Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine

by Jasper Becker

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  Thirty Years in the Countryside – True Records of the Economic and Social Development in the Fengyang Agricultural Region, Research Centre for Rural Development.

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  Zhou Libo, Great Changes in a Mountain Village., trans. Derek Bryan, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1961.

  Zhou Yueli, Zeng Xisheng Biography, unpublished.

  Notes

  Chapter 1: China: Land of Famine

  1 Research by the Student Agricultural Society of the University of Nanjing under Professor John Lossing Buck, Professor of Agricultural Economy at the university.

  2 Deng Tuo, China’s History of Disaster Relief, p. 286.

  3 Kay Ray Chong, Cannibalism in China, p. 110.

  4 He Bochuan, China on the Edge, p. 6.

  5 Graham Peck, Two Kinds of Time, p. 202.

  6 Andrew James Nathan, History of the China International Famine Relief Commission, p. 6.

  7 Annual report of the China International Famine Relief Commission, 1925.

  8 Edgar Snow, Red Star over China, pp. 214—215.

  9 Annual report of the China International Famine Relief Commission, 1927.

  10 Quoted in Walter H. Mallory, China, Land of Famine, p. 2.

  11 John Ridley in the Daily Telegraph, 29 May 1946.

  12 A. K. Norton, China and the Powers, pp. 173-174.

  13 Report by the South Manchurian Railway quoted in Cambridge History of China, vol. 12, p. 318.

  14 Theodore H. White, In Search of History, pp. 147-149.

  15 Theodore H. White, In Search of History, pp. 97-98.

  16 Daily Telegraph, 29 May 1946.

  Chapter 2: Arise, Ye Prisoners of Starvation

  1 Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China, p. 175.

  2 Quoted in Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 August 1960.

  3 Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, pp. 23-24.

  4 Much of this section is drawn from Robert Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow and Alec Nove’s An Economic History of the U.S.S.R. The quotations of Soviet writers come from these sources.

  5 R. H. Tawney, China: Agriculture and Industry.

  6 Herman Graf von Keyserling, The Travel Diary of a Philosopher (trans. J. Holroyd Reece). London: Jonathan Cape, 1927, p. 401.

  7 Fei Xiaotong, Peasant Life in China, p. 181.

  8 Randolph Barker and Radha Sinha with Beth Rose (eds.), The Chinese Agricultural Economy, pp. 37-38.

  9 Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State, pp. 80-86.

  10 This material is taken from ‘Historical Change of Land Reform of the CCP’ published by the Research Group of Rural Institutes of China in Rural Institutions and Development, No. 3, p. 48. See also Luo Fu, The First Soviet in China, p. 68; Zhao Xiaomin (comp.) History of Land Reform in China, 1921-1949, p. 85; and TonYing-ming (comp.), Land Revolution Report, 1927-1937.

  11 John Byron and Robert Pack, The Claws of the Dragon: Kang Sheng, p. 193.

  12 John Byron and Robert Pack, The Claws of the Dragon: Kang Sheng, p. 196.

  13 Claire Hollingworth, Mao and the Men Against Him, pp. 82-83.

  Chapter 3: The Soviet Famines

  1 This chapter draws on Robert Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow; Alec Nove, An Economic History of the U.S.S.R.; Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament; and the 1988 US Congressional Commission’s investigation into the Ukrainian famine, 1932-1933.

  2 Michael Ellman, A Note on the Number of 1933 Famine Victims’, Soviet Studies, 1989.

  Chapter 4: The First Collectivization, 1949-1958

  1 Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State, pp. 140-142.

  2 Han Suyin, Wind in the Tower, p. 41.

  3 Han Suyin, Wind in the Tower, p. 43.

  4 Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State, p. 122.

  5 Interview with officials in Sichuan.

  6 Mao Zedong, Selected Works 1954.

  7 Interview with Frank Kouvenhoven and Dr. Antionet Schimmelpennick, musicologists at Leiden University.

  8 Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and M
ark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State, p. 189.

  9 Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State, p. xxiii.

  10 Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State, p. 203.

  11 John Lossing Buck, Food and Agriculture in Communist China, pp. 18-20.

  12 Li Rui, A True Account of the Lushan Meeting, p. 45.

  13 See Thirty Years in the Countryside—True Records of the Economic and Social Development in the Fengyang Agricultural Region, p. 162.

  14 Alec Nove, An Economic History of the U.S.S.R, Chapter 12 .

  15 Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China, pp. 276-277, 286.

