Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine

Becker, Beijing bureau chief for the South China Morning Post, lays bare the facts surrounding the worst famine of modern times. In 1958, Mao Zedong decreed the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to spur productivity whereby peasants would be herded into giant communes and crop yields, following the dictates of Soviet quack scientist Trofim Lysenko, would increase dramatically. Because his lackeys feared to tell Mao the truth, false reports of fantastic harvests encouraged the Great Helmsman to believe his policies were a success. Thus, relates Becker, when stories of mass starvation in the countryside started reaching Beijing, Mao discounted them and chastised peasants for hiding their produce. As starvation spread, Mao refused to authorize emergency food distribution from state granaries and ordered grain exports to China's allies to stay on schedule. The author estimates that some 30 million people starved to death because of the Great Leap. In this gripping, well-researched account, Becker notes that the two worst famines of the century, the Chinese and the one in the Ukraine of the early 1930s, were both man-made. This study is a testament to the folly of utopian engineering. (Feb.)