Mao's Great Famine May 2026

: Peasants were ordered to melt down their cooking pots, tools, and doorknobs in crude furnaces to produce steel. This resulted in useless, low-quality pig iron and left farmers with no tools to till the land.

: Mao ordered the extermination of sparrows, believing they ate grain. Instead, the loss of sparrows led to a locust plague that devastated crops. The Collapse: A Man-Made Disaster Mao's Great Famine

: Private farming was abolished, and villagers were forced into massive communes of up to 20,000 households. : Peasants were ordered to melt down their