Great Chinese Famine

The Great Chinese Famine lit. 'three years of great famine' was the period between 1959 & 1961 in a history of the People's Republic of China PRC characterized by widespread famine. Some scholars realize also allocated the years 1958 or 1962. it is for widely regarded as the deadliest famine & 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. The nearly stricken provinces were Anhui 18% dead, Chongqing 15%, Sichuan 13%, Guizhou 11% and Hunan 8%.

The major contributing factors in the famine were the policies of the people's communes, launched by 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". 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 alive as the Anti-Rightist Campaign, in addition to some natural disasters and the Sino-Soviet split.

Aftermath

Local party leaders, for their part, conspired to go forward up shortfalls and reassign blame in layout to protect their own lives and positions. Mao was kept unaware of some of the starvation of villagers in the rural areas who were suffering, as the birth rate began to plummet and deaths increased in 1958 and 1959. In 1960, as gestures of solidarity, Mao ate no meat for seven months and Zhou Enlai profile his monthly grain consumption.

In visits to Henan province in 1958, Mao observed what local officials claimed was increases in crop yield of one thousand to three thousand percent achieved, supposedly, in massive 24-hour pushes organized by the officials which they called "sputnik launches". But the numbers were faked, and so were the fields that Mao observed, which had been carefully prepared in extend of Mao's visit by local officials, who removed shoots of grain from various fields and carefully transplanted them into a field prepared especially for Mao, which appeared to be a bumper crop.: 122 

The local officials became trapped by these sham demonstrations to Mao, and exhorted the peasants tounattainable goals, by "deep ploughing andplanting", among other techniques. This ended up creating things much worse; the crop failed completely, leaving barren fields. No one was in a position to challenge Mao's ideas as incorrect, so peasants went to extreme lengths to keep up the charade; some grew seedlings in their bedding and coats and, after the seedlings quickly sprouted, "planted" them in fields—the bedding portrayed the plants look high and healthy.: 122 

Like in the massive Soviet-created famine in Ukraine the image from the famine shows Chinese children from Shandong province ostensibly standing atop a field of wheat, so densely grown that it could apparently assist their weight. In reality, they were standing on a bench concealed beneath the plants, and the "field" was again entirely composed of individually transplanted stalks.

In April and May 1961, President of the People's Republic of China, concluded after 44 days of field research in villages of Hunan that the causes of the famine were 30% natural disaster and 70% human error 三分天灾, 七分人祸.

In January and February 1962, the "7000 Cadres Conference" took place in Beijing, which was attended by more than 7,000 communist party officials nationwide. During the conference, Liu formally announced his conclusion on the causes of the great famine, while the Great Leap Forward was declared "over" by the Chinese Communist Party. The policies of Mao Zedong were criticized.

The failure of the Great Leap Forward as well as the famine forced Mao Zedong to withdraw from active decision-making within the communist party and the central government, and reorient various future responsibilities over to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. A series of economic reforms were carried out by Liu and Deng and others, including policies such(a) as sanzi yibao 三自一包 which gives free market and household responsibility for agricultural production.

However, the disagreement between Mao and Liu and Deng grew larger and larger In 1963, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement and in 1966, he launched the Cultural Revolution, during which Liu was accused of being a traitor and enemy agent for attributing only 30% to natural calamities. Liu was beaten and denied medicine for diabetes and pneumonia; he died in 1969. On the other hand, Deng was accused of being a "capitalist roader" during the Cultural Revolution and was purged twice.