Causation in the Great Famine
Gao Wangling
(translated by Anthony Garnaut)
ABSTRACT
Many explanations have been proposed for the causes of the Great Famine, such
as ‘natural disasters’, ‘over-inflated procurements’ and ‘communal dining halls’.
Much analysis has been carried out on various aspects and regional manifestations
of the famine. But the Great Leap Forward is an entire phenomenon in itself, each
part of it is meaningless without the whole, and there is no aspect of it than can be
isolated and put aside. At its core are questions concerning the relationship
between state and society. It is not only concerned with government (policy), and
nor is only directed at the lower strata of society (such as villages). It is not a pure
matter for political history, nor should it be claimed exclusively as a topic for
social history. As an ‘event’, it was neither spontaneous nor optional, and it had
its own unique pathways of causation and consequence.
This paper provides a ‘comprehensive view’ of the Great Leap Forward and Great
Famine. While it may not be possible to produce an ‘empathetic’ account, the
paper nevertheless attempts to comb out the attributes of its subject, and arrange
each of them in a suitable place. Such a framework may enable later research
efforts to reveal ‘what’ was the Great Leap Forward and ‘how’ it came about.
One moment [Song Jiang] forgot himself, and gave full rein to his
fury to cleanse the village; the next moment, he raised his hand in a
show of compassion, bestowing [to each surviving family of
villagers] a picul of rice. These two consecutive events were totally
disconnected, the acts of two entirely different people that were
separated in time by but an instant.
- Jin Shengtan commentary to All Men Are Brothers, ch. 49.
Arbert Macht Frei (‘Through Labour Lies Freedom’)
- Motto over the front gate of Auschwitz
When embarking upon on a new research project, it may seem unwise to provide
a full articulation of the advent of the research subject, its development, and all the many
of causative and consequential attributes tied to the subject. On the other hand, to do so
appears on some level as a necessity. Before delving into any research materials, all the
questions appear to be laid out before us. ‘Natural disaster,’ ‘loan repayments,’ ‘overinflated procurements, ‘communal dining halls,’ ... it was these things that created the
Great Famine. That is fine, these might have been important causal factors. In this
particularly event, there is nothing that can be isolated and put aside. As the historian
Huang Renyu once pointed out, when it comes to researching China, before embarking
on any analysis we must first have a perspective. I believe this principle can be applied
here. Without it, we do not know ‘what’ the Great Leap Forward was, and so to launch
directly into analysis of specifics is to breach a major taboo of academic research.
Accordingly, we might attempt an initial appraisal to see what happened, setting our
sights wide. But instead, we have taken matters to its current state.
The great majority of scholars now agree that the greater part of the Great Famine
was of human making, whether expressed in terms of Liu Shaoqi’s, ‘Three parts natural
disaster, seven parts manufactured calamity,’1 or in the traditional Chinese ‘theory of
connectivity between man and nature’ and that ‘all natural disasters are manufactured
calamities.’2 Even though great differences exist between these two explanatory
paradigms, but they together are sufficient to establish a starting point, namely to focus
our gaze on so-called ‘man-made events’.3
1. The moral economy of the New Government
The reason for raising this question is to explain how things could suddenly
change ‘with the passing of a night’. In earlier days the target of revolutionary struggle
had been the exploitative classes of landlords and rich peasants, but now it was pointed at
ordinary labouring people. The cadres were transformed, ‘reaching the limits of ferocity
and the extremes of evil.’ Why was this?
Foreign scholars have established the historical existence of an ‘ethical economy’
or ‘moral economy’.4 If we were to borrow this phrase, it could be said that the New
Government also had its ‘moral economy’ (in any dynasty, it is inconceivable that there
was no ‘moral economy’), that in its initial stage reached its greatest peak of prosperity.
(Naturally, the participants in this moral economy did not include the enemy classes
made up of the so-called landlords, rich peasants and counter-revolutionaries.)
见刘少奇在七千人大会上的讲话，王光美、刘源等:《你所不知道的刘少奇》(‘The Liu Shaoqi that
you have not heard about’)，河南人民出版社，2000，多处；又见《刘少奇选集》(Selected works of
Liu Shaoqi’)下卷，人民出版社，1985 年，页 337。
1
参见董仲舒《春秋繁露·必仁且智》(‘Both kind and wise’, in Spring and Autumn Annals, with full
commentaries)：“灾者，天之谴也；异者，天之威也。……凡灾异之本，尽生于国家之失。国家之
失乃始萌芽，而天出灾害以谴告之，谴告之而不知变，乃见怪异以惊骇之，惊骇之尚不知畏恐，其
秧咎乃至”，苏舆：《春秋繁露义证》，中华书局，北京，1992，页 259；又，《汉书·董仲舒传》
(‘Biography of Dong Zhongshu’ in The Book of Han) 亦有类似的记载：“臣谨案《春秋》之中，视前世
已行之事，以观天人相与之际，甚可畏也。国家将有失道之败，而天乃先出灾害以谴告之，不知自
省，又出怪异以警惧之，尚不知变，而伤败乃至”，《汉书》，中华书局，页 2498。
3
不过，所谓“自然灾害”的问题仍不能就此跳过（据说，现在就有人打算立项“证明”那三年自然灾
害的确实存在）。现有若干研究和官方统计资料表明，那几年的“天灾”并没有若是之大。而在地方
史研究和口述史调查中，又常常发现老百姓“亲眼目睹”大灾的报道。对此，我们必须寻求出一种
“观点”予以正确的“解读”。
4
关于这一名词，参见《剑桥中华民国史》，第二部，页 35 及注 73（中译本，上海人民出版社，
1992）(Cambridge History of China vol. 2 p. 35 and n. 73)，汤普森（E.P.Thompson）：“18 世纪英国
民众的道德经济学”（The Moral Economy Of The English Crowd In The Eighteenth Century），《共有
的习惯》（中译本，上海人民出版社，2002），斯科特（J.C.Scott）：《农民的道义经济学》(‘The
Moral Economy of the Peasant’)（中译本，译林出版社，2001）。
2
So then, the Communist Party had always proclaimed that it had claimed the
world, and gained the world,5 on behalf of the labouring masses. The New China that was
established was a nation founded on an alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry,
and the labouring people for first time became the ‘owners’ of the nation. The claim that
‘not one human being will starve to death’ became a prominent political slogan, and an
important measure to claim and retain the hearts of the people.6 It may be that this type of
emphasis may be not merely coincidental, but a reflection of the rapid escalation in the
power of the state and of a vision of a new society shortly to be established. Consider the
universal procurement system implemented in 1953, which brought all ‘surplus grain’
into the control of the government, something which was not found in any of the
traditions that had passed before. Obviously, there was no place for a ‘private sphere’ in
the New Society, and it was therefore unavoidable that the government should take on
greater responsibilities and obligations.
