Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine

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Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine

Cover of the first edition
Author	Jasper Becker
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	History
Publisher	Holt Paperbacks
Publication date	15 April 1998
Media type	Print (hardback)
ISBN	0805056688

Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine is a book written by Jasper Becker, the Beijing bureau chief for the South China Morning Post. Becker posits that the American press reported the Great Chinese Famine with accuracy but leftists and communist sympathisers, such as Edgar Snow, Rewi Alley, and Anna Louise Strong, remained silent or played down its severity when Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward had turned into a horrible tragedy. Becker accuses Mao of starving 30-40 million people.^[1] Becker says that the tragedy could have been averted after the first year if Mao's senior advisers had dared to confront him.

Hungry Ghosts was the first major English book to provide an "comprehensive accessible account" of the man-made famine.^[2][3]

Background[]

In 1958, Mao declared that China would overtake Great Britain in 15 years (later on, he changed it into 2–3 years), and the way to do it is by setting up thousands of people's communes. At the beginning, the government promised its people that food would be supplied for free and in abundance in the communal canteen permanently, people started to eat all the grain, including the seeds. When the grain production began to go down, Becker writes, starvation set in many parts of the country around the Chinese New Year of 1959.^[5]

Until the early 1980s, little was known about the famine that caused the deaths of an estimated 15 to 45 million individuals.^[6] More serious academic demographic research was generated when the 1982 population census was made available. Scholars attempted to "adopt Western theories of bureaucratic organizations and apply statistical models to understand the causes and progression of the Great Leap."^[6] When conducting research for his book, Becker interviewed peasants in disaster areas in China such as the Henan Province and the Anhui Province.^[6]

Reception[]

Historian Lee Feigon called Hungry Ghosts a

powerful book...Jasper Becker's compelling interviews and graphic stories clarify the full destruction of the time...Becker's work has made a ground-breaking contribution to the field and is wonderfully written to boot. But keep in mind that the final word is not yet in on this subject.^[7]

Kirkus Reviews referred to the book as "The first serious attempt to unearth the truth of the massive human tragedy behind the "Great Leap Forward" in China" and concluded that it is "a remarkable book, the more devastating for its quietness and absence of rhetoric."^[8]

In The New York Times, Richard Bernstein stated that "Mr. Becker's remarkable book, which firmly establishes the Great Leap and the resulting famine as one of the worst atrocities of all time, strikes a heavy blow against willed ignorance of what took place."^[9]

Journalist and historian Philip Bowring called Hungry Ghosts a

chilling book...But it should be doubly chilling for academics, journalists and those in public life whose positions carry an obligation to "seek truth from facts," to borrow a phrase from the principal architect of the disaster, Mao Zedong...Becker's book is a timely reminder that if the Chinese people were allowed to know the full truth of the famine years, most would wish that [Mao] would be forever haunted by those hungry ghosts.^[10]

A New York Times Book Review by political economist Nicholas Eberstadt reads:

In this powerful and important book ... Mr. Becker has well begun the job of filling in the blank pages of modern Chinese history—and in so doing, has offered both a grim tribute to the dead and a challenge to our consciences.^[5]

Publishers Weekly stated:

Becker...lays bare the facts surrounding the worst famine of modern times...In this gripping, well-researched account, Becker notes that the two worst famines of the century, the Chinese and the one in the Ukraine of the early 1930s, were both man-made. This study is a testament to the folly of utopian engineering.^[11]

Caroline Moorehead, writing in the New Statesman, stated that Becker

has produced a painstakingly readable account of the famine that engulfed China between 1958 and 1962. It is as full as possible, given the restrictions on information, lost archives and a continuing attitude of secrecy. Hungry Ghosts is a horrifying but excellent book; and one of the most remarkable things about it is that it should have taken so long for such an account to appear.^[12]

A review in The New Yorker called Hungry Ghosts a "horrifying, necessary book."^[13]

Historian Susan Whitfield, writing in the Financial Times, stated: "This is a long overdue book and Becker must be credited with finally breaking the silence imposed by Mao and challenging the web of lies accepted all too readily by both China and the west."^[14]

French academic  [fr] wrote:

[Becker's] reports, which come from the four corners of China, are proof of his profound knowledge of the country...throughout the book the author reminds us that it was a tragedy brought about by political decisions and not, as the official version until 1980 would have it, by "natural calamities"...Nowhere can we find a monument to the silent victims of the greatest famine in history. Jasper Becker's book is its first foundation.^[15]

Writing in the London Review of Books, American sinologist Perry Link stated:

Becker does a good job of putting a human face on the famine...Becker’s claim of a strong causal connection between the Leap and the Cultural Revolution is correct and important because it puts the famine where it should be – at the very centre of the Maoist cataclysm in China...Becker makes an important argument that secrecy about famines is more than morally dubious in its own right, and more than practically disastrous because it erases the possibility of foreign aid.^[16]

A review in Asiaweek referred to the book as "admirable history" and stated that "The author has drawn on a wide range of sources to unravel the truth of what he calls "China's Secret Famine"...Collectively they add up to a damning indictment of Maoist policies."^[17]

Ann Scott Tyson of the Christian Science Monitor called the Hungry Ghosts a "sweeping and scrupulously researched book" and stated:

One of the major accomplishments of the book is to piece together detailed, firsthand accounts of the famine in hard-hit regions such as Anhui and Henan provinces...By giving voice to this anguished, collective memory, Becker hopes Chinese and Westerners alike will learn from the famine and the devastating silence that allowed it to happen.^[18]

