Posted on 09/26/2017 2:17:07 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I’m glad this story referenced Frank Dikötter’s book on Mao’s mid-1950s Great Leap Forward and the subsequent economic collapse and mass starvation.
I read “Mao’s Great Famine” maybe two years ago and it was a real eye-opener about a topic little known to Americans.
Dikötter estimates the death toll at about 45 million, if I recall correctly, which is high compared to other historians’ estimates. But his book is well-sourced, detailed, and entirely credible.
Millions died for no reason other than the power lust and, even more, the rank incompetence of the Chicom leadership. Agricultural policy was being decided by Marxist ideologues who had not the slightest concept of how crops were raised.
Dikötter explains that a typical scenario would be for the national leadership to establish a quota of X units of rice to be requisitioned by the central government. The provincial leadership, wanting to show their dedication to Mao, would up the ante to 2X. The district leadership then would show their loyalty by going for 3X.
And so on and so on ... until there was nothing left for the peasants to eat but grass.
I have no idea about Dikötter’s personal politics, but I’ve read enough history to get a sense of who has an agenda to push and who is trying to render an accurate historical report.
By all means read this author.
I suppose I should put a warning on that article.
If half of it is true, Mao was no feminist icon, to say the least.
China:
WWII Combat deaths: 6,400,000 - Kinder
Mao by starvation: 1958-1961 = 38,000,000
Mao by murder: 1923-1949 = 3,466,000
1949-1987 = 35,236,000
Total: 1923-1987 = 76,702,000
Apparently.
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