The Great Chinese Famine and the Story Behind It

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The story regarding the Great Chinese Famine killed 45 million people. For over 50 years the truth about this famine is yet to unfold. There were many researchers and historians talked about this famine, and they had a different opinion about it. The famine started in the year 1950s. Chinese people experienced famine few times before, but the Great Chinese Famine is a different story.

In 1916-1949 during warlord and Nationalist period, six million and eight million people died in a famine. But the Great Chinese Famine was deadlier than that. This famine started from 1958 until the end of 1961. The cause of this great famine was still an issue to be debated with historian and other researchers, they did not know the real reason behind this.

This Great Chinese Famine was highly affected by drought and other natural calamities, but it became worse when Chinese communists were taking place. According to consensus, 10 million died but when it was dug deeper, they learned that all people died were numbered 10 million to 47 million.

Chinese community claimed that this famine was caused by various natural disasters. That is why Communist historiography said this famine to be “Three Years of Natural Disaster” rather than “Three Years of Famine.” Why did historiographers claim the overwhelming happening in China as years of natural disasters? They have a basis to prove their claim.

• The flood happened at Yellow River or Huang Ho that caused the drowning and ruining of crops in the mid of 1959. Due to this flood, more than 40 million hectares of agricultural lands could not be used anymore. After the flood, other calamities happened – droughts, typhoon, more floods came, and other diseases appeared.
• When drought happened at Shaanxi and Hubei in the year 1959, crops withered and considered useless. In the next year, drought was greater than the recent year. It affected greatly the provinces of Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan. The droughts did not end easily. It was prolonged and cause more damage to root crops. From a different part of China, there were multiple typhoons happened and they had to endure the flood caused by this natural disaster.

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It was true that some of the calamities were confirmed by meteorological data, but how it affected the agricultural status was still debated, for according to some historians, failed governing and ruling of their people is one of the greatest reasons of this famine. According to Frank Dikötter, the famine was resulted by “unintended consequences of half-baked and poorly executed economic programs.” Another historian named John K. Fairbank said that the calamity happened was caused by man-made greediness. Other historians believed their reasonings.

Author Yang Jisheng unfolds the debated story behind the real reason of the Great Chinese Famine. He stated that when Communist party took the rulership in 1949, they promised to serve them well but turned out the total opposite. The said to be “natural disaster” that caused the famine was not the real reason behind it. At the Henan province, in a million people, 1 out 8 were wiped out due to starvation and brutality from Communist party.

In short nine months, 12,000 people died in a commune, wherein a tenth of the household were wiped out. The scene of this great famine was overwhelming where people, especially children begged officials for food. Because of this great famine, one teenage orphan killed and ate his little brother just to relieve his hunger. Children who were begging for foods eventually died due to exposure and starvation. Other people did not die because of hunger but of brutality from officials. They were buried alive.

Famine triggered cannibalism. It was so serious and brutal. Farmers were killed. People who are starving wait for others to die. They did not bury the dead, instead, they kept it in their bed. Those dead bodies became their meals. At the land of Gansu, they killed strangers who passed by in their land to become their foods. Lots of places became ghost towns because many corpses were just lying around. They said that citizens were fooled by Communist party. Leaders said that it was natural calamity was the main reason for famine, but the truth is, it was caused by the leaders’ greediness

Western historians brought light to the knowledge of this Great Chinese Famine. The official from China’s communist party exaggerated the natural calamities to make it look like that the famine happened due to these calamities. The statistics they made were to hide the truth and to make the low production of foods justified.

The Communist party could not justify the people affected by this Great Chinese Famine. People died out of starvation and misery. They trusted the leaders to support them in any way, but they were just disappointed. "The Chinese people were cheated. They need real history."

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