We have found in local archives that in an earlier time, every ‘abnormal death’ of
a peasant was answered by a detailed report, which included a description of the event, its
cause and its outcome, with special attention given to interactions with relevant
government agencies and individuals, and if there was a question of responsibility then
appropriate action would be taken. Almost no indication of such phenomena can be found
in the context of 1956 or 1958, or needless to say in the age of the Great Famine.7
This transformation took place throughout the nation around 1956, though in the
initial stage when such events transpired there where still some officials, including
province-level leaders he responded according to the old template (such as the First
Secretary of Guangxi, in mid-1957).8
By 1958, in the high tide of the Great Leap Forward, the situation had been utterly
transformed. In October 1958, Mao Zedong wrote an ‘instructional’ comment in response
to the ‘Lu Liang Incident’ in Yunnan (total deaths of 39,712 people). He warned that
‘there may be a few regions who will commit mistakes like that of Yunnan.’9 However,
in response to a report of an incident in Lingbi county, Anhui in which no less than 500
people had died, one can find no follow up commentary.10 The incident resolved itself. A
recent article revealed that prior to the Lushan Conference, a serious incident had
那时还不讲“无产阶级专政”，即使讲也是讲“人民民主专政”；强调“专政”和“阶级斗争”是以后的事
了，它在文化革命中达到高峰。
6
1949 年 12 月 16 日上海《大公报》社论 (Opinion column of Shanghai Da gong bao, Jan 16 1949)，即
提到了老解放区的口号：“不让一个人冻死饿死”，参见胡素珊（Suzanne Pepper）：《中国的内
战》(Civil war in China)，中译本，中国青年出版社，1997，页 479。
7
参见湖南省 PJ 县档案 (archives of PJ county in Hunan)，以及刘君代的有关研究 (research of Liu
Jundai)。
8
参见《内务部通讯》1957：7 (Communications of the Department of Internal Affairs, July 1957)，以及
1957 年 6 月 18 日《人民日报》社论 (Opinion page of People’s Daily)（其中还提到：“力求作到不因
自然灾害饿死一个人”）；事件主要发生在广西平乐、荔蒲、横县等 3 县，据统计，共饿死 550 余
人，参见余习广：“环江悲歌”，见网上文章（2004 年 4 月）(Yu Xiguang, ‘Elegy to Huanjiang’,
online article April 2004)：http://www.bjsjs.net/news/news.php?intNewsId=416。
9
《建国以来毛泽东文稿》(Post-Liberation writings of Mao Zedong)，第七册，中央文献出版社，北
京，1992，页 584—586。
10
《建国以来毛泽东文稿》(Post-Lib writings of Mao)，七，页 436。看来，安徽的瞒报欺骗，大约
就是从这时开始的。
5
occurred in the east of Henan resulting in the deaths of several tens of thousands of
people.11 It is reported that similar incidents had occurred in other places (such as Hubei
and Shandong) that continue to be suppressed to this day.12
Some peasants in Shanxi reflected upon the transformation as follows: ‘Since the
Great Leap Forward, [the Party] treated people as if they were of no value.’ After hearing
that that a commune member had been killed in the deployment of the great militia, a
certain village head said, ‘In a war, you are concerned of people dying? It is no big deal
that a few are killed.’ In a certain region two people drowned, and when [the victims’
families] petition the village and county governments no response was forthcoming. 13 In
Hunan, a county secretariat recommended that ‘in carrying out a Great Leap Forward it is
okay if a few people should die...it is hard to avoid the deaths of a few when carrying out
the democratic revolution and the Great Leap Forward.’ The secretary of a commune
often ‘educated his cadres’ by saying that ‘to recklessly carry out an order is better than
to do nothing, for to carry out a Great Leap Forward some lives will be lost. Don’t be
scaredy-cats!’ A commune head was in the habit of waving his gun before the masses and
yelling for executions, and laid out in a Party work meeting that ‘in order to fulfill the
allocated task, it is fine to lose soldiers and generals.’14 During field surveys in Hubei and
other places, we often were told of similar occurrences. 15
According to the contemporary statistics collected by the Public Security Bureau,
in the years immediately after Liberation China’s mortality rate fell consistently, and rose
for the first time in the first half of 1958 when an annualised mortality rate of 13%o was
reported. 16 From this it can be seen that in 1958 around 3 million more deaths occurred
than in the previous year. However, this report was not accorded the attention it deserved.
In early 1959, incidents involving large-scale fatality in Henan and Hubei were similarly
ignored, as perhaps were many other incidents that have not yet seen the light of day.
This forces to reappraise the Lushan Conference.
In such a manner, a great transition was negotiated from a situation in which if a
calamity transpired effort was directed towards the prevention of any loss of life, to one
in which calamities were manufactured, made a taboo topic of discussion, and solicited to
no ameliorative response.
It could also be said that a binary relationship exists between the ideology and the
political structures of the Communist system, two facets that are mutually reinforcing.
While one facet says ‘for the people’ and ‘by the principle of maximal benefit for the
李锐：“‘信阳事件’及其教训”，《炎黄春秋》2002：4，页 19。Li Rui, ‘The “Xinyang Incident” and
its lessons,’ Yanhuang Chunqiu.
12
参见高王凌、王燕妮：“1959 年上半年的形势”（未刊文稿）Gao Wangling and Wang Yanni, ‘The
situation in the first half of 1959’ (unpub.)；韩海彬：“1959 年上半年的饥荒及应对措施——以山东省
巨野县为个案”（2006 年，硕士论文）(Han Meibin, ‘Famine in the first half of 1959 and policy
responses – a case study of Juye County in Shandong province,’ 2006 masters thesis。
13
TG 县档案∶ 3－1－58。TG County archives
14
参见高王凌：“我眼中的大跃进”（未刊文稿）Gao Wangling, ‘How I see the Great Leap Forward’
(unpub.)；这一调查是与刘君代同学一起作的。
15
MCH 县档案 (MCH County archives) 中有记载说：建设社会主义一定要死人，否则不能建成社会
主义（1－300，580313）；“死了人不要你们负责”（1－416，590112）；“捆死了你，少一个人也
没有关系”（1－382，590102），等等。
16
参见香港中文大学所藏内部资料。See the internal reports housed at Chinese University of Hong Kong
11
fundamental interest of the great majority of people’, the other facet works from a
political and especially from an economic angle to bring about a great devaluation of
individual rights. This principle threads right through the entire staged process from
‘New Democracy’ to ‘Socialism’, and in the end gave orientation to the Great Leap
Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
This is why Mao Zedong said that this system is the most fearsome, and if
insufficient attention were paid the Communist Party would turn into the party of
Revisionism, and the party of Fascism.17
Despite what had transpired, in the several years that followed, the phrase that
‘the Communist Party will not starve a single person’ reappeared. From internal reports it
can be seen that peasants used this phrase as basic plea. (Strangely, it was exactly at this
time that thousands upon thousands of peasants were killed). It was against this
background and under the ‘leadership’ of the Communist Party that the Chinese village
walked out of the Great Famine. This (or a ‘self-evident’ type of ‘sentiment’) perhaps
might explain much of the behaviour of peasants in the face of the ‘people’s government’,
and especially while they were ‘non-rebellious’.18
2. The high tide of collectivisation of 1955
There was an institutional mechanism driving the transformation described above.
One body of research on the so-called success of agricultural collectivisation pointed out
that peasants were forced to join the collectives and move with the Party by the tense
political climate of the ‘high tide’.19 Now it appears that the question is not that simple.