  16 Unpublished biography of Zeng Xisheng, due to be published in 1996.

  17 Khrushchev Remembers, pp. 272, 275.

  18 Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 December 1958.

  19 Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, pp. 281-282.

  Chapter 5: False Science, False Promises

  1 Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State, pp. 216-217.

  2 Quoted in Klaus Mehnert, Peking and Moscow, p. 356. Mehnert also describes how during the Great Leap Forward, Shanghai writers undertook to produce 3,000 literary works in two years. Soon they had far exceeded their plan: one single evening three thousand Shanghai workers and soldiers ‘produced’ 3,000 poems and 360 songs. One the poems awarded a special prize was ‘Ode to the Red Sun’:

  ‘When Chairman Mao comes forth, The East shines Red. All living things prosper, The Earth is “red”. Six hundred million, peony bright: Each one is “red”. For all our beautiful hills and streams, Eternal time is “red”.’

  3 Quoted from a Red Guard magazine in Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, p. 84.

  4 Dawa Norbu, Red Star over Tibet, p. 129.

  5 Zhou Libo, Great Changes in a Mountain Village, was translated by Derek Bryan and published by the Foreign Languages Press in 1961. Quoted in A Chinese View of China by John Gittings, p. 139.

  6 John Byron and Robert Pack, The Claws of the Dragon: Kang Sheng, p. 234.

  7 John Byron and Robert Pack, The Claws of the Dragon: Kang Sheng, p. 234.

  8 Li Rui, A True Account of the Lushan Meeting, p. 8.

  9 Mikhail Klochko, Soviet Scientist in China, pp. 139-140.

  10 People’s Daily, 1958.

  11 They Are Creating Miracles, Foreign Languages Press, 1960. The Chinese edition appeared earlier.

  12 For a detailed account of Lysenko see Zhores A. Medvedev, The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko, translated by I. Michael Wermner, Columbia University Press, 1969; and David Joravsky, The Lysenko Affair, University of Chicago Press, 1970.

  13 Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, p. 13.

  14 Roderick MacFarquhar, Timothy Cheek and Eugene Wu (eds.), The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao, p. 450.

  15 Denis Fred Simon and Merle Goldman (eds.), Science and Technology in Post-Mao China, p. 48.

  16 Denis Fred Simon and Merle Goldman (eds.), Science and Technology in Post-Mao China, p. 53.

  17 Interview with the author.

  18 British United Press, printed in the Guardian, 24 March 1960.

  19 Reported in the Sunday Times by Richard Hughes, June 1960.

  20 Alfred L. Chan, ‘The Campaign for Agricultural Development in the Great Leap Forward: A Study of Policy-making and Implementation in Liaoning’, China Quarterly, No. 129 (March 1992), pp. 68-69.

  21 Bo Yibo, Retrospective of Several Big Decisions and Incidents, Central Party School, 1993.

  22 Interview with Chen Yizi.

  23 China Pictorial, 1959.

  24 Far Eastern Economic Review, February 1959.

  25 Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 December 1958.

  26 Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution.

  27 Reuters, 7 April 1960.

  28 Interview with the author.

  29 Vaclav Smil, The Bad Earth: Environmental Degradation in China.

  30 Human Rights Watch Asia Report, February 1995, pp. 37-44.

  31 Dai Qing (ed.), Changjiang Yimin (Population Transfer on the Yangzi River), a documentary anthology.

  32 Richard Hughes, The Chinese Communes, p. 69.

  33 Interview with the author.

  34 Jung Chang, Wild Swans, p. 226.

  35 Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, p. 121.

  36 Interview with author.

  37 Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, p. 139.

  38 Jack Potter and Sulamith Heins Potter, China’s Peasants—The Anthropology of a Revolution, p. 73.

  39 William Hinton, Shenfan, p. 218.

  40 Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank (eds.), Cambridge History of China, vol. 14, pp. 378-386.

  41 Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 August 1960.

  Chapter 6: Mao Ignores the Famine

  1 From Red Flag, quoted in Richard Hughes, The Chinese Communes, p. 48.

  2 I have not been able to discover who first proposed the name. Some claim it was Wu Zhifu’s idea but it is more likely that it was the brainchild of Chen Boda and was a reference to the Paris Commune. Later, when Mao was trying to minimize his responsibility for the Great Leap Forward, he claimed he was misquoted by a local journalist.

