--- Daniel Frederick Vukovich <vukovich@hkucc.hku.hk> wrote:
The best piece that I know of is by Utsa Patnaik...
Her GLF commentaries suffer from the glaring and foolish error of taking PRC vital stats from the GLF period at face value when every China focusing demographer knows stats from that period severely understate deaths. While the general point that Indian poverty was much more deadly over the long run than Maoism is valid, I see no reason go to her work when British economist Chris Bramall makes more or less the same argument, but is much more knowledgable about the stats and the proper way to intepret them.
I particularly have in mind his excellent chapter on the GLF in his book _In Praise of Maoist Economic Planning_ (1993) Oxford Univ. Press, but it was mentioned in other articles of his as well, and maybe his more recent book focusing heavily on the Mao era roots of reform era growth too, not sure.
I also believe it's very unfair to say Judith Banister "abused" the famine figures. Her figures have been abused by others, but never by her as far as I know. For example, you'll never find "30 million starved to death" in any of her writings, that's Jasper Becker, Jung Chang et al's spin. And it is Banister's work that provides credible figures supporting Bramall's arguments about huge numbers of saved lives via social welfare achievements in other years. I also know of no abuse of figures by Coale either, though can't say for sure in his case.
Lastly, there is no reason to refer to Banister's figures as "inflated" as there has been no critiques of her methods or results as far as I know, and micro evidence from village studies, as well as Bramall's extensive analysis of Sichuan (worst famine province) support her figures. It's the misuse of her sensible research (_China's Changing Population_ 1987) that is the problem, and the deliberate obfuscation of long term hunger vital stat trends in favor of exclusive focus on the famine.
To Alex:
Besides the aforementiond Chris Bramall chapter, on the causes of the famine, the best articles I know of are:
Bernstein, Thomas (1984) "Stalinism and Chinese Peasants: Grain Procurement During the Great Leap Forward", Theory and Society. May 3
Bernstein, Thomas (2006) "Mao Zedong and the Famine of 1959-60: A Study in Wilfulness", China Quarterly. No. 186, June.
An, Mark Yuying, Wei Li, Dennis Tao Yang (2001) "Great Leap Forward or Backward? Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster" Journal of Economic Literature. March.
----
For what was happening at the micro level, only one person has tried in book form -- Jasper Becker (_Hungry Ghosts_) -- but his book is rubbish because he used self-selected interviews, thus he was guaranteed to hear only the worst horror stories plus some ax grinders surely. This is what he was after, so for him it was no problem.
So, for now the village studies, some 2 dozen by now, will have to suffice. For example, Han Dongping's book mentions what happened during the famine in Shandong, a hard hit province, and more details appear in his unpublished paper on the absence of rural democracy during the GLF and its presence (in Shandong) during the CR.
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