Death and Destruction in Anhui Province: The Social and Political Origins of the Great Leap Forward Famine

The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University presents a panel discussion on the unfolding savagery of the Great Leap in rural southeast Anhui, which is the interior periphery of the Lower Middle Yangtze.

Although social scientists have made strides in understanding the Great Leap Forward and its resultant famine, the social and political origins of the movement in the rural areas most damaged by the Great Leap are still not fully understood. This joint presentation focuses on the unfolding savagery of the Great Leap in rural southeast Anhui, which is the interior periphery of the Lower Middle Yangtze. Building upon oral history research conducted mostly from 2008-11, Ralph Thaxton, Lu Huilin, and Sun Feiyu explore the origins and development of the Great Leap and the great subsistence crisis it engendered in several counties and villages of rural Anhui. Their work brings a fresh perspective to our understanding of who suffered, and who delivered suffering and loss, in the Great Leap famine, and to the relationship of the Great Leap to critical prior episodes of the Communist Revolution, including land reform of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Above all else, this presentation focuses on the agents behind the Great Leap's carnage, on their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, and on why and how these agents damaged the social fabric of rural society in the years building to and culminating in the great famine.

Ralph Thaxton is professor of politics at Brandeis University. He specializes in comparative and Chinese politics, with an interest in revolutions and democratic movements. Professor Thaxton received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin and has received numerous awards and grants. Most recently he received the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Senior Scholar Grant (2010). His major book publications include Salt of the Earth: The Political Origins of Peasant Protest and Communist Revolution in China (1997) and China Turned Rightside Up: Revolutionary Legitimacy in the Peasant World (1983).

Lu Huilin is associate professor of sociology and director of the Beida Oral History Research Institute at Beijing University. In 2002-03 he was a Harvard-Yenching Institute visiting fellow and later received his PhD from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2004. Professor Lu's current research centers on China's rural development and migrant workers.

Sun Feiyu is associate professor of sociology at Beijing University. His research interests include modern social philosophy and China’s modernity in terms of revolution and culture.