The Road To Heaven: A Reasearch On Chinese Famine Using A Multidimensional Perspective

The Great Famine is the important historical events in the Chinese contemporary history,and There has been a lot of research. The paper studies on the formation of famine in the Linquan county during1959-1961. The article thinks that the reason of the famine must think in the multi perspective. The famine is not a consequence of the great leap forward.In the Linquan county, State monopoly for purchase and marketing of grain; helping relief work through production; water conservancy and replantling rice,it is that they led to the famine. The first two reasons are the institutional factors,but The other two reasons are policy factors. Furthermore, four factors play a role also is the result of long-term.In four kinds of factors, state monopoly for purchase and marketing of grain and helping relief work through production are the arrangement of the central level system, and the other is the local engineering. One is the design of the system static,and another is the choice of system of human behavior. The famine suggested two things. One is the internal issue system,and another is a practical question of policy. Both of them led to famine.This paper consists of six chapters and the ending. The first chapter is introduction. It introduces the background of the article. The second chapter is the history of disaster. It is the theoretical basis of the article,and it disscuses the history of Linquan’s famine during the1950s and the death toll of the famine, in order to show the degree and scale of the famine.The third chapter analyzes the relations between water conservancy and famine, In this chapter,we first introduce the Huaihe governance and drilling,then analyze the relation between The Movement of Drainage Networks in the great leap forward and the famine. And it included cropland occupation, labor occupation and food waste.The fourth chapter analyzes the relations between replantling rice and famine. In the county of Linquan, Replantling Rice rised from1954,but since1957it began to spread. In the promotion, Replantling Rice divorced local reality. It is a result that the labor occupation and barren land Finally. All two affected grain yield, ultimately contributed to the famine.The fifth chapter is the history of the state monopoly for purchase and marketing of grain. We review of the three stages of state monopoly for purchase and marketing practice in Linquan. From the beginning of the "short supply" to the middle "adjust surplus and deficiency" and final "food self’.In practice, the object of government is not the surplus grain, but the ration grain. There were problems from the start.The sixth chapter introduces three famine relief and analyzes the relations between relief system and famine. The production of self-help can not play relief effect, but will also aggravate the disaster.The last part is the conclusion. The first is with Wang Zhuang back to the beginning of confusion, then points out that the famine is generated by many factors and long periods. Finally, we emphasizes two aspects of man-made. One is the internal factors of system, and another is the human factors in the practice.