> Both the Great Famine and the 1942-1943 famines were politically caused, the first by communism and the latter by Japanese invasion. The Great Famine wasn't

> Both the Great Famine and the 1942-1943 famines were politically caused, the first by communism and the latter by Japanese invasion. The Great Famine wasn't caused "by communism", it was caused by incompetence. Mao rejected both Western science and the expertise of Chinese farmers which agreed to it, much like the Nazis rejected "Jew science" (which luckily hampered their war effort and prevented them from developing nuclear weapons). He also established a culture of fear that led to bureaucrats lying about their numbers instead of risking admitting failure. I guess you could say the cause of the Great Famine therefore was bureaucracy, or maybe dogmatism. Neither of which is necessary, nor sufficient, for communism[0]. [0]: ... even without getting into the distinction between what governments have justified with the excuse that they want to achieve communism and what communism itself would look like. No so-called communist government I'm aware of has ever claimed to have achieved communism. Even Soviet-era Eastern Europe at best claimed to have achieved "real socialism" when they pretty much admitted giving up on communism by calling anyone expecting more of them "utopianist".