Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union / Felix Wemheuer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wemheuer, Felix, Author.

Series:

Yale agrarian studies.

Yale Agrarian Studies Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Famines--China.

Famines.

Famines--Soviet Union.

China--Economic policy--1949-1976.

China.

Soviet Union--Economic policy.

Soviet Union.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (344 p.)

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

During the twentieth century, 80 percent of all famine victims worldwide died in China and the Soviet Union. In this rigorous and thoughtful study, Felix Wemheuer analyzes the historical and political roots of these socialist-era famines, in which overambitious industrial programs endorsed by Stalin and Mao Zedong created greater disasters than those suffered under prerevolutionary regimes. Focusing on famine as a political tool, Wemheuer systematically exposes how conflicts about food among peasants, urban populations, and the socialist state resulted in the starvation death of millions. A major contribution to Chinese and Soviet history, this provocative analysis examines the long-term effects of the great famines on the relationship between the state and its citizens and argues that the lessons governments learned from the catastrophes enabled them to overcome famine in their later decades of rule.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations and Measurements

Introduction

1. The "Tribute" of the Peasantry in Times of Food Availability Decline

2. Protecting the Cities, Fighting for Survival of the Regime

3. Hierarchies of Hunger and Peasant-State Relations (1949-1958)

4. Preventing Urban Famine by Starving the Countryside (1959-1962)

5. The Burden of Empire: The Crisis of "Indigenization" in Ukraine and Tibet

6. "Eating Mice for the Liberation of Tibet": Hunger in Official Chinese History

7. "Genocide Against the Nation": The Counter-Narratives of Tibetan and Ukrainian Nationalism

Epilogue and Conclusion: Lessons Learned-How the Soviet Union and China Escaped Famine

Conclusion: Hunger and Socialism

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780300206784

030020678X

OCLC:

882915133