The great cause of the famine was Western propaganda. Dikotter frames his analysis from the perspective that ignores the initial conditions of China and what they achieved through their plight (literacy from 10% to 80% under Mao, radical improvements in healthcare, etc). Dikotter’s figures of 40 or 20 million starving are cyclically referenced (pseudoscientific) and primary sources are *selected* to match the desired conclusion (confirmation bias). The figures are trumpeted because of our *real* qualm over Mao - we were unable to maintain or take control of China. The phrase “Loss of China”’ was in our newspapers frequently in the 1950s, which is telling, as it assumes you have to own something before you can lose it. Regarding deaths, look up the increase in life expectancy from 1950 until 1978 - it rose dramatically from Mao’s reforms, so he saved lives almost radically. If you think about it you have to respect for China successfully fending of western imperialism prior to 1948, a profoundly difficult achievement. Look at the result of the other major regions that failed in this regard (Africa, India, even aboriginal Australia, etc). Respect to Mao and vast bulk of the ordinary population for protecting China from outside interference. Mao also did the forgotten but crucial work of rural health development programmes saving 100 million lives and modernizing architecture which set the conditions to make the industrialisation that followed being possible. Life span increased dramatically, rights of females and literacy increased from 10% to 90% under Mao. Rather than cherry picking setbacks give respect where respect is due.
The initial conditions were that China wasn't in a famine before The Great Leap Forward. Landowners (also known as farmers) grew enough food for the population. Mao traded food for industrialization (lives for steel). What do you think would happen when you murder the expert food producers and hand it off to amateurs (peasants) and bureaucrats (communist party ideologues)? Play stupid games, get stupid prizes. As to literacy - China is more illiterate today than before communism. More people can read but they are using a simplified Chinese alphabet. On the mainland the people of China can no longer read the works written before the communists took over. They have lost their history and culture prior to 1949 and Mao Zeitung. If China invades Taiwan the Chinese written language will become a dead language like Latin and Ancient Greek.
@@stevelenores5637 China had exceeding worse health conditions before Mao than the middle of his term, and afterwards. I like that he critiques power and how we allow it to take hold but he fails to realise that we support unjustified power also such as cheering the combing of Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, Iraq, Lybia, execution cruel harsh sanctions and so on. As for the deaths constantly quoted under Mao, the exaggerate claims of deaths from starvation were not increased but decreased from the deaths *before* Mao’s reforms owing to Western imperialist interference with China prior to 1950. Look up life expectancy data from 1950 to 1970, and multiply that through the large population. Mao brought live expectancy from 45 to 70 over his career, literacy from 10% to 80%. I sympathize with you as I used to have similar notion but after a lot of work realized I was completely brainwashed within Australia. Upon a lot of research it turns out that Mao did exceedingly more for the people of China than he caused problems and without Mao and their liberation of China from capitalists in the early 1950s, the whole county of China would have followed a path similar to India or Indonesia which both had a similar (even slightly better) initial conditions. Now China has eliminated poverty and has far better health care, higher literacy, economic mobility and business than India or Indonesia and is even catching up to the West which it was exceedingly behind in 1950s when Britain was still bribing and calling the shots over there.
@@NoreenHoltzen I'll make this short and sweet. If you don't rate a high or very high social score you aren't entitled to any healthcare in China. It's not just train and airline tickets you are denied but basic healthcare as well. You can't even get a broken bone fixed, or life saving medicine unless you are seen in a favorable light with the CCP.
Sounds like we have here a fan of communism...a communist sympathizer. If you think things are or were so great in hardcore commie countries, why don't you learn Korean and move to North Korea, or learn Spanish and move to Cuba!
Excellent book!
Wasnt it more like 120 million?
20 to 50.
Yes
The great cause of the famine was Western propaganda. Dikotter frames his analysis from the perspective that ignores the initial conditions of China and what they achieved through their plight (literacy from 10% to 80% under Mao, radical improvements in healthcare, etc). Dikotter’s figures of 40 or 20 million starving are cyclically referenced (pseudoscientific) and primary sources are *selected* to match the desired conclusion (confirmation bias). The figures are trumpeted because of our *real* qualm over Mao - we were unable to maintain or take control of China. The phrase “Loss of China”’ was in our newspapers frequently in the 1950s, which is telling, as it assumes you have to own something before you can lose it. Regarding deaths, look up the increase in life expectancy from 1950 until 1978 - it rose dramatically from Mao’s reforms, so he saved lives almost radically. If you think about it you have to respect for China successfully fending of western imperialism prior to 1948, a profoundly difficult achievement. Look at the result of the other major regions that failed in this regard (Africa, India, even aboriginal Australia, etc). Respect to Mao and vast bulk of the ordinary population for protecting China from outside interference. Mao also did the forgotten but crucial work of rural health development programmes saving 100 million lives and modernizing architecture which set the conditions to make the industrialisation that followed being possible. Life span increased dramatically, rights of females and literacy increased from 10% to 90% under Mao. Rather than cherry picking setbacks give respect where respect is due.
The initial conditions were that China wasn't in a famine before The Great Leap Forward. Landowners (also known as farmers) grew enough food for the population. Mao traded food for industrialization (lives for steel). What do you think would happen when you murder the expert food producers and hand it off to amateurs (peasants) and bureaucrats (communist party ideologues)? Play stupid games, get stupid prizes.
As to literacy - China is more illiterate today than before communism. More people can read but they are using a simplified Chinese alphabet. On the mainland the people of China can no longer read the works written before the communists took over. They have lost their history and culture prior to 1949 and Mao Zeitung. If China invades Taiwan the Chinese written language will become a dead language like Latin and Ancient Greek.
@@stevelenores5637 China had exceeding worse health conditions before Mao than the middle of his term, and afterwards. I like that he critiques power and how we allow it to take hold but he fails to realise that we support unjustified power also such as cheering the combing of Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, Iraq, Lybia, execution cruel harsh sanctions and so on. As for the deaths constantly quoted under Mao, the exaggerate claims of deaths from starvation were not increased but decreased from the deaths *before* Mao’s reforms owing to Western imperialist interference with China prior to 1950. Look up life expectancy data from 1950 to 1970, and multiply that through the large population. Mao brought live expectancy from 45 to 70 over his career, literacy from 10% to 80%. I sympathize with you as I used to have similar notion but after a lot of work realized I was completely brainwashed within Australia. Upon a lot of research it turns out that Mao did exceedingly more for the people of China than he caused problems and without Mao and their liberation of China from capitalists in the early 1950s, the whole county of China would have followed a path similar to India or Indonesia which both had a similar (even slightly better) initial conditions. Now China has eliminated poverty and has far better health care, higher literacy, economic mobility and business than India or Indonesia and is even catching up to the West which it was exceedingly behind in 1950s when Britain was still bribing and calling the shots over there.
@@NoreenHoltzen I'll make this short and sweet. If you don't rate a high or very high social score you aren't entitled to any healthcare in China. It's not just train and airline tickets you are denied but basic healthcare as well. You can't even get a broken bone fixed, or life saving medicine unless you are seen in a favorable light with the CCP.
Sounds like we have here a fan of communism...a communist sympathizer. If you think things are or were so great in hardcore commie countries, why don't you learn Korean and move to North Korea, or learn Spanish and move to Cuba!
Someone drank the Maoist koolaid! 😂
Woke sjw