In 1958 the Second Five-Year Plan (1958-62), which was intended to continue the policies of the first plan, was abandoned. In 1957 the government adopted measures to shift a great deal of the authority for economic decision making to the provincial-level, county, and local administrations. Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013): 19, 104.Sources: The Library of Congress Country Studies CIA World Factbookīefore the end of the First Five-Year Plan, the growing imbalance between industrial and agricultural growth, dissatisfaction with inefficiency, and lack of flexibility in the decision-making process convinced the nation's leaders- particularly Mao Zedong-that the highly centralized, industry-biased Soviet model was not appropriate for China. Written by Justin Lombardi, a WYA North America Intern No one party is in command of the whole truth.
The pursuit of human excellence requires this.Īs long as freedom to speak the truth is protected by both its parties, the United States will always be in a better place than if ruled by a monolithic power without such liberty. In every age, there needs to be openness to consider others’ input without punishing and silencing them. Broaching criticism was only allowed until too late. Under the rule of the CCP, this evidence was mass-famine. The all-powerful party strives to coerce people to believe, or feign belief, in the efficacy of its policies despite the clear evidence of its intellectual and moral bankruptcy. In a one-party, ideologically uniform system, there is no check upon the abuses of state leadership. With few exceptions, no one spoke publicly against the Great Leap Forward since livelihood and security flowed from an unapproachable and insecure Mao. If more people had spoken the truth and sought to remove Mao from power, tens of millions of lives would have been saved. Respected journalist Yang Jisheng and historian Frank Dikötter estimate that no less than thirty-six to forty-five million people lost their lives due to starvation and violence. Starvation ensued as the Party plundered from its malnourished people for four years. Ravenous and malignant party elites demanded quantities of grain the citizenry could not supply. Ĭonsequently, false reporting and silence abounded. For “splitting the party,” the offender would be forced “to declare his stand,” “expose his thoughts,” and “bare his heart to the party” in the hopes of retaining his livelihood. When concerned party members spoke realistically about what the economy could produce and dared contradict the party propaganda of The People’s Daily, the state-owned newspaper, Mao treated their candidness as a personal affront and political subversion. Farmers were recklessly diverted from food production to steel industry and infrastructure. To achieve this end, unattainable economic goals were set. In 1958, Mao pushed the Chinese people to surpass Great Britain’s economic production to showcase the superiority of his brand of communism over capitalism. Mao Zedong was one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921 and considered a revolutionary hero by 1949. In his famous essay, “The Power of the Powerless,” Havel observed that in a totalitarian state, “the center of power is identical to the center of truth.” Criticism is treated as an existential threat. She greatly admired Václav Havel, a Czech hero who opposed communist totalitarianism in eastern Europe. This is a danger intrinsic to the totalitarian, one-party system, one of which Anna Halpine, founder of WYA, was cognizant. China experienced a man-made famine because its totalitarian state punished those who spoke truth. The history of Mao Zedong and China during the Great Leap Forward (1958 – 1962) provides lessons for the United States today. History demonstrates that being shielded from criticism and debate leads to evil consequences. However, I believe not all the political disagreement in the public sphere in the U.S. Different visions of the world are maligned by their respective opponents. Today in my country of America, there is mistrust and division between the Republican and Democratic Parties.
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