Page 134 - Communism in Ambush

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sparrows had been eating, and they
damaged agricultural production
much more than the sparrows ever
had.
A Agriculture Without Fertilizer:
Following Lysenko's recommenda-
tions, Chinese Communists stopped
using chemical fertilizer. (It was
imagined that when seeds were de-
prived of fertilizer, they would
"evolve" by adapting to this new situ-
ation thus ensuring the same yield
A propaganda poster for the Great
without the use of fertilizing addi- Leap depicts Mao as an agricultural
tives.) This experiment caused yet genius in a rich field. However,
another great loss in agricultural Mao's reliance on and implementa-
tion of Lysenko's methods resulted
production.
in an agricultural disaster.
All these initiatives, relying as
they did on Lysenko's myth of evo-
lution, caused the greatest famine in
history. But although millions were dying of starvation, no one dared
criticize the regime or the calamity it caused. One individual, General
Peng Dehuai, the defense minister, wrote Mao a letter in which he tried
to describe this disastrous famine. Later he was accused of being a
"rightist" and was eliminated. During the famine, official reports all fal-
sified the situation by saying that brilliant results had been achieved in
agricultural production. Moreover, in order to convince the world of this
lie, China exported vast amounts of grain. While people were dying of
starvation in some areas of the country, grain and rice were being kept in
warehouses, later to be exported. 85
Later, the same agricultural policy was put into effect in
Communist Cambodia and North Korea, with the same results: a great
lack of productivity, famine and mass death. Blindly and without
awareness or intelligence, Communists applied Lysenko and Stalin's
"Communist leap in agriculture," because the theory of evolution at the
base of their materialist philosophy demanded it.