 (30 October 2012), hardcover, 656 pp., ISBN 0374277931, ISBN 978-0374277932
• Official Chinese statistics, shown as a graph. "Data – Population Growth", Land Use Systems Group (LUC), Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), archived from the original on 4 September 2005

• 1950s
• 1960s
• China

• 1959 disasters
• 1959 in China
• 1960 disasters
• 1960 in China
• 1961 disasters
• 1961 in China
• Famines in China
• Incidents of cannibalism
• Man-made disasters in China