Editing Famine (section)

=====Great Leap Forward 1958–1961=====
The largest famine of the 20th century was [[Great Chinese Famine|the 1958–1961 famine]] associated with the [[Great Leap Forward]] in China. The immediate causes of this famine lay in Mao Zedong's ill-fated attempt to transform China from an agricultural nation to an industrial power in one huge leap. Communist Party cadres across China insisted that peasants abandon their farms for collective farms, and begin to produce steel in small foundries, often melting down their farm instruments in the process. Collectivisation undermined incentives for the investment of labor and resources in agriculture; unrealistic plans for decentralized metal production sapped needed labor; unfavorable weather conditions; and communal dining halls encouraged [[overconsumption]] of available food.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chang |first1=Gene Hsin |last2=Wen |first2=Guanzhong James |title=Communal Dining and the Chinese Famine of 1958–1961 |journal=Economic Development and Cultural Change |date=October 1997 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=1–34 |doi=10.1086/452319 |s2cid=154835645 }}</ref> Such was the centralized control of information and the intense pressure on party cadres to report only good news—such as [[production quota]]s met or exceeded—that information about the escalating disaster was effectively suppressed. When the leadership did become aware of the scale of the famine, it did little to respond, and continued to ban any discussion of the cataclysm. This blanket suppression of news was so effective that very few Chinese citizens were aware of the scale of the famine, and the greatest peacetime demographic disaster of the 20th century only became widely known twenty years later, when the veil of censorship began to lift.

The exact number of famine deaths during 1958–1961 is difficult to determine, and estimates range from 18 million<ref name=grada9>{{Cite web |last=Gráda |first=Cormac Ó |date=January 2011 |title=Great Leap into Famine |website=ResearchGate |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239810580 |page=9}}</ref> to at least 42 million<ref name=dikotterxii>Dikötter, Frank. ''Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62''. Walker & Company, 2010. p. xii. {{ISBN|0-8027-7768-6}}.</ref> people, with a further 30 million cancelled or delayed births.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Smil |first1=V. |title=China's great famine: 40 years later |journal=British Medical Journal |date=18 December 1999 |volume=319 |issue=7225 |pages=1619–1621 |doi=10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1619 |pmid=10600969 |pmc=1127087 }}</ref> It was only when the famine had wrought its worst that Mao reversed agricultural collectivisation policies, which were effectively dismantled in 1978. China has not experienced a famine of the proportions of the Great Leap Forward since 1961.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woo |first1=Meredith Jung-En |author-link1=Meredith Jung-En Woo |title=Neoliberalism and Institutional Reform in East Asia: A Comparative Study |date=2007 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-59034-2 }}{{page needed|date=April 2019}}</ref>