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This article has the causality inverted. The sparrows were just a sideshow to distract from the famines cause. Most famines were caused by the culture of face

This article has the causality inverted. The sparrows were just a sideshow to distract from the famines cause. Most famines were caused by the culture of face and the nature of the party. The party dictated a plan, and as failing the plan and making the great leader loose face, ment the local governments loosing face would get them Maos wrath, all the members of the party reported success when it came to harvests. So Mao collected the surplus and sold it to the soviet union, who he with his inferiority complex wanted to impress. After that, starvation raged, and he knew. They all know, but feign to not know, to keep face. Instead, superficial measures are taken. Like hunting scapegoats, spreading crude conspiracy theories inside the country, or hunting harmless sparrows. Busy work to detract from the actual cause. And nothing was learned from this, cultural change was avoided and now its time to go full circle.

cryptonector 4y ago
This. Killing the sparrows didn't help, but it wasn't the main cause of the famine. It was the same as Stalin's famines, and he didn't try to get rid of the sparrows. It was just a matter of taking away all incentives for farmers to farm, abusing them, and then using whatever food was available as a weapon for exacting compliance in the ensuing famine. Using food as a weapon means making the famine worse. Add to this all the mismanagement that goes with central planning, and there's a problem.
- PicassoCTs 4y ago
  And after that, rewrite history, to make it seem like an accident. After all, the plan of the party could never be horrible. Same today, building more coal plants, while half of the country in the south is sliding towards a wet-bulb scenario. 400 Mio living in an area, that could become uninhabitable within a human lifetime, and the plan for that? Get rich faster and run, fuck the peasants, obviously. The chinese deserve some better government of there own choice with some longterm planning, that poured the money into actual working science, to solve the problems they got. But for that this face nonsense has to vanish first.
  - CrackerNews 4y ago
    While there are dangers to bad top-down management, the criticisms laid out in this thread can still apply to the CPC and Chinese mainland society today, but they don't suffer from famines on the same level anymore. I don't think they disagree with the goal and intent of rapidly industrializing China from peasant-based into urban workers. They will still uphold Mao's legacy even if they disagreed with his excesses and failures. They are about economic development because it is a required stage for their goal of achieving socialism and communism. Economic development is their longterm planning and "working science."
    - PicassoCTs 4y ago
      The lack of famine, is definitely the achievement of the Chinese people and companies. Covid lockdowns showed that even with tremendous wealth a missmanaged government can create starvation..
CrackerNews 4y ago
Part of Mao's enduring legacy was his concept of the party line adapting to the will of the masses, and the sparrow extermination campaign was a failure in adapting the party line to this farmer discontent too well. Mao did change Chinese culture, but it was by purging Western-style intellectuals and promoting mass organization to take command from the bottom-up, because he saw people on the ground being more correct than intellectuals who might not apply their learning to the actual conditions. The successors after Mao adopting Deng Xiaoping's liberal attitudes towards economic development can be seen as a Party rebuke of Mao's policies. Yet they will still uphold Mao's legacy.

cryptonector 4y ago

This. Killing the sparrows didn't help, but it wasn't the main cause of the famine. It was the same as Stalin's famines, and he didn't try to get rid of the sparrows. It was just a matter of taking away all incentives for farmers to farm, abusing them, and then using whatever food was available as a weapon for exacting compliance in the ensuing famine. Using food as a weapon means making the famine worse. Add to this all the mismanagement that goes with central planning, and there's a problem.

PicassoCTs 4y ago
And after that, rewrite history, to make it seem like an accident. After all, the plan of the party could never be horrible. Same today, building more coal plants, while half of the country in the south is sliding towards a wet-bulb scenario. 400 Mio living in an area, that could become uninhabitable within a human lifetime, and the plan for that? Get rich faster and run, fuck the peasants, obviously. The chinese deserve some better government of there own choice with some longterm planning, that poured the money into actual working science, to solve the problems they got. But for that this face nonsense has to vanish first.
- CrackerNews 4y ago
  While there are dangers to bad top-down management, the criticisms laid out in this thread can still apply to the CPC and Chinese mainland society today, but they don't suffer from famines on the same level anymore. I don't think they disagree with the goal and intent of rapidly industrializing China from peasant-based into urban workers. They will still uphold Mao's legacy even if they disagreed with his excesses and failures. They are about economic development because it is a required stage for their goal of achieving socialism and communism. Economic development is their longterm planning and "working science."
  - PicassoCTs 4y ago
    The lack of famine, is definitely the achievement of the Chinese people and companies. Covid lockdowns showed that even with tremendous wealth a missmanaged government can create starvation..

CrackerNews 4y ago

Part of Mao's enduring legacy was his concept of the party line adapting to the will of the masses, and the sparrow extermination campaign was a failure in adapting the party line to this farmer discontent too well. Mao did change Chinese culture, but it was by purging Western-style intellectuals and promoting mass organization to take command from the bottom-up, because he saw people on the ground being more correct than intellectuals who might not apply their learning to the actual conditions. The successors after Mao adopting Deng Xiaoping's liberal attitudes towards economic development can be seen as a Party rebuke of Mao's policies. Yet they will still uphold Mao's legacy.