Great numbers of peasants made individual decisions to join the collectives under the
‘high tide’ or ‘upgrading’ and ‘merging’ of [lower-level] collectives. What were these
decisions? If we can fall back on standard phrases, it was to ‘join society’ (meaning
socialism), or to ‘dine with the officials’. Their attitude was: if you are to force me to join
the collectives, then I will join, and we will see who lives the longest. And so, the
percentage of the peasantry who had joined collectives went from 14% in early 1955 to
virtually 100% in 1956 (and these were ‘upgraded’ collectives).
参见 1963 年 5 月 9 日，对浙江省七个关于干部参加劳动好材料的批示；邓小平也说，无产阶级
专政厉害得很，它比资产阶级的权力更集中，势力更大。毛主席在中央扩大会议上的讲话中就讲到
搞得不好，可以变质，可以搞成法西斯专政，1962 年 7 月 7 日，邓小平在接见出席青年团三届七中
全会全体人员时的讲话。
18
处于这种情况之下，农民为什么不“反”？这是国外学者最常提出的疑问，但我们在访谈中（如在
湖南），也有不少干部群众曾主动向我们提到这一问题，并作出了自己的解答。我在研究早期农民
“反行为”时发现，本来中国的集体化就是一场从“同一个营垒”“内部”发动的运动，共产党支持农民
“翻身”，“给了”农民土地，并宣称要为他们进一步的幸福而斗争，以及党的组织深入农村基层，和
善于进行群众思想政治工作，——这一切都与苏联集体化形成了鲜明的对比，——所谓“自愿”、
“互利”尽管并非事实（它们都是党的语言，和政治思想工作的某种结果），它的关键却是不让群众
说出一个“反”字，让你最终不得不“自觉”地随大流跟着党走，如此一来，这运动就成功了（至于以
后如何那是将来的事）。在群众现下尚不能形成一个清醒的认识，甚至还看不出是怎么回事的情况
下，“清平世界，荡荡乾坤”，又怎能对“自己的政府”说出一个“反”字呢？参见高王凌：《当代农民
反行为》，第二章，小结（未刊文稿）。Gao Wangling, Peasant arts of resistance today (unpub.)
19
具体来说，在“高潮”之中农民是经过怎样的考虑才入了社的，是一个很值得详细考察的问题。在
那种“阶级斗争”和“政治高压”之下，农民怕被当成阶级敌人（地富，甚或富裕中农），怕多征购个
体户的粮食，等等，可能都是不可免的。
17
This type of ‘nationalisation’ (or conversion of peasants into hired hands) was
without doubt a ‘bad omen’, something that was truly ‘of unrivalled ferocity’. The Party
had not thought that this would turn peasants into hired hands who showed even less
initiative than normal.20 The peasants had not thought that the government would not pay
them a reliable ‘salary’ (like the hired labourers of old, or agricultural workers of present
day state farms), and underwent a transformation from being responsible for responsible
for consequences of his work to not being responsible (or perhaps they did not foresee the
possibility that such a consequence would transpire).21 The hired hands of traditional
society were just able to find enough to eat, and in ordinary situations were not at risk of
famine,22 but with the introduction of the ‘special factor’ of the Great Leap Forward in
1958, such a great famine was unavoidable.
It could also be said that the high tide of the collectivisation movement pushed
peasants to a marginal status within the ‘moral economy’. It did not only provide an
institutional guarantee for the coming ‘leap forward’. For at this time, the important
‘boundary line’ between the feasible and the unfeasible was erased.23 Perhaps
collectivisation and ‘hired-handification’ alone was not enough to push the Chinese
village into calamity, but this misunderstanding (or mutual misunderstanding) and the
‘blind collision experiment’ built upon it eventually achieved this end. For peasants in
this situation, the apocalypse was drawing near.
3. The little leap of 1956
Previously, we thought nothing strange of the fact that after Liberation the
revolution in the countryside did not stop at land reform.24 But few people have
considered why collectivisation was unable to end with ‘primitive collectives’ or
‘advanced collectives’, but was required to follow through to its logical endpoint in the
Great Leap Forward and People’s Communes.
One piece of research revealed that a Small Leap Forward took place throughout
the country in 1956, replicating most of the phenomena that transpired in the Great Leap
Forward of 1958 (with the exception of the Great Steel Movement). This included the
amalgamation of big collectives, unification of government and collective, high quotas,
blind directives, falsification of production figures, ambitious agricultural hydraulics
projects, collective-run industry and trade companies, over-exploitation of timber,
dumping and wasting of crops, decline in the production of livestock and pigs,
implementation of the principle of equal distribution, an expansion of reserve grain and
social welfare [taxation], extravagant and wasteful expenditure, the establishment of
communal dining rooms, conglomerates of ‘Communist Agricultural Cooperation’, the
参见高王凌：“农村集体化的重新审视”（未刊文稿）。Gao Wangling, ‘A reappraisal of rural
collectivisation’ (unpub.)
21
秦晖语，他在一篇文章中说：人民公社制度是一种“由国家控制但由农民承担后果”的经济，见
《问题与主义》，长春出版社，1999，页 454。Qin Huiyu, Problems and Isms
22
在湖北调查中，不止一个“翻身农民”（他们大多是原来的基层干部和劳动模范，也有“旧社会”的
生活经历），向我们做出了这种回忆和对比。
23
摩尔（B.Moore）在《正义论》中说：在任何分层的社会中，统治者和臣民，统治集团和从属集
团所能做的事情，都有一套界线，见汤普森：“道德经济学的再考察”，《共有的习惯》，页 347。
24
对此的最新研究，参见刘洋：《征服——一个乡村土地改革的口述史研究》，2004，硕士论文。
Liu Yang, The Conquest: oral history research on land reform in one village
20
knocking down of dwellings and amalgamation of households, mass campaigns of
cultural construction such as to wipe out illiteracy, non-fungible distribution points, overprocurement of grain, labouring to the point of exhaustion, over-allocation of labour tasks,
the incidence of accidents causing injury and death and excessive mortality, the
appearance of food crises, epidemics and hunger-related deaths, breaches of conduct by
cadres, illegal punishments and the beating and harassment of collective members,
‘Firstly level, secondly reallocate, thirdly confiscate’, ‘dig up the last reserves [of the
enemy classes’, the collection of ‘gold, silver, copper, iron and tin’, the confiscation of
the productive and consumption resources of individuals, opening of tombs and leveling
of graves, controls over cash and individual expenditure, supply difficulties in the cities,
the appearance of ‘the blind tide’ [of refugee migrants], and so on and so forth: though
their were differences of degree, in character the two episodes were similar.25
This presents us with a question: why only after ‘wholesale collectivisation’ did
there arise ‘spontaneously’ (or ‘semi-spontaneously’) a Leap? What is the logical
relationship between the two phenomena? It is not easy to see that the driving forces
behind the Great Leap Forward came from many directions. On one side was the poor
performance of the rural economy, shown by the retention of returns on land by the
primitive collectives, a decline in the rewards for labour and income levels invariably
inferior to that of individual peasants; the advanced collectives banned returns on land
but were unable to solve the problem, because they greatly increased labour inputs and so
devalued ‘work points’, leaving nothing to do but talk of ‘egalitarianism’ and ‘without
need for reward’, and in a later stage ‘Communism’ and so on. On another side, with the
great increase in the remuneration of urban cadres and workers of the mid-1950s, in one
instant the contrast [between the countryside and the city] was brought home, firing the
desire of the peasants to increase their standard of living. These things created a great
pressure, lending to the Great Leap Forward the quality of ‘a wish come true’. It could
also be said that, as was the case in the Soviet Union, collectivisation was implemented in
response to many factors, and brought with it remarkable ‘success’. Perhaps it was this,
in addition to the changes to institutional structures, that finally forced events to stride out
on this important step.26
It was during this ‘Small Leap Forward’ that village labour was thrown into
production in great numbers, under excessive load and with great force. This gave rise to
numerous accidents causing injury and death and excessive mortality, and all kinds of
social, political and economic consequences.