  3 Stanley Karnow in Mao and China writes that at a Central Committee meeting held in Wuchang at the end of 1958, it was decided to halt the Great Leap Forward and reverse some of its measures (pp. 111-112). At the same meeting Mao resigned as President and this was taken to mean that he had suffered a political setback. As with much of what happened (and still happens) inside the highest levels of the Communist Party, the full story is confusing and murky. However, it is important to remember that Mao rarely paid attention to what the Party organization planned or did, nor did his followers who regarded his utterances as imperial decrees.

  4 Bo Yibo, Retrospective of Several Big Decisions and Incidents, Central Party School, 1993, p. 714.

  5 David Shambaugh, The Making of a Premier: Zhao Ziyang’s Provincial Career, Westview replica edition, 1984, p. 21.

  6 Jurgen Domes, Peng Dehuai: The Man and His Image.

  7 Sources based on Party documents.

  8 Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, pp. 195-196.

  9 Jurgen Domes, Peng Dehuai: The Man and His Image, has a different translation (p. 93): ‘Grain scattered on the ground, / Potato leaves withered, / Strong young people have left to make steel, / Only my children and old women reap the crops. / How can they pass the coming year? / Allow me to raise my voice for the people!’

  10 Jurgen Domes, Peng Dehuai: The Man and his Image, p. 113.

  11 Li Rui, A True Account of the Lushan Meeting, p. 104.

  12 The quotes from these exchanges appear in various books, notably Stanley Karnow, Mao and China, and Li Rui, A True Account of the Lushan Meeting.

  13 Han Suyin, Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China, 1898-1976, pp. 268-275.

  14 Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, p. 296.

  15 In 1961 another opera was written, intended as a bitter and unmistakable allegory, in which Hai Rui is Peng Dehuai scolding the foolish Emperor. This was criticized by a future member of the Gang of Four, Yao Wenyuan, a protégé of the Shanghai Party boss Ke Qingshi. In 1966, the Cultural Revolution began with a further attack on the opera.

  16 Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, p. 152.

  17 David M. Bachman, ‘Chen Yun and the Chinese Political System’, China Research Monograph, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1985, pp. 71-74.

  18 Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, pp. 293-294.

  19 Far Eastern Review, 26 September 1959.

  20 Ding Shu, Ren Huo.

  21 Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, p. 339.

  22 Ding Shu, Ren H
uo.

  Chapter 7: An Overview of the Famine

  1 Judith Banister in China’s Changing Population (pp. 312-318) notes that there were also rebellions among the Yi, Dong and Miao minorities in south-west China and that a sizeable group of Dai people from Yunnan fled to Burma, Laos and Thailand. In 1962, 70,000 fled Xinjiang for the Soviet Union and another 60,000 the following year.

  2 Unpublished Chinese sources.

  3 Interviewees said that a member of each household had to report each week on the activities of neighbours. In addition, there was a curfew and a blackout during the famine. No buildings above one storey could be built and many other precautions were taken.

  4 Pu Ning, Red in Tooth and Claw, pp. 184—185. Resolution of 10 December 1958.

  5

  6 Interviews with the author.

  7 Thirty Years in the Countryside, p. 170.

  8 China Youth Journal, 27 September 1958.

  9 Thirty Years in the Countryside, p. 170.

  10 Liu Binyan, A Higher Kind of Loyalty, p. 98.

  11 Thirty Years in the Countryside, p. 170.

  12 Bo Yibo, Restrospective of Several Big Decisions and Incidents, p. 754.

  13 Quoted from Mark Elvin, ‘The Technology of Farming in Late Traditional China’, in Rudolph Barker and Radha Sinha with Beth Rose (eds.), The Chinese Agricultural Economy, p. 14. Elvin cites ‘Par les missionaires de Pékin’, Mémoires concernant les Chinois (Paris and Lyon, 1776-1814), 14 vols.

  Chapter 8: Henan: A Catastrophe of Lies

  1 Some sources claim this took place in May when twenty-seven co-operatives were merged.

  2 Instructions given by the Central Party Committee following the Xinyang Prefectural Party Committee Report on ‘The Movement of Work Style Rectification, Commune Reconstruction and the Organization of Production and Disaster Relief, unpublished.

  3 Figures from confidential sources.

  4 Su Luozheng, July Storm—The Inside Story of the Lushan Conference, p. 360.

  5 Su Luozheng, July Storm—The Inside Story of the Lushan Conference, p. 359.

  6 Su Xiaokang, July Storm—The Inside Story of the Lushan Conference, p. 359.

  7 Confidential sources based on internal Party documents.

  8 The detailed descriptions of tortures which follow come from confidential sources but are discussed in less detail in books published in China.