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Mass murderer Mao killed 45 million Chinese during 'Great Leap Forward' | China's communist ruler Mao Tse Tung killed 45 million of his people between 1958 and 1961 during what was dubbed as the world's biggest man-made famine. According to a historian, Chinese propaganda posters of the late 1950s show smiling
young workers marching jubilantly towards unity under the benevolent Great Leader,
Chairman Mao, but he says the reality was shockingly different. For the first
time, the extent of the atrocity perpetrated by Chairman Mao through is "Great
Leap Forward" socio-economic campaign, is detailed in a gripping new book, Mao's
Great Famine, by Frank Dikotter, Professor of Humanities at the University of
Hong Kong. According to the book, workers were more likely to be found lying dead
in the gutters of rundown towns or falling, weak from starvation, in the paddy
fields. All around would be the stomach-churning signs of neglect, food shortages
and death dealing poverty. Between 1958 and 1961, China descended into the depths
of hell. Chairman Mao, according to the book, was not the warm father of his people,
a foul, heartless dictator, who had thrown his country into frenzy. According
to The Telegraph, rather than being imbued with single-minded patriotism and love
of their Great Leader, the people often risked their lives stealing grain from
the fields. Until recently, access to Chinese Communist Party archives has been
forbidden but remarkably a new law now permits scrutiny of thousands of hitherto
secret documents about the Mao era. Professor Dikotter's painstaking analysis
of the archives shows Mao's regime resulted in the greatest "man-made famine"
the world has ever seen. Mao instituted what amounted to a crazed attempt to vault
over Soviet Russia and elect himself, as the leader of the world's largest socialist
regime. The Chairman's aim was to, as he put it, "walk on two legs". This entailed
boosting farm production and modernising industry simultaneously - an impossible
task in a country as vast as China. The result was that the peasant farmers would
gobble up whatever they had - animals, grain or seeds - rather than patriotically
hand them over to the collectives. The worst example, according to the newly opened
archives, came when starvation drove some peasants to actually eat the earth itself
before dying. Many houses in the smaller towns were pulled down to provide building
materials and the former occupants were forcibly herded into collectives - or,
worse, just left to live wild. According to the book, there were many horrendous
side effects. There was, for instance, immense corruption at every level of Chinese
society - from those in Chairman Mao's own coterie (all of whom lived a luxurious
life) right down to the small local officials. Everyone bartered what they had
to survive - and always kept an eye on production figures, which were usually
grotesquely inflated in order to keep up with Mao's predictions. Abuse was rife.
Food was frequently stolen from the kindergartens as desperate adults pilfered
the rations In a country that traditionally views the elderly with great respect
and honour, it is remarkable to learn that during Mao's experiment, the old often
faced a grim existence. Abuse was widespread. Some were beaten and those with
a few meagre possessions were often robbed. Some elderly workers, too frail to
keep up with unrealistic production quotas, were put on slow starvation diets.
In a town just outside Beijing, the head of a retirement home systematically stole
food and clothes earmarked for the elderly, condemning them to a winter without
warmth or padded jackets. Most died as soon as the frosts appeared and their bodies were left unburied for over a week. |
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