Just as most of us know of the ‘reckless advance’ (and ‘anti-reckless advance)
that took place in the national economy in 1956 but know little of the Little Leap Forward,
参见“1956 年的小跃进”。
1957 年 11 月 13 日《人民日报》社论说：人们“不了解在农业合作化以后，我们就有条件也有必
要在生产战线上来一个大的跃进，这是符合于客观规律的”，见鲁振祥：“共和国史上‘大跃进’一词
的应用与演变”，《中国经济史研究》2004：1，页 153；他也指出，大跃进一开始只是“农业大跃
进”，以后才演变为“全面大跃进”；又，在合作化过程中，据说毛泽东和中共中央曾三令五申，要
使农业社集体经济赶上并超过富裕中农的水平，但始终未能兑现（当时后者收入水平高于前者约
42％），见杜虹：《20 世纪中国农民问题》，中国社会出版社，1998，页 311－312；另据研究，
就是“大跃进”一词也并非中国人的创造。早在 1930 年代苏联大搞工业化时期，普遍使用的口号就
是“大跃进”，见沈志华：“苏联对‘大跃进’和人民公社的反应及其结果——关于中苏分裂缘起的进一
步思考”，见网上文章（2004 年 9 月）：www.bjsjs.net/news/news.php?intNewsId=1008。
25
26
the fall in agricultural production that took place in 1956 (and continued in 1957) was
also covered up. One piece of research has shown that grain production fell by not less
than 20-25 million tonnes, amounting to something over ten percent of total production.
This was the greatest fall in grain production in the six years in which the Communist
Party had held power.27 This was without doubt a consequence of the Little Leap
Forward (and as with later years, was largely blamed on ‘natural calamities’).
Perhaps it was because the factors on many fronts were not yet ripe, in addition to
the conclusion of ‘anti-reckless advance’ (and the influence of the 20th Congress of the
CPSU), the Little Leap Forward was halted in its tracks. It was only after the anti-Rightist
movement of 1957 that it once again to send clouds of dust rising into the air, and
eventually in 1958 assumed the form of what we know as the Great Leap Forward.
4. The Launch of the Great Leap Forward
To understand the Little Leap Forward that took place in 1956, we are forced to
proceed back to 1955-56. During the ‘Storm of Collectivisation’ of mid-1955, Mao
Zedong edited ‘The High Tide of Socialism in the Chinese Countryside,’ in which he put
forward many grand objectives for economic, social and cultural construction.28 In early
1956, in the foreword to ‘The High Tide’, he first raised the ‘Forty Articles of the
Agricultural Development Charter’ (passed by the 3rd plenum of the 8th Party Congress in
1957). This included the strategy of ‘More Faster Better Leaner’ (see the opinion page of
People’s Daily of New Year’s Day 1956), and ‘Progressive Committees’ (these were
later referred to as the Three Slogans).29 At the same time, the question of the ‘Ten Main
Relationships’ was discussed. (The above five items were incorporated in 1958 into the
abstract of Mao’s speech to the 2nd plenum of the 8th Party Congress.)30 The plan was to
find China’s own path of socialist construction outside of the Soviet Road. Mao himself
presented the issue in following terms: We are unable to follow the old road of
technology-driven development laid down by the nations of the world, crawling along
behind them one step at a time; we must break free from ordinary practices.31
The halting of ‘reckless advance’ (including the Little Leap Forward) in 1956
caused Mao to blow a fuse. In 1957, the Rectification and Anti-Rightist campaigns took
place. Mao said that Anti-Reckless Advance was before us, the Rightists were moving in
from behind, and the Rightists were only separated [from us] by a distance of 50 metres
or so.32 Later at the 3rd Plenum of the 8th Party Congress he criticised Anti-Reckless
Advance and passed the Forty Articles, laying the ideological basis for the Great Leap
Forward. Mao said, in the future only a few tenths [of a mu] of land of grain will be
参见高王凌：“1956 年的大减产”（未刊文稿）；按：与前几年比较，1960 年全国粮食减产则接近
百分之三十。
28
如认为“在合作化的基础之上，群众有很大的力量。几千年不能解决的普通的水灾、旱灾问题，
可能在几年之内获得解决”，中共中央办公厅编∶ 《中国农村的社会主义高潮》，人民出版社，北
京，1956，页 675。
29
薄一波：《若干重大决策与事件的回顾》，中共中央党校出版社，北京，1991，页 636、641、
661。Bo Yibo, Reflections on a number of important resolutions and events
30
薄一波，页 642。Bo Yibo
31
1964 年 12 月毛泽东对政府工作报告的批语，1964 年 12 月 31 日《人民日报》，
《毛泽东著作选
读》下册，1986，页 849，见鲁振祥，页 158。Selected readings of Mao Zedong
32
1958 年 2 月政治局会议，薄一波，页 645。Bo Yibo
27
enough to live off. The Congress formed the ‘Resolution concerning wage on a largescale a land reclamation and hydraulic works campaign over the coming winter and next
spring’. Following this, in the provinces a campaign against ‘Rightist Conservatism’ was
launched in the form of the Four Bolds (i.e. Bold Accusations, laid out Boldly; Bold
Discussion, with Bold Character Posters’), and a high tide in agricultural hydraulics was
put into action. The labour invested in this campaign amount to several tens of millions of
people, and later expanded to a hundred million.33 The thought behind it was that as in
wartime, it was only necessary to mobilised the masses, to orchestrate mass campaigns
on a grand scale, and anything could be achieved.34 After this came the slogan published
on the opinion page of People’s Daily of November 13: bring on a great leap forward on
the production battle front.35
At the Nanning Conference of January 1958, the slogan was put forward to
‘Struggle Bitterly for Three Years’.36 At an expanded session of the Politburo, Mao said,
‘You will see that in the second half of this year there will be a great reckless advance. In
my view, its daring will be greater than that of any previous year.’37 The 2nd Plenum of
the 8th Party Congress in May established ‘Beat Drums, Flex Muscles, Claim the Upper
Reaches; Construct Socialism in the manner of More, Faster, Better, Leaner’ as the
General Principle of Socialist Construction. The tasks set out in the Forty Articles for
completion in 12 years were overnight compressed into three years, and linked to the
campaign to Overtake England, Approach America.38 Finally in 1958 the Great Leap
Forward was launched, following on the heals of the Little Leap Forward of 1956, but
with redoubled enthusiasm.
