Posted By: airforce
Attention, Bearded Marxists - 09/17/2010 06:58 PM
This is how that worker\'s paradise turned out. But at least their health care was free.
From Mao\'s Great Famine: The History of China\'s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 , by Frank Dikotter:
Mao's "Great Leap Forward" killed approximately 45 million people in just four years, between 1958 and 1962. To put that in perspective, the death toll for the entire Second World War is about 55 million.
Mr. Dikotter delved into official Chinese archives for the material in this book.
Onward and upward,
airforce
From Mao\'s Great Famine: The History of China\'s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 , by Frank Dikotter:
Quote
...State retribution for tiny thefts, such as stealing a potato, even by a child, would include being tied up and thrown into a pond; parents were forced to bury their children alive or were doused in excrement and urine, others were set alight, or had a nose or ear cut off. One record shows how a man was branded with hot metal. People were forced to work naked in the middle of winter; 80 per cent of all the villagers in one region of a quarter of a million Chinese were banned from the official canteen because they were too old or ill to be effective workers, so were deliberately starved to death. ..
Mr. Dikotter delved into official Chinese archives for the material in this book.
Onward and upward,
airforce