What were the real causes of China's famine in the 50s-60s?

[Imrahil91]

I learned in school that tens of millions of people died as a result of careless management by the Chinese Communist Party during the Great leap forward, and I thought there was pretty much a consensus about that version of history. So I was quite surprised when a question on Quora about the Chinese famine was bombed by users with Chinese names, all explaining that the causes of the famine were mostly due to bad weather, US and Soviet agricultural embargoes or something in that alley. It does seem that the Communist Party and their educational system now admits there was a famine and even that some of the policies were bad, but in no way a genocide or something that severe.
I wanted to reply to these comments, but realized that I haven't really studied what experts in the field say, and don't know what the consensus is among historians if there is one.

TLDR
Did Mao indirectly kill tens of millions of people by melting agricultural equipment, killing sparrows, playing armchair agricultural expert, sending out bureaucrats who would report false numbers or get killed otherwise, etc? Or is that just propaganda by Western powers trying to delegitimize the current regime who brought China from humiliation to a nation to be reckoned with?

 

[Lexicus]

Oh god, tankies. Tankies everywhere.

First piece of advice: don't get caught in their false dichotomies. You aren't buying into Western propaganda if you agree that Mao killed lots of people. You are buying into Communist Party of China propaganda if you buy the Western propganda excuse.

 

[W|M]

Government incompetence contributed to a naturally-caused famine which was heavily exacerbated by the fact that China had been in continous war for decades beforehand, Western propaganda heavily exaggerates the extent of CPC involvement in the famine, Maoists and the Chinese government downplay it

 

[Ajidica]

A combination of natural famine, incompetence, and sad indifference by those in power.

 

[innonimatu]

I do believe Mao being a bloody idiot was the biggest one.

 

[Imrahil91]

Ok, thanks for getting my worldview back on track. I'll buy a banned (in China) book full of eye witness accounts of the period, so that I hopefully can have some good counter arguments to this wave of CCP apologists swamping internet forums nowadays. Ironically by illegally bypassing their own censorship.

I heard that the central government believed the peasants were withholding grain, causing them to forcefully seize all grain found in the countryside, including seeds for the next harvest. Strikingly similar to what happened in Ukraine in the 30s.

 

[Agent327]

I learned in school that tens of millions of people died as a result of careless management by the Chinese Communist Party during the Great leap forward, and I thought there was pretty much a consensus about that version of history. So I was quite surprised when a question on Quora about the Chinese famine was bombed by users with Chinese names, all explaining that the causes of the famine were mostly due to bad weather, US and Soviet agricultural embargoes or something in that alley. It does seem that the Communist Party and their educational system now admits there was a famine and even that some of the policies were bad, but in no way a genocide or something that severe.
I wanted to reply to these comments, but realized that I haven't really studied what experts in the field say, and don't know what the consensus is among historians if there is one.

The most recent historical study estimates a population loss of several tens of millions of Chinese (based on prior population growth). There were no 'US and Soviet agricultural embargoes or something in that alley'. Nor was the famine a natural phenomenon caused by 'bad weather' or what have you. Bad weather doesn't last 10 years. The Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward policies did and caused a serious disruption in agricultural production. I'm pretty sure upper CP cadres (especially the older guard, who may still have first hand experience) are aware of what is officially called 'a famine' and the causes thereof. But there still is a Mao cult (statues and paraphernalia can still be found everywhere despite the official CP critique of Mao and the Gang of Four.).

 

[plarq]

Ok, thanks for getting my worldview back on track. I'll buy a banned (in China) book full of eye witness accounts of the period, so that I hopefully can have some good counter arguments to this wave of CCP apologists swamping internet forums nowadays. Ironically by illegally bypassing their own censorship.

I heard that the central government believed the peasants were withholding grain, causing them to forcefully seize all grain found in the countryside, including seeds for the next harvest. Strikingly similar to what happened in Ukraine in the 30s.

The Holodromer is indeed the most relevant analogy to the Chinese famine. There is only one striking difference: Soviet Union indeed rapidly industrialized after that famine, but China, sadly, only industrialized in the 90s after taking tons of foreign investment.

I do believe Mao being a bloody idiot was the biggest one.