The Great Leap Forward is commonly viewed as having had a spontaneous
quality, that is was something coincidental [to the general path of development of
Communist China]. This belief has been reinforced by the fact that after the
implementation in 1962 ‘the tri-level system of ownership, with the brigade as the basis’
in 1962, the village system was basically returned to advanced collective stage that had
existed prior to communisation. This view has become consolidated to the extent that the
historical episode of the Great Leap Forward (and the Great Famine) was ‘abridged’ out
of more than a few pieces of research on the collective economy,. From our perspective
today, such views are due for reappraisal.
5. The Great Leap Forward of 1958
From an initial assessment, the key feature that distinguished 1958 from 1956 was
the establishment of the novel form of social organisation known as the People’s
薄一波，页 679—681、636 Bo Yibo；据说，从 1957 年 10 月到 1958 年 4 月，全国农民共投入
130 多亿工日，完成土石方总量达 250 亿立米，铺成厚一米、宽 66 米的路，可以从地球铺到月球，
李锐：《大跃进亲历记》，上海远东出版社，1996，页 125—126。Li Rui, My experience of the
Great Leap Forward
34
薄一波，页 660。Bo Yibo
35
《新中国农村经济纪事》，页 166。据说，“大跃进”的口号，最早是出现在实现农业发展纲要四
十条的号召中，《大跃进亲历记》，页 158。
36
薄一波，页 681。
37
薄一波，页 653。
38
薄一波，页 667；《当代中国》丛书编辑部：《当代中国的农业》，当代中国出版社，北京，
1992，页 141。
33
Commune. This of course is important, but what was the essential significance of the
Great Leap Forward? Was it what is referred to as ‘an experiment of Communism’ (or of
the transition to Communism)? Even though this diagnosis is the dominant one amongst
intellectuals, it does not conform to reality as reflected by our field surveys, and misses
the point.39
In August 1958, during the high tide of the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong put
forward the following proposition: ‘The revolution killed many people, without
reckoning a cost to these lives. Why can’t we do the same now?’40 The sense was that as
in times of war no allowance need be made for cost nor reward, no fear of sacrifice,
including the cost and sacrifice of human life, in order to achieve a Great Leap Forward
in production. After this he also said that, naturally, not too many deaths were wanted,
such that if half the population of China died, or a third or a tenth or 50 million, it would
not be good.41 He also specifically added a passage to the ‘Resolution on certain
questions concerning the People’s Commune’, saying ‘We now want to establish an
“Agricultural Production Corps.”’42 There is evidence to show that this was the single
idea that encapsulated Mao’s views on the question of rural collectivisation in China.43
What, then, is an ‘Agricultural Production Corps’? Precious little elaboration of it
can be found in the classical works.44 If we do not limit ourselves to written materials and
take a walk through the countryside, we can discover what it was at heart, and learn of
how it impacted upon the ideological consciousness of the peasants and their views on it.
It can be learnt that: ‘deployment of the great militia’ was the production corps; the Three
Transformations (‘militarisation of organisation’, ‘action in battle-formation,’
‘collectivisation of everyday living’) was also the production corps. All of these things do
not point towards the ‘Communist (experiment) thesis.’ In contrast, we find that these
things can only be explained by the ‘production corps’, and furthermore that it was
precisely the ‘production corps’ that generated ‘blind directives’, that generated ‘inflated
quotas’, that generated ‘winds of exaggeration’, that generated ‘Communist conceit’, that
generated ‘breach of conduct’ and ‘proliferation of cadres privileges’. If we look at the
actual nature of these parts of everyday life rather than whatever ‘dogma’, we discover
that it was the ‘production corps’ that generated the situation of pervasive chaos and the
great famine.45
参见高王凌：“我眼中的大跃进”、王燕妮：“从 MCH 看公社化的 ABC”（2004 年，硕士论文）。
1958 年 8 月 21 日在协作区主任会议上的讲话，HN 省档案馆。
41
1958 年 11 月 21 日，在武昌会议上的讲话。
42
《建国以来毛泽东文稿》，七，页 573；据说，毛泽东在北戴河会议上也曾说过：不仅工人是产
业大军，也把农民组织成产业大军，积极性更高，产量更多。我们现在办大公社，统一调配劳动
力，这就是战争时期的经验，杜虹，页 369－370。
43
高王凌：《关于杜润生回忆的回忆》（未刊稿），1953 年杜润生和陈伯达的争论。Gao Wangling,
‘Reflections on Reflections of Du Runsheng’)
44
关于“产业军”，《共产党宣言》里仅仅说：革命成功以后，“最先进的国家几乎都可以采取下面
的措施：……（第八）实行普遍的劳动义务制，成立产业军，特别是在农业方面”（《马克思恩格
斯选集》，第一卷，人民出版社，北京，1976，页 272）。
45
在所有这些方面，MCH 几乎都有上好的例子。如生产上的“掇秧”，及县委一班人如何在办公室
里冥思苦想，遥控指挥；再如“亩产三万六”的“天下第一（卫星）田”；又如 1956 年的“强迫命令”如
何在 58 年“复发”，等等。目前的研究只是其中的一个部分。
39
40
A further question tied up here is that even with the Great Leap Forward and the
Production Corps, was there really a break away from the ‘Soviet model’? On this
question, it must be said that divergent views exist. In fact, similar methods were
implemented in the second year after the Soviet ‘October Revolution’ (that is, in the socalled ‘Wartime Communism’), the only difference being that it was not implemented in
the village.46 It appears that on this question Mao learnt much from the Soviet Union, and
it seems that he remained a loyal executor of the ‘Communist Manifesto’.
And so, just two months after the establishment of the People’s Communes ‘all
under heaven was consumed by chaos,’ to use Mao’s own words, and it was necessary to
‘lower the temperature’. This was the beginning of an recurring process of ‘correcting
deviations’. Mao said, ‘We Chinese people, myself included, are Scatterbrains.’47 By
March 1959 he was saying, ‘I fear that the widespread destruction [sabotage?] of the
period of collectivisation in the Soviet Union may become manifest itself in our
country.48 The result, sadly, is that his prediction came true.
After Liberation, the government assumed an inordinate amount of power and
responsibility, but did not reckon whether or not it had the capacity to take this on. In the
Great Leap Forward, and through communisation, militarisation, communalisation of
property, amalgamation of households, deployment of the great militia, the eradication of
families and so forth, was the most fierce battle ever seen by the peasantry. One
consequence of the wholesale destruction of the prevailing social structure (and the
methods by which this was achieved was by no means limited to the appointment of
outsiders as the cadres of the local village, brigade and commune) was the cleansing of
the prevailing social safety net (even though not much of this remained in tact by this
time).
