When Food Became Scarce: Life and Death in Chinese Villages during the Great Leap Forward Famine

Journal of the Historical Society

Volumn 10, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 117-165

  Chen, Yixin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79957644359     PISSN: 1529921X     EISSN: 15405923     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5923.2010.00296.x     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. In two of the most recent Chinese books on the Great Leap famine, historian Cao Shuji estimates that the total excessive deaths from 1958 to 1961 numbered 32.5 million people, and journalist Yang Jisheng calculates that total excessive deaths between 1958 and 1962 numbered 36 million. See Cao Shuji, Dajihuang: 1959-1961 nian de zhongguo renkou [The great famine: the Chinese population in 1959-1961] (Hong Kong: Shidai guoji, 2005288-291
2. Yang JishengMubeizhongguo liushiniandai dajihuang jishi [Tombstone: a record of China's great famine in the 1960s] (Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu, 2008900-04
3. The fabrication can be found in China's official population data published by the Central Statistics Bureau and the Ministry of Public Security. According to that set of data, China in 1959 had 672 million people and in 1960 had 662 million, a reduction of exactly 10 million people. However, in the data on death rates in the same volume, in 1960 China's mortality was 4.57‰ (i.e., 4.57 deaths per one thousand persons), for a total loss of only 3,041,483 people. See Guojia tongjiju renkou tongjisi, gonganbu sanju: Zhonghua renmin gongheguo renkou tongji ziliao huibian, 1949-1985 [Compendia of the population data of the People's Republic of China, 1949-1985] (Beijing: Zhongguo caizheng jingji chubanshe, 1988), 2, 280. Chinese sociologist Jin Hui first noticed these inconsistencies in China's official population data. See Jin Hui, "Sannian ziran zaihuai beiwanglu"[Memorandum of the three-year natural disaster], Shehui nos. 4-5 (1993). Available at (accessed June 10, 2009
4. For a general account of the scholarship on the Great Leap famine, see Dennis Tao Yang, "China's Agricultural Crisis and Famine of 1959-61: A Survey and Comparison to Soviet Famines," Comparative Economic Studies 50:1 20081-29
5. Gene H. Chang and Guanzhong J. Wen, "Communal Dining and the Chinese Famine of 1958-1961," Economic Development and Cultural Change 46 19971-34
6. Dali Yang, Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change since the Great Leap Famine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 199655
7. Luo PinghanDaguofangongong shitang shimo [The "big-pot meal": The public dining hall system from the beginning to the end] (Guilin: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 200178-79
8. During the Great Leap famine years in Guangxi, the percentage of population participating in the public dining hall system was 81.0 percent, and in Zhejiang, 81.6 percent. The mortality in Guangxi was 29.5‰, and in Zhejiang, 18.8‰. See Dali Yang, Calamity and Reform in China, 57.
9. Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine (New York: Henry Holt, 1996144-45164
10. Yang Jisheng, Mubei, 53, 244-45
11. Ralph Thaxton, Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China: Mao's Great Leap Forward Famine and the Origins of Righteous Resistance in Da Fo Village (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 201-03, 220. In Xiaorong Han's study of the Great Leap famine in Great Temple village in central-western Anhui, five of the six village cadres suffered losses of family members, and one cadre himself died of starvation. Xiaorong Han, "River of Happiness, River of Sorrow: post-Great Leap Forward Famine in the Great Temple Village." Paper presented at the convention of the American Historical Association, Chicago, January 3, 2009. Edema, which can be brought on by malnutrition, is characterized by bodily swelling (most typically in the feet, ankles, and legs) resulting from excessive fluid retention.2008
12. Thomas Bernstein, "Stalinism, Famine, and Chinese Peasants," Theory and Society 13 1984339-377
13. Thaxton, Catastrophe and Convention, 127, 130, 210, 215.
14. "Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu liangshi gongzuo de zhishi"[The Communist Central Committee's instructions on food work], July 31, 1959. In Zhonggong zhongyan wenxian yanjiushi, comp., Jiangguo yilai zhongyao wenjian xuanbian [A selection of important documents since the founding of the People's Republic], vol. 12 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996467-481
15. "Zhonggong zhongyang guangyu nongcun renmin gongshe fenpei gongzuo de zhishi"[The Communist Central Committee's instructions to the rural people's communes on how to allocate agricultural products], May 15, 1960. In Zhonggong zhongyan wenxian yanjiushi, comp., Jiangguo yilai zhongyao wenjian xuanbian [A selection of important documents since the founding of the People's Republic], vol. 13 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1996388-92
16. Yixin Chen"Cold War Competition and Food Production in China, 1957-1962," Agricultural History 83:1: 51-78. In 1959, the practice of chi qing at Da Fo led to a decline of 5-10 percent of the village's wheat harvest and 10 percent of the corn harvest. See Thaxton, Catastrophe and Convention,2009200-01
17. From 2000 to 2008, the author conducted interviews in twenty-seven villages in Anhui, Jiangxi, and Sichuan provinces. In each visit to a village, the author normally stayed in a villager's house for two to three days and conducted interviews for about three hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon. All the interviewees were villagers aged sixty to eighty, and the majority of them had been village cadres during the Great Leap Forward. Interview sessions often involved two or more villagers so that the interviewees were able to reinforce each other's memories. As almost all the interviewees opposed voice recording, the author took notes during interviewing. The author's assistants in China have also conducted interviews in another fourteen villages in Anhui.
