China’s Great Famine (1959-1961)

Around forty years ago, China faced the world’s biggest famine. It happened from around 1959 to 1961, and sadly, about 30 million Chinese people died because of it. Additionally, nearly the same number of births didn’t happen or were delayed. The famine was mostly caused by ideological reasons. It’s considered as significant as the two world wars in terms of public deaths caused by humans, according to Richard Rhodes, an expert.

Now, after two generations, China has become economically successful and can provide enough food. In this article, we take a look at a detailed explanation of China’s Great Famine (1959-1961).

China’s Great Famine (1959-1961): Overview

Great Chinese Famine 三年大饥荒
Event	Great Chinese Famine
Country	People’s Republic of China
Location	Half of the country. Death rates were highest in Anhui (18% dead), Chongqing (15%), Sichuan (13%), Guizhou (11%) and Hunan (8%).
Period	1959–1961
Total Deaths	15–55 million
Theory	Result of the Great Leap Forward, people’s commune, Four Pests campaign and other factors.
Consequences	Termination of the Great Leap Forward campaign; considered China’s most devastating catastrophe.

China’s Great Famine (1959-1961): Summary

1. The biggest famine ever recorded happened in China between 1959 and 1961.
2. While the lack of rain made things worse, most of the suffering was caused by people, mainly Mao Zedong. We can’t say for sure how many people died, but estimates suggest around 30 million.
3. Even now, two generations later, China hasn’t openly looked into what caused the famine and what happened because of it.

China’s Great Famine (1959-1961): Origin

• The famine’s beginnings can be traced back to Mao Zedong’s decision, supported by China’s communist party leaders, to start the Great Leap Forward. This ambitious plan aimed to rapidly boost China’s economy, mimicking the progress other countries took decades to achieve. Mao believed heavily in heavy industry, so he focused on making steel, ordering millions of peasants to work in mines and build furnaces instead of farming. Unfortunately, this effort mostly produced low-quality iron. People were forced to stop farming for themselves, and communal farming was pushed, leading to less grain being grown, which was a major food source.
• False reports of great harvests were spread to show off communal farming’s success. But in reality, grain production dropped drastically, and by 1959, famine hit a third of China’s provinces. The famine was caused by actions and decisions made by those in power, like not admitting the problem and not seeking help from other countries quickly enough. The government’s actions, like taking away private food sources and prioritizing cities and the elite, made the situation worse.
• Mao’s government didn’t feel the consequences of their decisions like the people did. In a democracy, where leaders are accountable to the people, there’s more pressure to prevent or stop famines. But China didn’t have this accountability during Mao’s rule.
• While bad weather made things worse, it wasn’t the main cause of the famine, despite what official reports claimed. China’s own data contradicts this. It was only when China started to adopt more sensible economic policies and opened up to the world that things began to improve. In the 1970s, after Mao’s death, China started buying modern fertilizer plants from the US and later dissolved communal farms, allowing farmers more freedom. By 1984, food rationing ended in cities, and China’s food supply nearly matched Japan’s.

China’s Great Famine (1959-1961): Extent of Famine

The full extent of the famine wasn’t known to the world until 1982 when China conducted its first reliable population census. This census revealed single-year age distributions, which allowed experts to estimate the number of extra deaths between 1959 and 1961. Initially, American researchers estimated between 16.5 to 23 million deaths. Later studies provided more detailed insights, suggesting between 23 to 30 million extra deaths, while some Chinese documents hinted at numbers closer to 40 million. However, the true toll will never be known because the official Chinese figures from that time didn’t accurately reflect the drop in births and the increase in deaths, and it’s difficult to reconstruct these vital statistics accurately.

It’s common for death tolls in major famines to have large margins of error. This applies even to events that receive significant attention. For instance, an attempt to understand the extent of illness, death, and malnutrition during the 1991-2 famine in Somalia failed despite 23 separate field studies. Similarly, recent estimates of the additional deaths in Iraq due to economic sanctions after the Gulf War have sparked controversies.

China’s Great Famine (1959-1961): Need for Open Discussion

No matter how much information or analysis is added, the undeniable truth remains: Mao’s misguided policies led to the worst famine in human history. Surprisingly, unlike other major famines of the 20th century, such as those in Ukraine and Bengal, China has never openly discussed the causes and responsibility for the depth and duration of its famine. Even Western scholars and politicians have largely overlooked it. There’s a clear need for moral examination and historical closure. Eventually, China will have to confront the causes and consequences of this tragedy, which surpasses the toll of all other famines the country has faced in the past two centuries.

China’s Great Famine (1959-1961): Death Toll

Experts, including former Chinese Communist Party officials and international scholars, have estimated the excess deaths caused by the famine. These estimates typically range from 15 to 55 million deaths. Mobo Gao, an author with Maoist leanings, suggests that writers critical of communism tend to exaggerate the death toll, while those supportive of the Chinese Revolution prefer to minimize it. Here are some specific estimates:

