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Grain, Local Politics, and the Making of Mao's Famine in Wuwei, 1958–1961*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2015

SHUJI CAO  and
BIN YANG
SHUJI CAO
Affiliation:
History Department, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China Email: [email protected]
BIN YANG
Affiliation:
History Department, National University of Singapore, Singapore Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Mao's Great Famine in Wuwei County, Anhui Province, between the years of 1958 and 1960, resulted in the deaths of about 245,000 people, a quarter of the local population. By focusing on grain production and consumption, this article adopts a local perspective to examine the county's official archives and analyse the background, rationale, and processes of local authorities that led to one of the highest death rates in the country. A local perspective provides an empirical microanalysis of the Great Famine; illustrates the complexity of this catastrophe; argues for local factors such as factional struggles, central-local interactions, and the political atmosphere created by the series of pre-1958 campaigns as key to local variations of the disaster; and delivers national implications for viewing Mao's China. Official archives explored in this article reveal that an over-reporting of grain output might have resulted in the Great Famine, but did not necessarily lead to the massive death toll, and that local politics, particularly intra-party factional struggles, intertwined with central-local political interactions, were crucial for the terrible tragedy that ensued in Wuwei, and that the end of this famine resulted not from peasants’ resistance, nor the change of radical polices to moderate ones, but from the decreased demand for grain caused by the massive number of deaths.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 6 , November 2015 , pp. 1675 - 1703
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

An earlier draft was presented at the Association for Asian Studies 2013 annual conference in San Diego. The authors are deeply indebted to many readers, including Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz, Felix Wemheuer, Ralph Thaxton, Neil Diamant, Cheng Yinghong, and Liu Shigu, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments and suggestions.

References

1 Cao, Shuji (2005). 1959–1961 nian Zhongguo de renkou siwang jiqi yuanyin (The Death in 1959–1961 China and its Reasons), Zhongguo Renkou Kexue (1), p. 21.

2 Weiyuanhui, Wuweixian Difangzhi Bianzuan (1993). Wuwei Xianzhi (Gazetteer of Wuwei County) (hereafter Xianzhi), Beijing: Shehuikexuewenxian Chubanshe, p. 110.Google Scholar

3 Mueggler, Erik (2001). The Age of the Wild Ghosts: Memory, Violence and Place in Southwest China, University of California Press, Berkeley; Cao, 1959–1961, pp. 14–28Google Scholar; Yang, Jisheng (2008). Mubei: Zhongguo liushi niandai dajihuang jishi (Tombstone: a Record on the Great Famine in 1960s China), 2 vols, 6th edition, Tiandi Tushu, Hong Kong; Dikötter, Frank (2010). Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962, Walker and Co., New YorkGoogle Scholar; Wemheuer, Felix (2010). Dealing with Responsibility for the Great Leap Famine in the People's Republic of China, The China Quarterly 201, pp. 176–194CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Manning, Kimberley Ens and Wemheuer, Felix (eds) (2011). Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver and TorontoGoogle Scholar; Kung, James Kai-Sing and Shou, Chen (2011). The Tragedy of the Nomenklatura: Career Incentives and Political Radicalism During China's Great Leap Famine, American Political Science Review 105 (1), pp. 27–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bramall, Chris (2011). Agency and Famine in China's Sichuan Province, 1958–1962, The China Quarterly 208, pp. 990–1008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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6 Brown, Jeremy and Pickowicz, Paul G. (eds) (2008). Dilemmas of Victory: The Early Years of the People's Republic of China, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MassachusettsGoogle Scholar; Manning and Wemheuer (2011). ‘Introduction’ in Manning and Wemheuer, Eating Bitterness, pp. 9–11; Bramall, Agency and Famine.Google Scholar

7 All the archives of Wuwei used in the article are provided by the History Department Library, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China.

8 Zhang, Kaifan (2004). Zhang Kaifan Huiyilu (Memoirs of Zhang Kaifan) (recorded and compiled by Song Lin, annotated by Song Lin and Liu Sixiang, and proofread by Ding Jizhe and Fang Yiqing), Anhui Renmin Chubanshe, Hefei, p. 330.

9 For the power struggles in leadership and the disastrous consequences in pre-1958 Henan, see Domenach, The Origins.

10 Xianzhi, p. 24.

11 Bernstein, T. P. (1984). Stalinism, Famine and Chinese Peasants: Grain Procurements During the Great Leap Forward, Theory and Society 13 (3), pp. 339–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Xianzhi, pp. 28 and 130.

13 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 7. The History Department Library at the Shanghai Jiaotong University has categorized this archive as ‘1–1–1–1958–096’.

