File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9804, message 207


From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu>
Subject: M-I: Great Leap Forward
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 13:36:49 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)


    Recently Mark Jones put forward a defense of the Great 
Leap Forward (GLF) in China.  A few observations:
     1)  Although the "Black Book" crowd use a 30 million 
dead figure for the GLF famine, there is much disagreement 
about those numbers, just as there is regarding the various 
Soviet famines.  Thus, official Chinese stats admit of 
"only" 15 million dead (Carl Riskin, "Feeding China, the 
Experience since 1949" in Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, 
eds., _The Political Economy of Hunger, vol. 3, 1990, 
Oxford University Press).
     2)  Although many have ridiculed the industrialization 
efforts associated with the "backyard pig iron production" 
of the GLF, and certainly much of it ended up being a 
wasteful flop, nevertheless a foundation was laid in many 
communes and brigades in terms of input supply systems that 
would later underlay the current great success of many of 
the town-and-village enterprises (TVEs).  Of course, many 
on this list don't like these operations.
     3)  Mao did engage in self-criticism for what happened 
under the GLF, unlike Stalin who never allowed or 
engaged in any criticism of his glorious personnage.  Of 
course, Mao did get back during the GPCR at those who 
pressured him to engage in that self-criticism.
Barkley Rosser

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu




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