Full Thread: China under Mao
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Old March 26th, 2012 #27
Ian
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Cumbria, England
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex Linder View Post
Finally, the craziness Steve B mentioned: the anti-sparrow campaign, truly one for the ages.

[I]But the most popular form of pest control was mass mobilization. Enthralled by the power of the masses to conquer nature, Mao had raised the call to eliminate rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows in 1958. Sparrows were targeted because they ate grain seeds, depriving the people of the fruits of their labour. In what is one of the most bizarre and ecologically damaging episodes of the Great Leap Forward, the country was mobilized in an all-out war against the birds. Banging on drums, clashing pots or beating gongs, a giant din was raised to keep the sparrows flying till they were so exhausted that they simply dropped from the sky. Eggs were broken and nestlings destroyed; the birds were also shot out of the air. Timing was of the essence, as the entire country was made to march in locksetp in the battle against the enemy, making sure that the sparrows had nowhere to escape. In cities people took to the roofs, while the countryside farmers dispersed to the hillsides and climbed trees in the forests, all at the same hour to ensure complete victory.
This shows the rural origin of Chinese Communist authority. It was very much a peasant Communism that took over China's cities, and enforced communism on the urban workers. In Russia it was the direct opposite. The idea that there was a bread shortage, so sparrows must be eating the seeds, comes straight from the mind of village peasants, even though they might have been indoctrinated with much Marxist doctrine. Mao himself was a rural schoolteacher, perhaps an hereditary profession.