How much did Mao's policies have to do with this? How much of it was chocked up to natural disaster? Any resources to read about it?
Killing of Sparrows that killed pests during the 4 pests campaign didn't help.
Here's an old article on it:
The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/430804
Tldr is the movement of resources from agriculture to industry was extremely likely the cause of at least a third of the grain production reduction.
Chinese engineering roughly....Whomstever'dve been in charge of Systems Dynamics didn'tve done their homework when it came to refining models. It's not even a failure of ideology, it's an unforced error in planning at the strategic level.
One issue (came up with covid but to a lesser extent) is that their governance structure incentives bureaucrats to cover up and inflate figures at risk of losing their livelihood. Also widespread suppression of free speech rights/democracy disincentivizes common workers from speaking out when there are issues or valid criticisms of policies.
In the modern era, while I may not be a big fan of the government's wide berth when it comes to online surveillance, it allows them closely to monitor activist groups and the general temperament of their population. They do use this information to prosecute people, but they also can use the information gathered to adjust policy and maintain the legitimacy of their power.
