China’s Great Famine (1959-1961): Causes
Here are some causes for China’s Great Famine (1859-1961):
- The Great Chinese Famine happened because of big changes in how farming worked, social pressure, bad management of money, and natural disasters like droughts and floods.
- During the Great Leap Forward, the Chinese government made big changes in farming policy.
- They created things called people’s communes, where everyone worked together on farming, and individuals weren’t allowed to have their own plots of land anymore. Before, farmers had their own land given by the government.
- The government told regions how much food they needed to produce, and then took that food and gave it out however they wanted. This meant sometimes people didn’t have enough food, even if there was food stored away nearby.
- Some argue that these communes made the famine worse because there was too much eating in the mess halls, which led to even less food being available.
- The government also changed farming techniques, like planting seeds closer together and plowing the ground deeper. These changes didn’t work well and made the crops grow less.
- There was also a campaign to kill pests like mosquitoes, rats, flies, and sparrows. But killing the sparrows meant more bugs could eat the crops.
- The government said there was a lot of food being produced, but it wasn’t true. They kept saying there was plenty of food, which made people think there was, but there really wasn’t. This made things worse because the government didn’t take the famine seriously.
- The government wanted to make a lot of steel, so they took millions of farmers away from farming to make iron and steel. But the iron and steel they made weren’t good enough to use.
- Some policies from the government, like encouraging people to work harder and do everything for the Communist Party, made things worse.
- Local governments also had a big influence on the famine. Some places were worse off because of their local leaders, who made bad decisions.
- There were also natural disasters like floods and droughts, but disagreements remain about how much they really contributed to the famine. Some people say the weather was an important factor, but others think government policies were more to blame.
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China’s Great Famine (1959-1961)
Around forty years ago, China faced the world’s biggest famine. It happened from around 1959 to 1961, and sadly, about 30 million Chinese people died because of it. Additionally, nearly the same number of births didn’t happen or were delayed. The famine was mostly caused by ideological reasons. It’s considered as significant as the two world wars in terms of public deaths caused by humans, according to Richard Rhodes, an expert.
Now, after two generations, China has become economically successful and can provide enough food. In this article, we take a look at a detailed explanation of China’s Great Famine (1959-1961).
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