It's more complicated than that. While mass starvation did occur, modern Chinese analysis of the records up to and processing from the Great Leap Forward indicate that significant portion of what was reported as death by starvation (likely in excess of ten million, still leaving a staggering twenty million estimated deaths) was unaccounted for population movement that was not recorded on the back end. Basically, you get widespread instances of people dropping out of country records, reported as dead, and then showing up again 20 years later in city census records that they are not supposed to be in, creating a "growth boom" without a correlating increase in birth rates.

Simultaneously, the only reason we even have semi-accurate data on this event is because of the attempts at stringent record keeping by the central planners. Before this point, keeping records of the population sizes of the provincial peasantry was scant to non-existent, with taxation codes being inconsistent between provinces and governments. As such it is nearly impossible to get an accurate read on the scale, frequency and severity of famines in China prior to the CPC. However, it is conservatively estimated that a 'great' famine that would kill anywhere from 5-10 million people would occur every 30-50 years within most of Chinese history. Almost all of these deaths would go unreported. If this is the case, then the famine of the Great Leap Forward represents the last such famine in Chinese history and an unprecedented break from the cycle going forward.

Basically, it was typical historical event, exacerbated by central planning goals, that was recorded because of central planning (with errors being increased by cumulative central planning errors) and then generally solved by that central planning going forward.