18. Anhuisheng difangzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui, Anhui shengzhi: renkouzhi [Anhui provincial gazetteer: Population volume] (Hefei: Anhui renmin chubansh), 82, 101. Gazetteers are reference works on specific geographic regions. To make things easier for readers, each gazetteer in this article will be cited only by its English title following its initial full citation.1995
19. Dingyuanxian difangzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui, Dingyuan xianzhi [Dingyuan county gazetteer] (Hefei: Huangshan shushe), 128, 146.1995
20. Interview Transcripts 2
21. Qu LifengQu Hangang; Qu Hanguang, Qu Hanshun, at Laoqu, May 272000
22. Zhou Benli et al.,Zhongguo ziran ziyuan congshuAnhui juan [The series of Chinese natural resourcesAnhui volume] (Beijing: Zhongguo huanjing kexue chubanshe1995
23. Interview Transcripts 3: Qu Hangang; Qu Hanguang; Qu Lifeng, at Laoqu, May 282000
24. Yu Jianrong, Yuecun ZhengzhiZhuanxingqi Zhongguo Xiangcun Zhengzhi Jiegou de bianqian [Politics in Yue villageThe political structural changes of rural China in the period of modern transformation] (Beijing200184-85
25. Interview Transcripts 4
26. Qu Hanyou; Qu Hangang, Qu Hanshun, Qu Licheng, at Laoqu, May 282000
27. As all the males in Laoqu have the family name Qu, this paper will cite only their given names whenever citing full names is unnecessary
28. Interview Transcripts 2; Interview Transcripts 4
29. Interview Transcripts 3; Interview Transcripts 4
30. Wang HuningDangdai zhongguo cunluo jiazu wenhuadui zhongguo shehui xiandaihua de yixiang tansuo [The rural clan culture in contemporary China: A study of China's social modernization] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubansh1991292
31. Zhang Letian, Gaobie lixiangrenmin gongshe zhidu yanjiu [Farewell to idealismA study of the people's commune system19983-8
32. Jack M. PotterChina's PeasantsThe Anthropology of a Revolution (CambridgeCambridge University Press19908-12
33. Gregory A. RufCadres and KinMaking a Socialist Village in West China1921199851-53
34. Jin Shilongat Zhangqiao, May 302000
35. Dingyuang County Gazetteer47-48
36. People's Daily journalist Lin Zhijun has reported that in the Wudian Commune of Fengyang County (about eighty kilometers distant from Laoqu), there were 929 women with metroptosis (prolapse of the uterus), and 3,047 women with amenorrhea (discontinuance of the menstrual period) during the Great Leap famine. Ling Zhijun, Lishi buzai paihuai: renmin gongshe zai zhongguo de xingqi he shibai [History is no longer without direction: The rise and fall of the people's commune in China] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe199782
37. Interview Transcripts 56: Dong Zhiying (female), Qu Jiayi, at Laoqu, July 152008
38. Dingyuan County Gazetteer33
39. Most old villagers at Laoqu remember that they did not receive a food allowance for almost a hundred days, but Huanguang, a man who later became the Laoqu production team's bookkeeper between and 1963, remembers that the cessation of food lasted for fifty-three days between February and March 1960 and that the granary system had supplied each person two liang per day during the two previous months. He remembered this based on the Laoqu production team's bookkeeping records he saw in 1962. Interview Transcripts 31962
40. Interview Transcripts 6: Qu Hanguang, Qu Hanggang, Qu Lifeng, Qu Hangao, at Laoqu, May 30, 2000; Interview Transcripts 25: Qu Lixun; Qu Lishu, Hu Yihua (female); Qu Hangang; Qu Hanchang, at Laoqu, June 302004
41. Dingyuan County Gazetteer, 391
42. Li Xiannian"Liangshi wenti buke diaoyi qingxin"[We must be cautions on food issue], March 4, 1957. In Zhonggong zhongyan wenxian yanjiushi, comp., Jiangguo yilai zhongyao wenjian xuanbian [A selection of important documents since the founding of the People's Republic], vol. 10 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe1994108-09
43. Dingyuan County Gazetteer34
44. Thaxton, Catastrophe and Contention185-88
45. Interview Transcripts 2; Interview Transcripts 3
46. Interview Transcripts 6; Interview Transcripts 26