Death Toll (in million)	Researchers	Year	Comments
55	Yu Xiguang (余习广)	2015	Yu is an independent Chinese historian and a former instructor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, estimated that 55 million people died due to the famine. His conclusion was based on two decades of archival research.
30–60	Jasper Becker	1996	Becker, a British journalist and author of Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine, wrote that most estimates of the famine death toll range from 30 to 60 million.
43	Frank Dikötter	2010	Dikötter, Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and the author of Mao’s Great Famine, estimated that at least 45 million people died from starvation, overwork and state violence during the Great Leap Forward. His study also stressed that state violence exacerbated the death toll.
43	Chen Yizi (陈一谘)	1994	Chen, a former senior Chinese official and a top advisor to former CCP General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, stated that 43 million people died due to the famine.
40	Liao Gailong (廖盖隆)	2019	Liao, former Vice Director of the History Research Unit of the CCP, reported 40 million “unnatural” deaths due to the famine.
36	Mao Yushi	2014	Mao, a Chinese economist and winner of the 2012 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, put the death toll at 36 million.
36	Yang Jisheng	2012	Yang, Xinhua News Agency senior journalist and author of Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962, concluded there were 36 million deaths due to starvation, while another 40 million others failed to be born.
32.5	Cao Shuji (曹树基)	2005	Cao, Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, estimated the death toll at 32.5 million.
30	Vaclav Smil	1999	Smil, a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst, estimated 30 million deaths.
30	Judith Banister	1987	Banister, Director of Global Demographics at the Conference Board, estimated 30 million excess deaths from 1958 to 1961.
23	Peng Xizhe (彭希哲)	1987	Peng, Professor of Population and Development at Fudan University, estimated 23 million excess deaths during the famine.
22	Li Chengrui (李成瑞)	1998	Li, former Minister of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, estimated 22 million deaths.
18	Shujie Yao (姚书杰)	1999	Yao, Chair of Economics at the Business School of Middlesex University, concluded that 18 million people perished due to the famine.
15		1989	A research team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences concluded that at least 15 million people died of malnutrition.
15.4	Daniel Houser, Barbara Sands, and Erte Xiao	2009	Estimated that China suffered 15.4 million excess deaths during the famine, of which 69% (or 10.6 million) were attributable to effects stemming from national policies.
11	Utsa Patnaik	2007	Patnaik, a Marxian economist, estimated that 11 million deaths were caused due to the famine.
3.66	Sun Jingxian (孙经先)	2016	Sun, scholar in applied mathematics and professor at Shandong University, concluded an estimate of 3.66 million “anomalous deaths” during the famine years.
2.6–4	Yang Songlin (杨松林)	2021	Yang, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council in Henan, estimated that roughly 2.6–4 million people died during the famine years.

China’s Great Famine (1959-1961): Cannibalism

During the famine, there are many reports, although not officially documented, of people resorting to cannibalism in different ways to survive. People were desperate and did whatever they could to stay alive, including eating things like soil and poisons, stealing, killing, and even consuming human flesh. Because of the widespread nature of the famine, some speculate that the scale of cannibalism during this time could be described as unprecedented in the 20th century.

China’s Great Famine (1959-1961): Causes

Here are some causes for China’s Great Famine (1859-1961):

• The Great Chinese Famine happened because of big changes in how farming worked, social pressure, bad management of money, and natural disasters like droughts and floods.
• During the Great Leap Forward, the Chinese government made big changes in farming policy.
• They created things called people’s communes, where everyone worked together on farming, and individuals weren’t allowed to have their own plots of land anymore. Before, farmers had their own land given by the government.
• The government told regions how much food they needed to produce, and then took that food and gave it out however they wanted. This meant sometimes people didn’t have enough food, even if there was food stored away nearby.
• Some argue that these communes made the famine worse because there was too much eating in the mess halls, which led to even less food being available.
• The government also changed farming techniques, like planting seeds closer together and plowing the ground deeper. These changes didn’t work well and made the crops grow less.
• There was also a campaign to kill pests like mosquitoes, rats, flies, and sparrows. But killing the sparrows meant more bugs could eat the crops.
• The government said there was a lot of food being produced, but it wasn’t true. They kept saying there was plenty of food, which made people think there was, but there really wasn’t. This made things worse because the government didn’t take the famine seriously.
• The government wanted to make a lot of steel, so they took millions of farmers away from farming to make iron and steel. But the iron and steel they made weren’t good enough to use.
• Some policies from the government, like encouraging people to work harder and do everything for the Communist Party, made things worse.
• Local governments also had a big influence on the famine. Some places were worse off because of their local leaders, who made bad decisions.
• There were also natural disasters like floods and droughts, but disagreements remain about how much they really contributed to the famine. Some people say the weather was an important factor, but others think government policies were more to blame.

FAQs on China’s Great Famine (1959-1961)

What was the Great Chinese Famine of 1959 to 1961?

The Great Famine or Great Chinese Famine was a period of low agricultural production, food shortages and mass starvation in China, from 1959 to 1961. 2. The CCP government attributes the famine to natural disasters such as droughts, floods, typhoons and pests.

What caused the Great famine China?

The major contributing factors in the famine were the policies of the Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1962) and people’s communes, launched by Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong, such as inefficient distribution of food within the nation’s planned economy and requiring the use of poor agricultural techniques.

What was the greatest famine in history?

Widely considered the largest famine in human history, the Great Chinese Famine led to an estimated 30 million deaths from starvation, and an estimated 33 million births were lost or postponed.

What did Mao Zedong eat?

Mao Zedong, the former leader of the People’s Republic of China, reportedly enjoyed simple Hunanese dishes, such as braised pork belly and smoked cured meats. He also had a fondness for sweet potatoes.

What were the effects of the Great Chinese Famine?

The Great Chinese Famine constituted an extreme loss of life and led to an interruption in schooling for millions of people. Estimates of premature deaths range from 16.5 to 30 million between 1959 and 1961, up to five percent of China’s pre-famine population (Jowett 1984, Li and Yang 2005).