Political scientist Andrew J. Nathan wrote: "Becker...does a service in drawing these and other materials together for a broader Western audience...Becker tells the stories well, and they are as shocking as he clearly wants them to be" but believed Becker was careless with his sources.^[19]

The Economist wrote:

Passionately but precisely, Mr Becker records the tragic results of one of the boldest example of Utopian engineering ever attempted-one that included trying to abolish money and property and promised people's communes instead. The careful academic tones are mixed with horrific eyewitness accounts.^[20]

A reviewer in Asian Affairs wrote:

This book is unlikely to circulate anywhere under Beijing's jurisdiction, but at least it deserves to be widely read in the West. Perhaps then the story will percolate back into China. Chinese people ought to be able to ask why such a calamity happened and if it had been preventable. Publication of the truth would safeguard China against future leadership folly.^[21]

Isabel Hilton of The Independent wrote:

Jasper Becker has pieced together one of the most terrible events of the century.. The horror of the story lies in the determined denial of reality that ran from Mao's crazed vision at the top to the false reporting of miracles by local cadres at the bottom... these accounts are meticulously researched and compellingly told... Jasper Becker has achieved that rare feat of exploring a theme in Chinese history - the recurring threat of hunger - and bringing the reader to an understanding of its true importance in the memory of the Chinese people and its tragic role in the political drama. He also offers a small memorial to those uncounted millions, a memorial the leaders who brought about those deaths will never erect.^[22]

A reviewer in Disasters wrote that

Becker’s account of the Leap vividly captures ironies that would be funny, were it not for their tragic consequences...Becker’s book makes fascinating use of the results of personal interviews with survivors Book Reviews 275 (including officials) of the Leap, as well as drawing on open and internal published materials...Becker’s well-researched book is an important contribution to the literature on China’s agricultural development under Mao.

However, when compared to Dali L. Yang's book on a similar topic, the reviewer stated

too many statements made by Becker remain unsourced or unsubstantiated. By contrast, Dali Yang commands a rich and varied array of Chinese-language and other materials and his bibliography makes fascinating reading in its own right...Both these books take their place as required reading for anyone interested in understanding the causes and consequences of the Great Leap Forward...Ultimately, however, it is Yang’s more-subtle analysis that offers major and profound insights into the dynamics of the Great Leap and captures its longer-term implications.^[23]

American historian Paul G. Pickowicz, writing in The Wall Street Journal, stated that

Mr. Becker argues convincingly that the worst of the nightmare could have been averted if only Mao had launched a massive relief effort after acknowledging that the state had confiscated far too much grain..."Hungry Ghosts" is an important, sometimes spellbinding, account of this terrible episode. Mr. Becker's interviews with survivors provide us with a chilling view of the famine as it was experienced by ordinary villagers" but disagreed with Becker's claim that "even now in the West the famine is still not accepted as a historical event.^[24]

A review in China Information found that

Becker’s work is an extremely useful reminder of what people can inflict upon each other in the name of utopia and in times of mass hysteria. As such, it is not only indispensable for everyone interested in Chinese history but also deserves a readership outside the restricted community of "China watchers"

but that Becker "tends to oversimplify the intra-elite aspects of the [Great Leap Forward]."^[25] Sinologist Frederick Teiwes wrote:

Despite very major faults, this is a significant book...Notwithstanding Becker's compelling story, the book is maddeningly deficient in a number of important respects. Assertions are often unsourced, and when footnotes are given they are essentially unusable...Given the correct focus on Mao, it is regrettable that Becker distorts his role...But the strength of the book is its description of the human costs of China's great tragedy. With relentless mind-numbing detail Becker takes the reader through the horrors of the physical deterioration caused by starvation, the psychology of hunger whereby people ate slowly so as not to finish first and have to watch others still eating, and widespread cannibalism...This book provides a long overdue and salutary lesson for all concerned.^[26]

Economist Carl Riskin felt that there were inaccuracies with the book:

The highly charged events dealt with in Hungry Ghosts...do not need embellishment or exaggeration to shock. It would have been better if they had merely been presented with accuracy. This was not done, partly because of the predilections of the two authors, and partly because it is still impossible: the Chinese government does not permit historical research on these events. Much work therefore remains to be done before it will be possible to gain a full understanding of the famine and its aftermath.^[27]

A reviewer in The China Journal stated that "Becker does for China what Robert Conquest did for the Soviet Union in his book Harvest of Sorrow...it is the matter of democracy and human rights which, in the end, emerges most clearly from Jasper Becker's work" but felt that there were "aspects of the book which are not altogether satisfactory." The reviewer felt that Becker "almost completely overlooks the Soviet agrarian debate of the 1920s" and he gave "lurid treatment of the matter of cannibalism in China." Additionally, the reviewer wrote that Becker

seems prepared to entertain almost any story about the scale of the famine, without sceptical reflections or observations on statistical methodology...The lack of restraint is dissatisfying, not least because the underlying finding of the book is that it was the tendency to exaggerate and play fast and loose with statistics in the interest of propaganda which helped to bring about the famine itself.^[28]

Historian and political economist Songlin Yang disputed Becker's claims that Mao "ignored the famine. He stated:

Against the charge by Becker among others that Mao "ignored" the famine (Becker, 1996, see ch6), as another example, Mao signed the State Council’s report on 17 April 1959 and titled it “the big problem of hunger for 25.17 million people in 15 provinces” as an emergency, requiring the document to be urgently delivered to each of the first provincial party secretary (Mao, 1959, 209). Days later on the 29th, he again penned an issue of “party internal correspondence” to address the urgency of relief. Sichuan among China’s major grain producers, for example, was asked to donate 7.35 million tonnes of food staples to be delivered immediately to several urban centres.^[29]

References[]