14 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 25.

15 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 7

16 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 26.

17 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 7. A three-level system (county-district-commune) was put into effect in rural China. In 1957, the 95 rural towns in Wuwei were reorganized into 31 people's communes. Xianzhi, p. 49.

18 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 7.

19 Xianzhi, p. 286.

20 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 78.

21 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 7.

22 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 112.

23 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 78.

24 Xianzhi, p. 28.

25 Bo, Yibo (1993). Ruogan Zhongda Juece yu Shijian de Huigu (My Review on Some Major Decisions and Events), Zhonggong Zhongyangdangxiao Chubanshe, Beijing, Vol. 2, p. 813.

26 Peng Tao was originally assigned the post of party secretary of the Northern Anhui District, but he refused on the grounds that there were too many factions (Shantou; 山头) in Anhui. Peng recommended Zeng, who was relatively familiar with the local situation. This position set up the political platform for Zeng Xisheng in Anhui in the 1950s. Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, p. 314.

27 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, pp. 77–79.

28 Ibid.

29 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, p. 78.

30 For how terms such as ‘hunger’, ‘famine’, and ‘death’ were politicized, see Wemheuer, Felix (2011). ‘The Grain Problem is an Ideological Problem: Discourses of Hunger in the 1957 Socialist Education Campaign’ in Manning and Wemheuer, Eating Bitterness, pp. 107–129.

31 Jilu, 1–1–1–1958–096, pp. 77–87.

32 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–130, pp. 1–7.

33 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–130, pp. 156–160.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Xuehui, Zhongguo Yingyang (ed.) (2001). Zhongguo Jumin Shanshi Yingyangsu Cankao Sheruliang (jianyaoben) (A Reference of Chinese Dietary Intakes [Simplified Version]), Zhongguo Qinggongye Chubanshe, Beijing, p. 15.Google Scholar

39 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–130, p. 160.

40 Wemheuer, ‘The Grain Problem’, pp. 107–129.

41 Jiancha, 1–1–1–1963–322, p. 107.

42 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–129, pp. 2–6.

43 Xianzhi, p. 131.

44 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–140, pp. 121–126.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid.

48 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–140, p. 123.

49 Ibid.

50 Zhang, Zhang Kaifan; Xianzhi, pp. 9–11.

51 Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, pp. 340–342.

52 Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, pp. 344–445.

53 Xianzhi, pp. 599–603.

54 Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, p. 346.

55 Xianzhi, p. 600.

56 Xianzhi, p. 601.

57 Ibid.

58 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–140.

59 Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, pp. 367–368.

60 Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, pp. 371 and 377–378.

61 Coincidently, in December 1958, Peng Dehuai had paid a visit to Anhui, and Zhang accompanied him. The two shared similar opinions on many things. This episode might have been utilized to accuse Zhang of being Peng's local agent. Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, pp. 332–333.

62 Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, p. 367.

63 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–141, p. 111.

64 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–141, pp. 111–116.

65 Jiancha, 1–1–1–1963–322, p. 93.

66 Xianzhi, p. 27.

67 Jiancha, 1–1–1–1963–322, p. 98.

68 Cannibalism was widely recorded in various official county and province gazetteers and people's recollections. See Becker, Jasper (1998). Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine, Henry Holt and Company, New York, pp. 211–219; Yang, Mubei; Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine, pp. 320–323; Jiancha,1–1–1–1963–322, p. 98.

69 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–141, p. 184.

70 Jilu, 1–1–1–1959–141, p. 190.

71 Ibid.

72 Domenach, The Origins; Forster, Keith (1997). ‘Localism, Central Policy and the Provincial Purges of 1957–1958: The Case of Zhejiang’ in Cheek, Timothy and Sach, Tony (eds), New Perspectives on State Socialism in China, M. E. Sharp, Armonk, pp. 191–233.Google Scholar

73 Domenach, The Origins, p. 34.

74 Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, esp. pp. 21, 275, 314 and 340–374.

75 Zhang, Zhang Kaifan, p. 374.

76 For the case of Henan, see Domenach, The Origins.

77 Bramall, Agency and Famine.

78 The authors are grateful to one anonymous reviewer for bringing up this issue.

79 Jasper Becker seemingly accepts this statement. Becker, Hungry Ghost, pp. 235–247. The late maternal grandmother of Yang Bin occasionally mentioned, during his childhood in the early 1980s, how Liu Shaoqi saved lives by (advocating) the planting of Beijingese crops (zhong Beijing liang; 种北京粮).

80 Thaxton, Ralph A. (2008). Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 334–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar