Great Chinese Famine

1959-01-01 - 1961-12-31

Famine from 1959 to 1961 in the People's Republic of China, widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated 15 to 46 million deaths. Its major causes were the policies of the Great Leap Forward and the people's communes launched by Mao Zedong: inefficient food distribution, extremely high grain confiscation, poor agricultural techniques, over-reporting of production, and the mass transfer of farmers to industry. In 1981 the Communist Party stated the famine was mainly due to Great Leap Forward mistakes, alongside some natural disasters and the Sino-Soviet split.