distinguished professor University of Manitoba，Winnipeg，MB R3T 2N2，Canada

　　vsmil@cc.umanitoba.ca

　　Forty years ago China was in the middle of the world's largest famine ：betweenthe spring of 1959and the end of 1961some 30million Chinese starved to deathand about the same number of births were lost or postponed.The famine had overwhelminglyideological causes，rating alongside the two world wars as a prime example of whatRichard Rhodes labelled public manmade death，perhaps the most overlooked causeof 20th century mortality.1Two generations later China ，which has been rapidlymodernising since the early 1980s ，is economically successful and producing adequateamounts of food.Yet it has still not undertaken an open，critical examination ofthis unprecedented tragedy.

　　Summary points

　　·The largest famine in human history took place in China during 1959-61

　　·Although drought was a contributory factor，this was largely a manmade catastrophefor which Mao Zedong bears the greatest responsibility

　　·We will never know the precise number of casualties ，but the best demographicreconstructions indicate about 30million dead

　　·Two generations later China is yet to openly examine the causes and consequencesof the famine

　　Origins of famine

　　The origins of the famine can be traced to Mao Zedong's decision，supportedby the leadership of China's communist party，to launch the Great Leap Forward.This mass mobilisation of the country's huge population was to achieve in just afew years economic advances that took other nations many decades to accomplish.2Mao ，beholden to Stalinist ideology that stressed the key role of heavy industry，made steel production the centrepiece of this deluded effort.Instead of workingin the fields ，tens of millions of peasants were ordered to mine local depositsof iron ore and limestone ，to cut trees for charcoal ，to build simple clay furnaces，and to smelt metal.This frenzied enterprise did not produce steel but mostly lumpsof brittle cast iron unfit for even simple tools.Peasants were forced to abandonall private food production ，and newly formed agricultural communes planted lessland to grain ，which at that time was the source of more than 80%of China's foodenergy.3

　　At the same time，fabricated reports of record grain harvests were issued todemonstrate the superiority of communal farming.These gross exaggerations werethen used to justify the expropriation of higher shares of grain for cities andthe establishment of wasteful communal mess halls serving free meals.4In reality，grain harvest plummeted（fig 1）；and since supply and demand of food before 1958were almost equal ，by the spring of 1959there was famine in a third of China'sprovinces.



　　As an essentially social catastrophe，the famine showed clear marks of omission，commission，and provision.These three attributes recur in all modern manmade famines.5The greatest omission was the failure of China's rulers to acknowledge the famineand promptly to secure foreign food aid.Study of famines shows how easily theycan be ended（or prevented）once the government decides to actbut the Chinese governmenttook nearly three years to act.Taking away all means of private food production（in some places even cooking utensils），forcing peasants into mismanaged communes，and continuing food exports were the worst acts of commission.Preferential supplyof food to cities and to the ruling elite was the deliberate act of selective provision.

　　These actions are perfect illustrations of Sen's thesis about the critical linkbetween political alienation of the governors from the governed ："The direct penaltiesof a famine are borne by one group of people and political decisions are taken byanother.The rulers never starve.But when a government is accountable to the localpopulace it too has good reasons to do its best to eradicate famines.Democracy ，via electoral politics，passes on the price of famines to the rulers as well."6There was no such link in Mao's China.

　　Weather only exacerbated the suffering.Official accounts still blame the naturalcatastrophes for the sufferingbut China's own statistics belie this explanation.7Undoubtedly ，the drought of 1960-1would have lowered grain supply in the worstaffected provinces，but by itself it would have caused only a small fraction ofthe eventual nationwide death toll.During the 1990s the worst droughts and floodsin China's modern history had only a marginal effect on the country's adequate foodsupply.Only a return to more rational economic policies after 1961，includingimports of grain，ended the famine.

　　China's opening up to the world made a key difference.The first business dealsigned after US President Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972was an order for 13ofthe world's largest and most modern ，American designed ，nitrogen fertiliser plants.More purchases of such plants followed，and China became the world's largest producerof nitrogenous fertilisers.The first major change initiated by the reformist factionof the communist party in 1979，less than three years after Mao's death ，was todissolve agricultural communes and free farm prices.By 1984all food rationingwas lifted in the cities，and China's average per capita food supply rose to within5%of Japan's comfortable mean.8

　　Peasants were forced to abandon private food production

　　Extent of famine

　　The true extent of the famine was not revealed to the world until the publicationof single year age distributions from the country's first highly reliable populationcensus in 1982.These data made it possible to estimate the total number of excessdeaths between 1959and 1961，and the first calculations by American demographersput the toll at between 16.5and 23million.9More detailed later studies came upwith 23to 30million excess deaths ，and unpublished Chinese materials hint attotals closer to 40million.10-12We will never know the actual toll because theofficial Chinese figures for the three famine years greatly underestimate both thefall in fertility and the rise in mortality and because we cannot accurately reconstructthese vital statistics（fig 2）。



