The starvation of 45 million people should be on any list of the most horrific events in history, and yet very few people know about it. Ilya Somin reminds us in this essay:
“When Westerners think of the great evils of world history, they rarely think of this one. In contrast to the numerous books, movies, museums, and and remembrance days dedicated to the Holocaust, we make little effort to recall China’s Great Leap Forward, or to make sure that society has learned its lessons. Mao Tse-Tung’s social engineering–in which all farms were “collectivized”–resulted in tens of millions starving.
When we vow “never again,” we don’t often recall that it should apply to this type of atrocity, as well as those motivated by racism or anti-semitism.”
More information about the Great Leap Forward can be found here.