47. Qu Lifeng; Qu Hangang, Qu Hanshunat Laoqu, July 12004
48. Guo Weilian"Pi-shi-hang gongcheng xingjian shi de liuan diwei shuiji du weiyou"[The Liu'an prefectural party secretary Du Weiyou during the construction of the Pi-Shi-Hang engineering project], Jianghuai wenshi4199977-82
49. Interview Transcripts 4; Interview Transcripts 26
50. Qu Lixun; Qu Jiafu, Qu JaiyiRen Bangying, at Laoqu, July 152008
51. Qu Hangang; Qu Hanyou, Qu Lifeng; Qu HanguangZhang Baoqiang; Yang Fuye, at Laoqu, May2000
52. Interview Transcripts 1: Jin Shilong, at Zhangqiao, May 27, 2000. In early Jin Shilong, newly demobilized from the army, was appointed deputy director of the Zaomiao Commune. He was stunned to learn the disastrous story of Gangtou1961
53. Qimenxian difagnzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui, Qimen xianzhi [Qimen County Gazetteer] (Hefei: Anhui renmin chubanshe19901-2
54. Interview Transcripts 15: Hu Xinzhu; Fang Dongze, Lou Yanzhao, at Dongshangxia, July 122000
55. Qimen County Gazetteer, 441
56. Interview Transcripts 15; Interview Transcripts 16: Fang Junwu, at Dongshangxia, July 132000
57. Interview Transcripts 15; Interview Transcripts 16
58. Qimen County Gazetteer, 2885-86
59. Interview Transcripts 8: Yu Shucai; Yu Zhongyan, at Dongyu, June 52000
60. Interview Transcripts 11: Yu Side, at Taihe County, June 72000
61. Taihexian difangzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui, Taihe xianzhi [Taihe County Gazetteer] (Hefei: Huangshan shushe1993102
62. Taihe County Gazetteer, 25
63. Pang Xianzhi and Jin Chongji, ed., Mao Zedong Zhuan, 1949-1976 [Biography of Mao Zedong, 1949-1976] (Beiing: Zhongyang wenxia chubanshe2003911-13
64. Taihe County Gazetteer, 69, 77
65. Yu Zhongping, at Dong Yu, June 62000
66. Anhui Provincial Gazetteer: Population99
67. Interview Transcripts 11
68. There are no rural income data available for the three counties with regard to the Great Leap years. As a reference, the data for the year in which China began its agricultural reform, can demonstrate the difference in economic conditions of the three counties. In 1979, Taihe County's annual per capita income for the rural population was 28 yuan, Dingyuan County's was 75 yuan, and Qimen County's was 117 yuan. See Taihe County Gazetteer, 67; Dingyuan County Gazetteer, 156; Qimen County Gazetteer, 1141979
69. Between 1959 and 1961 the population in the Chuxian prefecture decreased from 2.51 million to 1.95 million, in the Fuyang prefecture from 6.94 million to 6.03 million, and in the southern Anhui mountain region from 2.72 million to 2.55 million. See Chouzhoushi fifangzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui, Chuxian diquzhi [Chuxian Prefecture Gazetteer] (Beijing: Fangzhi chubanshe1998
70. Fuyangshi difangzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui, Fuyang diquzhi [Fuyang Prefecture Gazetteer] (Beijing: Fangzhi chubanshe1996
71. Anhui Provincial Chronicle: Population32
72. For the author's interview activities, please refer to footnote 17. Two of the twenty-seven villages that the author visited were founded on multiple lineages and will be discussed in the next paragraph. The author is not clear about the lineage conditions in one of the twenty-seven villages. The author conducted interviews in that village at an early stage of research and did not ask lineage questions, having not yet become fully aware of the importance of lineage's role in the Great Leap famine. The author has never had a chance to revisit that village. The lineage conditions in two villages that the author visited have been presented in a book by Chinese scholars. Please see Xiao Tangbiao et al., Cunzhi zhong de zongzu: dui jiuge cun de diaocha yu yanjiu [Lineage in village governance: A field survey and research of nine villages] (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe200116-111
73. Interview Transcripts 41Wang Huabeng; Wu Genyan, at Fangkengdang, June 142006
74. Interview Transcripts 47Li Shengtang; Zhen Zhongfa; Wei Gongbao; Liao Sehngman2006
75. Xiaorong Han, "River of Happiness, River of Sorrow."