　　The lack of accuracy is as expected.All death tolls cited for major famineshave large margins of error.This is true even for events unfolding amid unprecedentedpublicity.An attempt to discern a coherent picture of morbidity，mortality ，andnutritional status during the 1991-2famine in Somalia，an effort based on 23separatefield studies ，ended in failure.13Similar controversies surround the recent estimatesof the excess deaths in Iraq attributable to economic sanctions after the Gulf war.14

　　Need for open discussion

　　But no amount of additional information and no new and more sophisticated demographicanalyses can change the fundamental conclusion：Mao's delusionary policies causedby far the largest famine in human history.Yet in contrast to other great faminesof the 20th century （Ukraine 1932-3，Bengal 1943-4），the causes of the Chinesefamine and an attribution of responsibility for its depth and duration have neverbeen openly discussed in the afflicted nation.Beyond a narrow circle of China experts，the famine has also been virtually ignored by Western scholars and politicians.The need for moral examination and historical closure is obvious.Eventually thecountry will have to examine the causes and consequences of the tragedy whose magnitudesurpasses the combined toll of all other famines China has experienced during thepast two centuries.

　　How could this famine have lasted so long ？How tenable is it to excuse theactions of so many people throughout the party and state bureaucracy by blamingsolely their leader ？Had they no other choice but to follow orders and to carryout ，often against resistance，mindless collectivisation and reduced planting ofgrain ，to falsify harvest statistics ，and to forcibly take grain away from evidentlystarving peasants ？Germany has spent two generations trying to understand the horrorsof the Third Reich and to atone for its transgressions.Russia began to face itsdark past soon after Stalin's death ，when Khrushchev opened the gates of the Gulagand had the dictator's embalmed corpse removed from the Red Square mausoleum.China'sturn is yet to come.

　　If，as is likely，such an accounting does not happen soon ，the direct memoriesof survivors will be lost.Of course，the archives of the Chinese communist partyand of its enormous secret police apparatus will eventually be opened and yieldmuchlike the party and KGB archives in Russia since 1991some of their long hidden secrets.Many facts we will never know.A leading Chinese demographer found that even casualsurveys of villages in areas that experienced the worst starvation show an unusuallyhigh extent of mental impairment among adults born during the famine years（X Peng，personal communication）。Given the importance of nutrition for the developmentof mental capacities during infancy and early childhood this was a predictable tragedy.15We will never know how many millions of survivors throughout China have had theirlives twisted in this terrible way.

　　Finally ，what are we to make of the Western indifference to the great famine？

　　Eyewitness stories of refugees who fled to Hong Kong were widely dismissed andrarely reported during the famine years.Two generations later a journalistic accountis the only fairly comprehensive volume on the famine published in the West.16Incredibly，the 1997edition of the New Encyclopaedia Britannica does not even list the catastrophein its tabulation of famines of the past 200years.17An in depth scholarly historyof the famine has yet to be written.

　　Footnotes

　　Competing interest：None declared.

　　References

　　1.Rhodes R.Man-made death ：a neglected mortality.JAMA 1988；260：686-687[Medline].2.Yang D.Catastrophe and reform in China.Stanford ：Stanford UniversityPress ，1996.3.Smil V.China's food ：availability，requirements，composition ，prospects.Food Policy 1981；6：67-77.4.Chang GH，Wen GJ.Communal dining andthe Chinese famine of 1958-1961.Econ Dev Cult Change 1997；46：1-34.5.MacraeJ ，Zwi A.Famine ，complex emergencies and international policy in Africa：an overview.In：War and hunger.In：London：Zed Books ，1994：6-36.6.Sen A.Nobody need starve.Granta 1995；52：217.7.State Statistical Bureau.China statistical yearbook.Beijing ：State Statistical Bureau，1978-98.8.Smil V.China's food.Sci Am 1985；253（6）：116-124.9.Aird J.Population studies and population policy in China.Popul Dev Rev 1982；8：85-97.10.Ashton B ，Hill K，Piazza A，Zeitz R.Faminein China，1958-61.Popul Dev Rev 1984；10：613-645.11.Peng X.Demographic consequencesof the Great Leap Forward in China's provinces.Popul Dev Rev 1987；13：639-670.12.Banister J.China's changing population.Stanford ：Stanford University Press，1987.13.Boss LP，Toole MJ，Yip R.Assessments of mortality ，morbidity ，andnutritional status in Somalia during the 1991-1992famine.JAMA 1994；272：371-376[Medline].14.Lopez GA ，Cortright D.Pain and promises.Bull Atom Sci 1998；54：39-43.15.Pollitt E，ed.The relationship between undernutrition and behavioraldevelopment in children.J Nutrition 1995；125（suppl 8）：2211-284S.16.BeckerJ.Hungry ghosts.New York：Free Press，1996.17.Encyclopaedia Britannica.Newencyclopaedia britannica micropedia.，Vol 4Chicago ：Encyclopaedia Britannica，1997：674-675.

　　Source：BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL 1999；319：1619-1621（18December ）

　　----------------

　　[新观察]·文库版·大饥荒档案www.ChinaFamine.org 转载时请注明作（译）者及出处

除特别声明外，本站不拥有文章版权。如引用，请注明原始出处。
please quote the original source if you are going to use this paper