Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine

by Jasper Becker

  Kang Sheng (1899-1975): born in Shandong, Kang joined the CCP in 1925 and organized the first major purge in Yanan in 1942. He was a member of the ultra-left faction that promoted the Great Leap Forward and was in charge of Cultural Revolution purges. He died of bladder cancer.

  Ke Qingshi (1900-65): born in Anhui, Ke spent time in Russia in 1922. An ultra-leftist, he later became Party Secretary of Shanghai and the East China Bureau. He died a natural death.

  Li Jingquan (1909-89): born in Jiangxi, Li joined the Party Youth League in 1927 and became a member of the CCP in 1930 after which he took part in the Long March. As First Secretary of Sichuan and the South-west China Bureau during the Great Leap Forward he was responsible for 7-9 million deaths. He died in honourable retirement in Beijing.

  Lin Biao (1907-71): born in Hubei, Lin joined the CCP in 1925. He replaced Peng Dehuai in 1959 as Defence Minister and supported Mao in his hour of need in 1962. He was designated as Mao’s successor in 1969 but died in a plane crash supposedly after a failed coup attempt.

  Liu Shaoqi (1898-1969): born in Ningxiang, Hunan, Liu joined the CCP in 1921 and studied in Moscow’s University of the Toilers of the East. He was second in rank to Mao from 1942 and actively promoted Mao Zedong Thought, but he opposed the rush into collectivization in the 1950s and resisted Mao’s efforts to return to Great Leap Forward policies after 1961. He was the chief target of the Cultural Revolution, dubbed the number one capitalist roader and China’s Khrushchev. He died in prison in 1969 after violent persecution. He was married to Wang Guangmei.

  Mao Zedong (1893—1976): born in Shaoshan village, Xiangtan prefecture, Hunan, Mao was a founding member of the CCP in 1921 and leader of the CCP from 1935 until his death.

  Panchen Lama (1938-89): born in Qinghai province he was recognized as the tenth reincarnation of Tibet’s second highest religious figure. He stayed in China after the Dalai Lama fled but described the horrors of the Great Leap Forward in a 90,000-word report to Mao. He was kept under house arrest or in prison between 1963 and 1977, and was only formally rehabilitated in 1988.

  Peng Dehuai (1900-74): born in Xiangtan, Hunan, Peng joined the CCP in 1928, one of the few leaders to come from a poor peasant family. He was one of China’s ten marshals who later led Chinese forces in the Korean War. He criticized the Great Leap Forward at the Lushan summit and Mao dismissed him. Imprisoned in 1966, he spent years in prison suffering torture and physical humiliation.

  Wu Han (1909-69): born in Zhejiang, Wu became a teacher at Qinghua University and a member of the China Democratic Alliance. He rose to become Dean of the History Department at Qinghua University and a member of the National Culture and Education Committee. An expert on Ming history he was Deputy Mayor of Beijing during the Great Leap Forward. During the famine he attacked Mao through the play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. Persecuted in 1965, he died during the Cultural Revolution. He was rehabilitated in 1979.

  Wu Zhifu (1906-67): born in Henan in Qi Xian county, Wu joined the CCP in 1925 and became a pupil of Mao’s at the Peasant Movement Training Institute. During the civil war he ran a guerrilla branch of the New Fourth Army and orchestrated a campaign of terror against landlords. During the Great Leap Forward he was Party Secretary of Henan and was responsible for up to 8 million deaths. He died in October 1967 in Guangzhou.

  Zeng Xisheng (1904-68): born in Hunan not far from Mao’s home county, Zeng attended the Whampoa Military Academy, met Mao in 1923 and joined the Party in 1927. He was Mao’s bodyguard during the Long March and then was in charge of military intelligence. He later became the political commissar of the Fourth Route Army. After 1949, he was appointed Party Secretary of northern Anhui before taking charge of the whole province. As Party Secretary of the whole of Anhui during the Great Leap Forward, he was responsible for the deaths of up to 8 million people, as well as a similar number in Shandong. He introduced agricultural reforms in 1961 but Mao dismissed him in 1962. He was tortured and killed during the Cultural Revolution.

  Zhang Wentian (1900-76): born in Jiangsu, Zhang joined the CCP in 1925 and studied at Moscow’s Sun Yat-sen University. After 1949, he was posted as ambassador to the Soviet Union and then returned to serve as deputy foreign minister. He opposed Mao at the Lushan summit and was demoted to the level of researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences where he studied ‘the theory of socialist economic construction’. He survived persecution during the Cultural Revolution and was rehabilitated in 1979.

  Zhang Zhongliang (1907-83): born in Shaanxi, Zhang joined the CCP in 1931 and led a peasant uprising in 1933. After 1949, he was initially Party Secretary of Qinghai before moving to Gansu. There he was responsible for over a million deaths during the famine. He was dismissed in 1961 and sent to Jiangsu as chief secretary of the provincial Party secretariat. Though persecuted during the Cultural Revolution he died peacefully in retirement in Nanjing.

  Zhao Ziyang (1919–): in charge of agriculture in Guangdong and a keen promoter of the Great Leap Forward under the provincial leader Tao Zhu. Zhao’s report triggered off the first round of forced grain seizures. However, he was attacked during the Cultural Revolution for advocating private farming. In the late 1970s, he was brought back and, as Party Secretary in Sichuan, initiated rural reforms and ordered the first dismantling of a commune. Deng made him Premier after 1979 and later General Secretary. He was dismissed in 1989 for supporting democracy protests and is still under house arrest.

  Zhou Enlai (1899-1976): born in Jiangsu, Zhou studied in France and then joined the CCP in 1922. Though he opposed collectivization in 1956 he later made a self-criticism and thereafter supported the Great Leap Forward. He did not challenge Mao after 1962 and served him throughout the Cultural Revolution.

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