economic effects of authoritarian rule

what was Mao’s plan to modernise China called?

The Great Leap Forward

What was Yang Jisheng’s father too weak to eat?

bark from a tree

How does the student Yang Jisheng describe his family home?

having no food, no pets, no chicken, no children, no grains of rice, no water, ‘utter destitution’

who had total control over agriculture?

the government

why did communes report false levels of grain harvests?

to seem like they were meeting Mao’s unreasonable targets

why was grain production actually falling?

the steel backyard campaign meant people weren’t working on agriculture

where was a large proportion of the harvest sent?

to the government/factories

what happened to peasants accused of hoarding grain?

they were tortured/beaten to death

why was the Sparrow Campaign misguided?

sparrows were eating insects which eat their food

what did people eat as a result of the shortage of grain?

wild herbs, rats, tree dogs, tree bark

why were corpses kept at home?

so they could claim their food rations for their family

if it wasn’t dogs, who was it who ate the bodies of the dead?

people for food

did local communist officials know about the famine?

yes

why didn’t they speak out?

they would be ignored/silenced/tortured/punished if they did

how many people does Yang Jisheng believe died in China in the years 1959-62 due to famine?

36 million