China's 1959-1962 Famine

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the hidden famine of 1958-1962 in China and argues that it was the result of Mao's 'great leap forward' error of trying to collectivize agriculture while attending to industrialization, bogus Soviet advice, the Communist failure to respond to what was obviously severe famine, and disaster's social imprint. The famine showed the timelessness of rural/urban networks, rumour, subversive sentiment, and government cover-up and failure. The famine's gravity was hidden from the outside world till the late 70s, though 40 million Chinese had died.

From the Paper:

"In 1958-1961, and the succeeding year, millions of Chinese died in a severe famine created by the Great Leap Forwards and made worse by Beijing's failure to respond. Effort was made to hide the famine from urban Chinese and the world, despite signs that all was not well in the countryside. Between the spring of 1959 and December of 1961, at least 30 million starved to death with the rate of births per annum not returning to previous levels till the mid-1960s."

More papers on China's 1959-1962 Famine :

• Analytical Essay # 140211 : "Famine in Urban China"
• Term Paper # 132125 : "Famine and China's "Great Leap Forward"
• Analytical Essay # 130951 : "Media Reports of 1960 and China"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: