Great Chinese Famine
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]
This article is about the famine of 1959–1961. For other famines in Chinese history, see List of famines in China.
Great Chinese Famine
三年大饥荒
1959–1961
15–55 million
Result of the Great Leap Forward, people's commune, Four Pests campaign and other factors.
Termination of the Great Leap Forward campaign; considered China's most devastating catastrophe.
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]
Terminology[edit]
Aside from the "Three Years of Great Famine" (三年大饥荒), there are two names for the famine that have been used by the Chinese government. Initially, the usual name was "Three Years of Natural Disasters" (三年自然灾害). In June 1981, this was changed to "Three Years of Difficulty" (三年困难时期), thus no longer blaming nature alone for the famine.[2][3][21][22]
Extent of the famine[edit]
Production drop[edit]
Policy changes affecting how farming was organized coincided with droughts and floods. Weather had been relatively mild for much of the 1950s, but became particularly bad by 1959, driving down crop yields. As a result, year-over-year grain production fell dramatically.[23] The harvest was down by 15% in 1959 compared to 1958, and by 1960, it was at 70% of its 1958 level.[24] Specifically, according to China's governmental data, crop production decreased from 200 million tons (or 400 billion jin) in 1958 to 170 million tons (or 340 billion jin) in 1959, and to 143.5 million tons (or 287 billion jin) in 1960.[25]
Death toll[edit]
The excess mortality associated with the famine has been estimated by former CCP officials and international experts, with most giving a number in the range of 15–55 million deaths. Maoist author Mobo Gao claims that anti-Communist writers prefer to stretch the death toll number as high as possible while those sympathetic to the Chinese Revolution prefer to see the number as low as possible.[26] Mao Zedong himself suggested, in a discussion with Field Marshal Montgomery in Autumn 1961, that "unnatural deaths" exceeded 5 million in 1960–1961, according to a de-classified CIA report.[27] Some specific estimates include the following.