Comment on the validity of animal extermination...
Eldritch@piefed.world 1 week ago This is always the problem with runaway states. Small stupid by individuals can lead to hardships. Big stupid by unanswerable states leads to catastrophe and atrocity. And this wasn’t even the only way Mao made the famine worse.
Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 1 week ago
It’s extra bad because the Soviets had already experienced similar problems under Stalin decades prior and their advisors were pushing China to avoid them, although in a way China probably reasonably found subordinating and condescending. That brought about the Sino Soviet split. While that might not have been one of the biggest factors, it definitely didn’t help. Ironically, while Mao failed to learn from Stalin’s mistakes, future leaders reversed course on a lot of Stalinist and Maoist policies. China became an industrial world power. I guess we’ll see where it goes from here.