After a long period of misunderstanding, people have finally discovered that
‘traditional society’ and all manner of institutions and functionality that went with it have
been heavily undervalued. Traditional society was at heart a non-centralised, non-unified,
non-rectified society. The state that is the great lead player of modern life at this time had
nothing long its great power of later times, and human relations had not developed to the
type of ‘money above all’ and ‘what’s in it for me’ of later times. It was a society that
was not highly politicised or homogenised, with a stronger emotional quality, and placed
greater emphasis on relationships between relatives, neighbours, fellow locals and
friends. It contained all manner and form of local customs and practices that changed
with the landscape, all types of hobson jobson, that could provide the basis for a certain
degree of welfare and mutual support. People of those times may have been much loftier
than modern people with their ‘money above all’ morality... but the result of the
wholesale attack on tradition was that these things were wiped clean away. All that was
left was one family: the state. On ordinary days this was fine, but as soon as problems
arose, this could become a calamity on a grand scale.
参见“1956 年的小跃进”。
在郑州会议上的讲话，薄一波，页 813。
48
《建国以来毛泽东文稿》，第八册，中央文献出版社，1993，页 87。
46
47
Correspondingly, in this environment, the peasant ‘art of resistance’ entered a
new stage. To put it succinctly, they went on strike.49 The result, naturally, was a further
fall in production and the appearance of a new form of ‘natural disaster’. ...
In light of all this, we can now respond to the question of why some contemporary
research argues that in those ‘three years’ there was no disaster (or that the disaster was
not serious).50 And what of the great quantity of contemporary reports from across the
country of serious natural disasters? This is a question that we continue to scratch our
heads about.
6. A new resolution concerning grain governance
Finally, I can not but look squarely at the grain question. The manner in which
this question was managed led directly to the great tragedy, and so should be placed at
the crux of our diagnosis and at the centre of our attention.
In relation to grain production, that old hoary chestnut of the post-Liberation age,
Mao expressed great optimism after collectivisation. He proposed in ‘The High Tide of
Socialism in the Chinese Countryside’ in early 1956 that, ‘in the future will appear
achievements in all kinds of enterprise beyond your wildest imaginations, with high
yielding agricultural crops bringing a several-fold, dozen-fold and even several-dozen
fold yields.’51 In October 1957 he said at the 3rd Plenum of the 8th Party Congress, ‘The
arrangement we have now of 3 mu of land per head is too much; in the future a few tenths
planted to grain will produce enough to eat.’52 These words ‘foreshadowed’ things to
come. While 1956 and 57 had resulted in two consecutive years of declining production,
some provinces had made it known that their grain supplies was precarious. 53
After the launch of the Great Leap Forward, ‘inflated quotas’ were sent down and
‘winds of exaggeration’ began to appear. After hearing that Xushui County had brought
in 550,000 tonnes of grain during his field investigation of August 1958, Mao Zedong
said, ‘How will you be able to eat all this?’ From here he turned his mind over the
problem of what to do with all this grain produced. He also gave his approval to the
slogan proposed by the Hebei Party Committee to create ornamental gardens throughout
the countryside.54 Subsequently, at the Beidaihe conference he called in a group of
specialised to research how to digest the grain. It was here that he proposed the ‘System
of Three Thirds’, namely that for all arable land, one-third would be used to grow grain,
one third put aside for leisure and herbaceous fertiliser, and one third for trees and
grass.55
To return to the original theme, the initial proposal for ‘unified grain purchase and
distribution’ was a product of tight grain supplies. It came with a subjective desire to
杜润生的谈话，1994 年；参见高王凌：“大跃进时期的农民行为”，《当代中国研究》（美国）
2006 年第 2 期。
50
其代表作见金辉：“风调雨顺的三年——1959－1961 年气象水文考”，《方法》1998：3；另，在
80 年代初，万里曾说，这几年的灾害比“三年自然灾害”时大。但农业却出现了大增产（这当然也与
“包产到户”的推行有关）。
51
《中国农村的社会主义高潮》，页 675。
52
薄一波，页 680；《毛泽东选集》第五卷，页 469。
53
参见“1956 年的大减产”。
54
薄一波，页 739；《农业集体化重要文件汇编》，下，中共中央党校出版社，1981，页 56。
55
在北戴河中央政治局会议上的讲话，1958 年 8 月 17 日、30 日。
49
raise the peasants’ standards of consumption as the grain situation improved. Because of
this Mao said in April 1957, ‘There was no choice but to implement unified grain
purchase and distribution, but we cannot implement it excessively. Next year we plan to
allow the most of the cooperatives outside of industrial crop areas to determine for
themselves the use of grain, oils and meat.56 In Anguo [Hebei province] in August 1958
he stated that grain was over-abundant, allowing for consumption of 300 to 350
kilograms per head.57 At the end of the year Party Central approved the recommendation
that, ‘In 1958 the increase in grain production was significant. After satisfying state
procurement quotas, commune members can each be allocated a portion of grain, such
that every household has 150 to 250 kilograms of reserves. It can be seen that the plan
was not simply a monotonal ‘high procurement’ policy to the end. Even if the grain
procurement figure for that year were to reach as high as 75 million tonnes, in relation to
the reported production figure of 375 million tonnes this was still a relatively small
number (about 20%), and from on the books allowed peasants to attain a relatively high
level of consumption.
However, by early 1959 Mao had undergone a significant transformation. He
demanded that a ‘strict’ grain management system be implemented, one that would
remain in place ‘for ten thousand years’. This might appear is if it were a change made
casually, but had a massive impact on the grain question. This marked the beginning of a
war over the control of grain, and totally destroyed the traditional ‘moral economy,’
pushing the peasants to a point that left them stranded.
One of the important ‘objective’ factors that contributed to this change in Mao’s
thinking may have been the problems experienced in contemporary efforts to procure and
distribute agricultural productions, causing shortages in supply to the cities, and industrial
and mining areas.58 Without doubt, this was a situation directly caused by the Great Leap
Forward. Similar problems had occurred in 1956, only of a different magnitude. Through
the year of 1958, the size of the urban population grew by a factor of two, and under the
comprehensive ‘leap forward’ in the national economy, the low efficiency of the state
grain distribution system was even more strikingly apparent. (This last factor was in fact
one of the haphazard factors behind the implementation of ‘unified grain purchase and
distribution’ in 1953.) Because of this, Mao pointed out at the second Zhengzhou
Conference, ‘At present, our relationship with the peasantry is in a state of considerable
tension.’ In the previous four months (from November 1958 to February 1959), in almost
all parts of the country occurred incidents of underreporting and misappropriating grain
for private use, grain riots, and a wave of ‘shortfalls’ in oils, pork and vegetables. In
comparison to the other two episodes of grain agitation that took place in 1953 and 1955,
the scale of these disturbances was greater in all respects. It was at this time that it was
proposed, in relation to the grain question, to implement ‘a strict system for the collection,
management and use of grain, to remain in place for ten thousand years.’59 And further,
约集各民主党派负责人和无党派人士谈话记录，1957 年 4 月 30 日。
薄一波，页 739。
58
参见杜虹，页 385；又，1958 年全年粮食收购计划只完成了 76%，实际征购 1,175 亿斤，已比上
年增加 22%，《当代中国的农业》，当代中国出版社，1992，页 161—162。
59
薄一波，页 820—821。又，在庐山会议上，黄克诚也指出，粮食紧张是解放以来没有的，李锐∶
《庐山会议实录》，页 106。
56
57
‘From now and for the next few years we must not propagandise that the grain question
has been “solved”.’60
And so, the government implemented a new type of system in the countryside,
and refused to shoulder any of the consequences that might come with it.61 In order to
hide its policy failure, it started to ban talk of disasters, to conceal disasters, and to refuse
to provide disaster relief, regardless of the actual situation in the villages. It was only
because of this that the ‘East Henan Incident’ of early 1959 was possible, and the
‘Xinyang Incident’ of the end of 1959. The Lushan Conference was the most obvious
expression of this new attitude. It is said that it was not until the middle of 1960 that the
government began to adjust its attitude, but by this time the greatest cycle of ‘excess
mortality’ of the ‘three years of hardship’ had already passed.62
In the five years from 1955 to 1959, three important factional struggles took place
within the CCP that constituted a major threat to the Party. The first of these was for ‘the
lady with bound feet.’ A full plenum of the central committee was convened in the wake
of a national Party Congress to criticise Deng Zihui, followed by two further large-scale
meetings within the next three months.63 The second was for ‘Anti Anti-Reckless
Advance,’ targeting Zhou Enlai,64 which reemerged in early 1958. The third, which took
place at the Lushan Conference, was ‘Anti-Right Leaning’ criticising Peng Dehuai.
