Killing Chinese People

Frank Dikotter has a new book out about the Great Leap Forward, Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe.  I haven't read it yet (mine is on order) but early reviews are in.  Here's Jonathan Mirsky:

In brutal fact, between 1959 and 1962, at least forty-three million Chinese died during the famine [Edgar] Snow didn't bother to see. Most died of hunger, over two million were executed or were beaten or tortured to death, the birth rate halved in some places, parents sold their children, and people dug up the dead and ate them.

The cause of this disaster, the worst ever to befall China and one of the worst anywhere at any time, was Mao, who, cheered on by his sycophantic and frightened colleagues, decreed that before long China's economy must overtake that of the Soviet Union, Britain and even the US. Mao suggested that 'When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill,' and declared that anyone who questioned his policies was a 'Rightist', a toxic term eventually applied to thirteen million Party members.

Here is Jonathan Fenby:

...By digging into the records, Dikötter provides a detailed litany of the degree of suffering the Great Helmsman unleashed and the inhumane manner in which his acolytes operated. Horrors pile up as he tells of the spread of collective farms and the vast projects that caused more harm than good and involved the press-ganging of millions of people into forced labour. As the pressure mounted to provide the all-powerful state with more and more output, the use of extreme violence became the norm, with starvation used as a weapon to punish those who could not keep up with the work routine demanded of them. The justice system was abolished. Brutal party cadres ran amok. "It is impossible not to beat people to death," one county leader said.

Some contemporary Chinese nationalists try to rationalize the Leap as somehow necessary for China's modernization and ascent.  That is rubbish.  It was a totally unnecessary assault on Chinese farmers and citizens.  Dikotter's book reminds us that Mao did vast damage to the country and its people.  The Chairman was a deeply inhumane man and ruler, one whom Mencius would certainly denounce:

"There's plenty of juicy meat in your kitchen and plenty of well-fed horses in  your stable," continued Mencius, "but the people here look hungry, and in the countryside they're starving to death.  You're feeding humans to animals.  Everyone hates to see animals eat each other,and an emperor is the people's father and mother - but if his government feeds people to animals, how can he claim to be the people's father and mother?" (1.1)

We might amend Mencius' words here.  What Mao did was tantamount to feeding people to the Party,  he killed them to maintain the power of the CCP, the institution he led, that gave him  his power, and which carried out the horrible work of the GLF.

Comments

[isha]

A song and poem.

http://www.juoaa.com/JiDa/JDforum/messages/192065.html

毕生坚信主义真，
千古风流第一人。
指点江山论持久，
激扬文字写乾坤。
敢言美帝纸老虎。
怒斥苏修放屁人。
展翅鲲鹏新万里，
梅花笑看九州春。

[Sam]

"Renounce[?] American Imperialism"... now that's some great poetry :).... Who's the author? It has a Maoist flavor to it. I especially like this line: 怒斥苏修放屁人 - "reubuke the farters of Soviet Revisionism"? Really deep stuff...

[isha]

Truth is not rhetorical; Therefore rhetoric is not true;

Daodejing

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/taote-v1.txt