I disagree. Everybody saw Stalin confiscated grains from poor farmers (not only in Ukraine) , "let them eat cake", and armed up all the way to the Great Patriotic War and withstood the Nazi onslaught. Now we're on the famous quote from Marx, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce". --The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
We know that there's tons of foreign investment in Soviet Union in the 30s after the Great Depression. The Russian Gaz trucks were basically licensed Ford Models.

In May 1929 the Soviet Union signed an agreement with the Ford Motor Company.[1] Under its terms, the Soviets agreed to purchase $13 million worth of automobiles and parts, while Ford agreed to give technical assistance until 1938 to construct an integrated automobile-manufacturing plant at Nizhny Novgorod.

In China, it was so unfortunate that Soviet Union only gave China "socialist brotherly support" in science and technology, but not enough to jumpstart Chinese industrialization. So what happens was Mao just copied Soviet model of faster industrialization by deprivation of kulaks, or wealthy farmers in Chinese terms, and thus caused similar famine. But alas, it doesn't bring the Soviet industrialization.

 

[Agent327]

The Holodromer is indeed the most relevant analogy to the Chinese famine. There is only one striking difference: Soviet Union indeed rapidly industrialized after that famine, but China, sadly, only industrialized in the 90s after taking tons of foreign investment.

Investment is usually how industrialization comes about, as it requires capital.

And the estimated death toll from Mao's induced famine doesn't compare with anything: it's in the dozens of millions. Nor was it widely reported or even recognized by the authorities.

 

[Lexicus]

Investment is usually how industrialization comes about, as it requires capital.

But this is a way of ignoring the point. The USSR starved its own peasants to get the capital to industrialize. China starved its own peasants for basically no reason then attracted foreign capital to industrialize.

 

[plarq]

But China indeed got the A and H bombs as a result!

 

[Lexicus]

As a result of what?

 

[Agent327]

But this is a way of ignoring the point. The USSR starved its own peasants to get the capital to industrialize. China starved its own peasants for basically no reason then attracted foreign capital to industrialize.

There was no 'point' to either famines. Neither leader 'planned' to starve part of its population. No need for unfounded conspiracy theories here.

 

[plarq]

They didn't plan to kill, per se. But with high quota on agriculture yield, life will be hard for grain growers.
UK didn't plan Irish famine or Bengali famine either.

 

[Agent327]

Oh, the British regime in India was definitely oppressive, especially in Bangla Desh and the adjacent Indian state. (There even occurred a famine in 1943, in part because of military priorities.) So, unplanned, but certainly inconsiderate in the extreme.

 

[plarq]

So that is the same comment I made to Stalin and Mao's famines.
Stalin and Mao are as guilty as the Brits in Irish and Bengali famines.

 

[Agent327]

I would say so. But no famine compares to what happened after Mao's insane political experiments. And there's not the excuse of 'unforeseen' or 'unplanned'. Mao's policies were planned deliberately. And yet, the people love him, even today. (Well, those that survived, obviously.) The consequences of those policies were known to those in power, and it was decided to cover them up. So that was planned as well.

 

[plarq]

"I exploit you, still you love me, I tell you one and one makes three"
Exactly, like Joseph Stalin, and Gandhi.
This is how the world goes.

And there're nationalist Russians arguing that Holodromer was not as bad, while millions of Russians, along with Ukrainians and others, lost their lives in it.
Similar to Chinese nationalists defend CCP's actions, knowing that their parents had been mistreated by the regime.

 

[Traitorfish]

Nor was the famine a natural phenomenon caused by 'bad weather' or what have you. Bad weather doesn't last 10 years.

Well, neither did the Chinese famine; most account put it in the period 1958-1961. This was indeed a period of erratic weather in Northern China, with serious floods in 1959 and droughts in 1960. Not serious enough to create a famine, but certainly to exacerbate one.

I do believe Mao being a bloody idiot was the biggest one.

It's sometimes hard to know what we can learn from history, but in this case, "don't put a poet in charge of agriculture" does indeed seem pretty unambiguous.

 

[Flying Pig]

It's sometimes hard to know what we can learn from history, but in this case, "don't put a poet in charge of agriculture" does indeed seem pretty unambiguous.

I'm not convinced that it's true, but I've heard that some of the passengers on the Mayflower had taken their only knowledge of farming from Virgil's Georgics. Apocryphal or not, they seem to have managed about as well as if they had.