(After this we are in the Cultural Revolution.) On the surface, it seems that if Peng
Dehuai had not written that letter, then there might not have been such a serious crack
down, and the resulting series of consequences. However, already by the first half of
1959 the situation was already grave. Many of the facts have not yet been revealed
(maybe they are waiting for us to dig them out), and Peng Dehuai only told of small part
of the story of which he was aware. The ‘Correction of Leftist Excess’ of the early stage
《建国以来毛泽东文稿》，八，页 64、73。
一项新的研究表明，这一时期国家尽管没有增加对农村的粮食投放数量，但省级和省级以下的一
些地方政府却增加了“返销粮”的发放量（参见周飞舟：“‘三年自然灾害’时期我国省级政府对灾荒的
反应和救助研究”，《社会学研究》2003：2）；尽管它对救灾来说仍嫌不足，但总的发放量却也不
能小觑，像我们在麻城（和在湖南一些地方）所看到的，一个县就有约 6,000 万斤的粮食在 59 年初
“返销”了；不过，由于这些粮食实际是从“高征购”的过程中被核减下来的，所以不但难以在返销粮
总数的统计中反映出来，也未必能真正起到赈济灾荒的作用；而且，它们多发生在一定时期之内
（如 59 年中以前），对此就不能不予以分地区分阶段的过细的研究（参见“1959 年上半年的形
势”）。
62
其实，早在那以前，上面就对情况有所了解。何况有了 1956 年的经验，这一切就都是“意料之
中”的了。1959 年初的山东“济宁事件”（辛逸的谈话，2006 年 11 月，维也纳；巨野即济宁的属县之
一），以及河南的“豫东事件”，中央都不是不知道的，在山东还撤了山东省委书记舒同的职，尽管
在河南没有处理一个人。也许，解救这场饥荒的唯一机会，就是在 1958 年底同意彭德怀立即停止
高征购的提议。但，问题是，这一“路线问题”将由谁来承担呢？
63
高王凌：“关于杜润生回忆的回忆”。
64
参见高王凌：“1956－57 年，读史随笔”（未刊文稿）；1956 年 4 月下旬，在政治局会议上，毛泽
东提出再追加基本建设投资 20 亿元。周恩来和大多数与会者表示不同意。毛仍坚持自己的意见。
会后，周又找毛，说我作为总理从良心上不能同意这个决定。即周知“错”不改，快犯“路线错误”
了。
60
61
of the Lushan Conference was nowhere near enough to resolve the problem of how to
‘get of the horse’ of the Great Leap Forward.65
If we look at it like this, the issues that these political struggles revolved around
was not about ‘speed’ or ‘fast and slow’. Behind this were much more serious questions,
such as of political systems and the direction of policy. Perhaps from this point of view
we can understand why the review of Zhou Enlai in 1958 was so bitter and heated.
To return once more to the main story, the many campaigns against grain
concealment from early 1959 when seen from the perspective of the history of grain
governance, had as its aim to get to the bottom of the local grain situation, something
which had alluded the state for each of the years since Liberation. When it advanced to
the stage of door-to-door confiscations, the result was that the bottom of the grain
situation was finally revealed. The house of the peasant was laid bare, and so there was
no road left but the road through the famine. (In a situation where there is simply no grain,
even where social mechanisms still exist they are unable to carry out their [insurance]
function.) This broke through the floor of the peasant’s ‘minimal standard of living’, for
which the state no longer assumed control. Now hanging before everyone was not a
question of light or heavy burdens, but was or was not that little morsel left to the
peasants enough to keep them alive. In this type of situation, to bar talk of disaster and
refuse to provide relief is truly a horrifying spectacle.
After the great famine, the government was forced to change its policies, and once
again implement the ‘three fixeds’. This was an acknowledgement that even if there were
a portion of grain unaccounted for then no further questions would be asked, and that a
certain amount of ‘reserve grain’ could be left with the peasants to encourage them to
change their ‘uncooperative’ attitude in relation to production. On this, Liu Shaoqi went
so far as saying, ‘Going it alone sure beats not going.’ (Perhaps Mao might say,
‘Compromise is always better than refusal.’) This was another incident were the
government sought reconciliation and compromise (of course, this was not simply limited
to the field of grain governance), one that would continue to play out until the greater
compromise of the ‘village household responsibility reforms.’
In this process, the role of communal dining hall can not be neglected. In recent
years a foreign scholar drew special attention to the communal dining hall, to the point of
pointing to it as the ‘primary perpetrator’ and ‘head villain’ of the great famine, or at least
putting it on a par with over-procurement.66 Certainly, the existence of the communal
dining hall truly did bring about a further deterioration in the village situation, and made
the general problem more threatening. In this type of situation, if that little morsel of
grain was handed over to the peasant rather than placed under the control of the
communal dining hall, then even though it might not have been enough to eat, it would
still have saved a few more lives (and correspondingly reduced or even avoided the
对一个所谓“专制政权”或“群体运动”来说，最不愿意面对的就是“失败”了，它可能引起各种“连锁
反应”，造成不可接受的后果，因此所谓“下马”就是一件极难的事。从某种意义上讲，大跃进在 59
年初就已经“失败”，剩下的问题就是如何让“最高”认识到和下决心了。
66
参见龚启圣：“近年来之 1958—61 年中国大饥荒起因研究的综述”，《二十一世纪》1998：8。
James Kung, ‘Overview of recent research on the origins of the Great Famine’
65
corruption of the cadres).67 From the other side, it was only in the context of the
communal dining hall that the cadres were in a position to control the ‘right to eat’ of the
commune members. The existence of the communal dining hall was what, in Mao’s mind,
was one of the exterior forms that held together the ‘labour corps’, and so he remained
steadfastly opposed to their being disbanded.
