From 1959 to 1961, tens of millions died in a terrible famine
in Chairman Mao’s China. There was bad weather, but foolish government
policies, such as ordering peasants to abandon their fields and concentrate on
making steel instead, were also to blame.
Anyone watching the mainstream media or listening to
politicians would have had no idea that millions were starving to death. The
State Statistical Bureau had been shut down and replaced by ‘good news
reporting stations’, and there was fierce competition between local activists
to be the most Maoist by announcing the best news.
So the smaller the real harvests became, the bigger the
phantom ones reported. The New China News Agency said peasants were growing
pumpkins weighing 10 stones, cows were supposed to have been successfully
crossed with pigs. There seemed to be more than enough food to go round, so Mao
cut imports and increased exports.
He refused to hand out food from the official granaries, and
party activists tortured peasants they believed were hoarding non-existent
grain. This was perhaps the first famine in history that devastated the whole
of China, but the areas that suffered most were those run by the most fanatical
Maoists.
*For more, see A
Disastrous History of the World.
No comments:
Post a Comment