In an attempt to solve a serious economic crisis in the 1950s, the Communist Party of Mao Zedong launched the “great leap forward”, a plan to quickly transform the economy from agriculture to industrialization. Among the various measures, the “stand outCampaign for the elimination of the four flagelli“Which aimed to overcome the difficult economic moment. China, marked by civil war and from theJapanese invasionfound himself having to face a industrialized world in rapid expansion.
Millions of peasants were “called to weapons“ to fight mice, sparrows, mosquitoise And flies Thing guilty, according to the party, of threatening hygiene and human health or reducing agricultural production: eliminating them would have helped to provide the food necessary for the workers of the industries under construction. The very heavy ecological imbalance, combined withexodus of the peasant population in industrial cities, however, led to the opposite effect: a very serious famineduration about 3 yearswhich caused the death of an unspecified number of citizens to date, among the 16 he is 30 million.
Campaign for the elimination of the four scourges: The unusual Chinese solution
There modern agricultural production It is heavily influenced by mechanization and the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides: vehicles that were scarce in China of the 1950s, but being closed to foreign trade, the party exploited the large number of peasants available to try to improve agricultural production.
Four were identified “Enemies” animals productivity: Passes, mice, mosquitoes and flies. If for insects and mice weighing health concerns, i sparrows were inserted in the list for their habit to feed on wheat and cereals during the sowing season. A curious, but not unique decision: to declare war on volatiles had been, for similar reasons, also theAustralia already in 1932to defend the farms fromInvasion of the Emu. The anti-layer campaign began in 1958, and ended with the elimination of just over 2 million birds.
The cause of the great Chinese famine: depopulation
In the 1959 there Chinese agricultural production He collapsed tragically, remaining at very low levels even in the 2 years following: in the early years the news leaked abroad was scarce, but based on the data of the first reliable national census (in 1982) they estimate between 16 he is 23 million deaths In addition to the normal trend. Subsequent studies indicated even higher figures, among the 23 he is 30 million.
The reasons for these terrible famines, with figures never recorded before, are certainly different: government sources crowded the droughtbut the greatest impact was probably due to depopulation of the countrysidewith loss of expert labor in favor of foundries and factories.
The most suffered more rural populations, they saw themselves confiscate land, intended for collective farms, and cereals necessary to nourishment of the growing city masses Industrialized: the farmers did not remain food for their subsistence.
The alleged role of the sparrows in the famine
A study by 2021 He studied the link between extermination of the sparrows of 1958 and the subsequent ones faminehighlighting strong correlations between the amount of volatiles killed for hectare (particularly high in provinces such as Xinjiang and Guizhou) and the decrease In the following 3 years, correlation even stronger than that linked to drought in the areas most affected by the latter (such as Jiangsu or Hebei).
But what do sparrows have to do with famine? The answer lies in thediet of these birds. A characteristic of the sparrows is theirs omnivorous diet: in addition to feeding on cereals, in periods of scarcity they willingly fold on insects, above all lepidopteraparticularly harmful to agriculture. During the war on the sparrows, despite the least amount of cereal consumed by the single animal, Each sparrow killed led to produce 3.3 kg of less food in the following years due to the proliferate insects in an ecosystem that suddenly was scarce of predators. It is a theorybut according to the calculations, almost 7 tons of lost cerealsfood for 28 million people, they could be linked to the anti-sparrow campaign.
The end of the famine in China
The levels of agricultural production, after the 1961returned to adequate values, but the End of famine It was also due to resumption of imports of cereals from abroad. The opening to foreign markets marked the end of the difficulties for Chinese agriculture: the First agreement signed with the United Statesin 1972, For example, it contained an order for 13 A nitrogen synthetic fertilizers.
There Death of Mao and the appearance of reformist factions in the party brought, in 1979, at the end of the collective farms and in 1984 The rationing of the food was abolished: The amount of food available for each citizen had finally returned to the levels of nearby Japan.
Still in 2013however, the publication of books on the great famine and on the raw reality of the Chinese countryside he was able to trigger controversy e censorship. Raw reports such as “tombstone” of Yang Jishengformer journalist of the national journalistic agency and the son of a peasant deceased by money, have in fact been published abroad, but remain Obted in China where they often circulate “of smuggling” passing through the neighboring Hong Kong.
