Question

China's famine of 1958-61 as a result of government policies. Elucidate it.

Answer 1

Hint: China's famine was recorded as the world's worst famine and it is considered a widespread famine between the years of 1958 to 1961. Many people lost their lives because of food scarcity. Moreover, the number of birth were postponed. There was a rapid increase in the death rate.

Complete Answer:
The Great Chinese was a period in the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Famine is regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated death toll due to starvation that ranges in the tens of millions. The major causes of the famine are the policies of the Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1962). Mao Zedong introduced drastic changes in farming policy that prohibited farm ownership. Opposing to abide by the policies led to punishment. The social pressure imposed on the citizens like business and farming, which the government-controlled, led to state instability. Owing to the laws passed during the period and the Great Leap Forward, about 36 million people died of starvation in this period. People's communes meanwhile the Great Leap Forward was going on, farming was organized into people's communes and the cultivation of privately owned plots was forbidden. Iron and steel production was given importance as a key requirement for economic advancement. Millions of peasants were forced to work and join the iron and steel production workforce. Agricultural Techniques were adopted like the ideas of close planting, whereby the density of seedlings was at first tripled and then doubled again. The theory was that plants of the same species would not compete with each other. In addition, natural disasters such as droughts took place during the period.

Note: The worst famine in human history took place in China during 1959-61. After the launch of various Reforms and Opening Up, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially started in June 1981 that the famine was mainly due to the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward as well as the Anti-Rightist Campaign, in addition to some natural disasters.