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 --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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