That said, in my view, the influence of the communal dining hall should not be
exaggerated. For example, of the provinces that had established the most communal
dining halls, apart from Henan, Sichuan and Anhui, the number of deaths in Hunan,
Yunnan, Shanghai was not especially great. In some provinces that had established lots of
dining halls (such as Anhui), the situation in different districts diverged widely. This
example shows that different situations could arise in different areas (provinces, counties
or villages) and within the same area. This leaves many ‘coincidences’ and ‘exceptions’,
and leaves a wide space for small-scale local case studies. These should provide answers
to many questions on different levels.
7. Conclusion
As for the origins of the Great Famine, this essay is only an exploratory
‘overview’ (or a rough research plan). It’s focus is on the relationship between state and
society, and so is not only concerned with government (or policy), or on the grass-roots
level of village life. This appears justified, for whereas previous research has focused
exclusively on the upper echelons, now there is a need to move the centre of research
down towards the grass-roots and pursue survey-based research in the field, drawing on
oral history. This brings with it the ‘self-referential’ problem that comes with ‘localised
knowledge’. We must hold fast to the idea that what we are researching is not any
isolated rustic affairs, but the greater issue of the mutually-interactive relationship
between state and society.
It is obvious that the Great Leap Forward is a complete story in itself, that any one
component of it cannot be taken in isolation. We have seen in the period immediately
after Liberation there was a ‘moral economy’.68 From 1956 through to around 1961 this
was shattered, and [Chinese society] entered a form of ‘super-economic authoritarianism’
much that that which had been implemented in the early years of the Soviet Union,69 only
it was pushed a step further into agriculture. From this perspective it can be said that the
Great Leap Forward commenced in 1956, and lasted for around five years. When
exploration the causative relationships of the Great Leap Forward, it is perhaps more
important to focus on its origins. This is said not only from a historian’s perspective. The
如当时的农口负责人、国务院副总理谭震林所说，食堂散得早的几个专区，肿病下降百分之四
十，“关于河南人民公社给毛主席的调查报告”（1961 年 5 月）
，《中共党史资料》总第 77 期（2001
年 3 月）
，页 11。
68
如在 1957 年湖南省 PJ 县县乡干部鸣放中即有人说：县委一贯说：只要搞好了工作，搞死了人冒
问题。即指这一时期的情况。见 PJ 县档案。
69
布哈林∶ 《过渡时期经济学》，中译本，三联书店，北京，1981，页 118—128。Bukharin,
Economics of the transitional stage. 布哈林认为，暴力和强制是“历史的火车头”；无产阶级革命、苏
维埃共和国的“劳动军”，都是同强制问题（“超经济”强制）联系在一起的。暴力和强制也适用于内
部，是劳动人民实行自我组织和对自己实行强制的纪律的因素。不但要对非无产阶级，也要对无产
阶级自身实行强制，包括从枪毙到劳动义务制。参见“1956 年的小跃进”。
67
first step is to find out ‘what’ it was, and after this comes everything that came after,
including its influence on all manner of things.
If we were to draw a circle around what is most important in our research plan,
then this should, on the one hand, the ‘systemic arrangements’ of the state. On the other
hand we should look at the direct response and behaviour of peasants coming out of their
own system of values, such as how they thought and what they did during the Great Leap
Forward and the Great Famine. Did they ever raise their fists? (Mao in early 1959 said
that they had ‘resisted’.) Or did they do nothing (just stared into space and waited for the
episode to conclude, or lay down to await death)? What intellectual responses did they
have (even if they never did anything)? For this, we have to work out properly what the
government did on its part. What was the nature and point of origin of the ‘applied force’?
And what was the ‘reactive force’, and where was it directed? And what kind of
consequences and effects did it have on the relationship between the two? After both the
government and the peasants had ‘both lost and suffered great injury’, how was the
relationship ‘rehabilitated’? (Or was the system restored through some kind of
‘interactive relationship’?) I believe that this step is essential, and only if we gain a deep
understanding of the latter party [i.e. the peasants] will we come to understand the former
[i.e. the state].
Perhaps we should fully acknowledge that the Great Leap Forward was a ‘war’,
that it was the most fiercely-fought war between peasants and the government since
Liberation. Even though it was asymmetrical, and did not take place between opposed
nations but between the government and its people, one side of which had a complete set
of weaponry from armaments to ideology and the other side of which had virtually
nothing, it was nevertheless a battle fought between two armies. Although there may
have been no battle fields shrouded in sulphur-laden smoke, it was still a special type of
battle (albeit fought on a different type of field).
From where we are now, we can say that research on the Great Leap Forward has
not even gotten a handle on the fundamentals. (This is something that I felt many times
during field research.) For example, there are still people who resolutely believe that the
Great Leap Forward was an ‘experiment of Communism’ (or ‘egalitarianism’). Sure,
property was agglomerated, but where was the –ism part?
If we say that the crux of the Great Leap Forward was the ‘communal dining hall’,
and neither ‘high procurement’ nor ‘the deprivation of exit rights’ nor a ‘Communist
experiment’, then, what was the Great Leap Forward? This remains a question that is
difficult to respond to in a couple of sentences.
Research on the Great Leap Forward is also different from other types of
historical questions. It is the study of an ‘event’ that was wide-reaching and
comprehensive, something that cannot be approached just by thinking about the peasant
and his surrounds, his ‘economic base’, the ‘superstructure’ surrounding him, his
consciousness and regional variations. All this will not allow us to get to our destination.
There are certain events in modern Chinese history, such as the Cultural
Revolution and the Great Leap Forward, that might have a similar inherent importance.
Now research on the Cultural Revolution is experiencing its golden hour, but in my view
the Great Leap Forward may be more important, and more challenging. This assessment
is based on several reasons: firstly, the Great Leap Forward was the cause, and the
Cultural Revolution the effect (it could be said that if there had not been a Great Leap
Forward, then there would not have been a Cultural Revolution); the objectives that were
not realised during the Great Leap Forward continued to be pursued in the Cultural
Revolution (such as the ‘May 7 Directive’; it can be seen that the Great Leap Forward
was not a spontaneous eruption, but had come to represent a style of idealism); the
Cultural Revolution was primarily concerned with the upper stratum while the Great
Leap Forward affected both upper and lower stratums; Cultural Revolution primarily was
carried out in the city,70 while the Great Leap Forward was not constrained to the village,
for each of its manifestations in the village found their parallel expression in the city (I
have seen may documents that provide testimony to this); and what’s more, it cannot be
said that no cadres were purged during the Great Leap Forward, for in fact a great many
were purged (including senior cadres).
Faced with such a challenging task, I believe we must all our strength. As it is a
topic both weighty and arduous,71 from our commencement and for a considerable time
to come we must all ask ourselves why, exactly, do we want to study this topic - the
Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine.
这只是相对而言，是大体上的一个说法；海外现有学者（如史坦福大学魏昂德 A.G.Walder 教授）
指出，文化革命时乡村也有不少人员的“非正常死亡”；这是不错的，实际上，有些地方的武斗也波
及了农村。
71
关于“大跃进”的研究，可以大略的分成两个部分，一是“大跃进”，一是“大饥荒”（以庐山会议为
界）
。本文几乎还没有涉猎后一部分的问题：当时农民都遭遇到了什么？他们在身体上灵魂上都如
何被“触及”？他们有什么想法或行动？……等等，等等，无数的最基本的问题都需要我们去调查和
了解。
70