Editing Great Leap Forward (section)

====Deaths by famine====
The exact number of deaths by famine is difficult to determine, and estimates range from 15 million to 55 million people.<ref name="Hasell2013" /><ref name="Dikötter2010 p. xii" /><ref name="Grangereau2011">{{Cite web |last=Grangereau |first=Philippe |date=17 June 2011 |title=La Chine creuse ses trous de mémoire |url=http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2011/06/17/la-chine-creuse-ses-trous-de-memoire_743211 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191002195005/https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2011/06/17/la-chine-creuse-ses-trous-de-memoire_743211 |archive-date=2 October 2019 |access-date=24 November 2016 |website=[[La Liberation]] |language=fr}}</ref> Because of the uncertainties which are involved in estimating the number of deaths which were caused by the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the ensuing famine and because of the uncertainties which are involved in [[List of famines|estimating the numbers of deaths which were caused by other famine]]s, it is difficult to compare the severity of different famines. If an estimate of 30 million deaths is accepted, the failure of the Great Leap Forward caused the deadliest famine in the history of China, and it also caused the deadliest famine in human history.<ref name="Ashton1984" /><ref>{{harvp|Yang|2010}}. Yang excerpts {{Cite journal |last=Sen |first=Amartya |year=1999 |title=Democracy as a universal value |journal=Journal of Democracy |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=3–17 |doi=10.1353/jod.1999.0055}} Who calls it "the largest recorded famine in world history: nearly 30 million people died".</ref> This extremely high loss of human lives was partially caused by [[Demographics of China|China's large population]]. To put things into absolute and relative numerical perspective: in the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Irish Famine]], approximately 1 million people<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Universal Almanac |publisher=Banta |year=1992 |editor-last=Wright |editor-first=John W. |location=Harrisonburg, VA |page=411}}</ref> out of a total population of 8 million people died, or 12.5% of Ireland's entire population. If approximately 23 million people out of a total population of 650 million people died during the Great Chinese Famine, the percentage would be 3.5%.<ref name="Hasell2013" /> Hence, the famine during the Great Leap Forward had the highest absolute death toll, though not the highest relative (percentage) one.

The Great Leap Forward reversed the downward trend in mortality that had occurred since 1950,{{sfnp|Coale|1984|p=7}} though even during the Leap, mortality may not have reached pre-1949 levels.{{sfnp|Li|2008|p=41}}{{efn|Li compares official crude death rates for the years 1959–1962 (11.98, 14.59, 25.43, and 14.24 per thousand, respectively) with the nationwide crude death rate reported by the Nationalist government for the years 1936 and 1938 (27.6 and 28.2 per thousand, respectively).{{sfnp|Li|2008|p=41}}}} Famine deaths and the reduction in number of births caused the population of China to drop in 1960 and 1961.{{sfnp|Ashton|Hill|Piazza|Zeitz|1984|p=615}}{{sfnp|Banister|1987|p=42}}{{efn|Both Ashton and Banister get their data from Statistical Yearbook of China 1983 published by the State Statistical Bureau.}} This was only the third time in 600 years that the population of China had decreased.{{sfnp|Banister|1987|p=3}} Mao suggested, in a discussion with [[Field Marshal Montgomery]] in Autumn 1961, that "unnatural deaths" exceeded 5 million in 1960–1961, according to a declassified CIA report.<ref>{{Cite report |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/polo-10.pdf |title=Communist China's Domestic Crisis: the Road to 1964 |last=Bridgham |first=Philip L. |date=31 July 1964 |publisher=[[Central Intelligence Agency]] |page=82 |via=Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room |archive-date=16 May 2017 |access-date=26 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516134110/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/polo-10.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> After the Great Leap Forward, mortality rates decreased to below pre-Leap levels and the downward trend begun in 1950 continued.{{sfnp|Coale|1984|p=7}}

The severity of the famine varied from region to region. By correlating the increases in the death rates of different provinces, Peng Xizhe found that Gansu, Sichuan, [[Guizhou]], [[Hunan]], [[Guangxi]], and Anhui were the hardest-hit regions, while [[Heilongjiang]], [[Inner Mongolia]], [[Xinjiang]], [[Tianjin]], and [[Shanghai]] experienced the lowest increases in death rates during the Great Leap Forward (there was no data for [[Tibet (1912–1951)|Tibet]]).{{sfnp|Peng|1987|pp=646–648}} In some areas, people resorted to eating tree bark and dirt, and in some places cannibalism as a result of starvation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gráda |first=CormacÓ |date=March 2011 |title=Great Leap into Famine: A Review Essay* |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |language=en |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=191–202 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2011.00398.x |issn=0098-7921 |jstor=23043270}}</ref> Peng also noted that the increase in death rates in urban areas was about half the increase in death rates in rural areas.{{sfnp|Peng|1987|pp=646–648}} According to Chinese government reports in the ''Fuyang Party History Research Office'', between the years 1959 and 1961, 2.4 million people from Fuyang died from the famine.<ref>Zhou Xun. Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine, 1958–1962: An Oral History. 2013. pp. 138–139, 292</ref>{{sfnp|Gao|2007|p={{page needed|date=June 2024}}}}