Mao vs Sparrows

 

Humans have always searched for easier steps and easier alternatives to solve any problems, but for most of the part these easy steps often end up doing more harm than good. One such example we find in history is the haphazard decision of the People’s Republic Of China leader Mao Zedong.

 

The year is 1958 , it has been eight years since the Chinese civil war had ended , the entire nation is under a communist rule under the communist party of china. The 23 year long civil war had ravaged the entire nation causing most of the people to live under poverty and die of hunger.Mao Zedong  the chairman of the People’s Republic Of China is under constant pressure to improve the condition of his nation and to feed his people.

 

Mao feels that the sparrows are eating up to much of the grain and hence the production of food is less. He thought that getting rid of these sparrows will help him boost the nation.So he came up with a plan  “The Four Pests Campaign” , the campaign was basically get rid of some pests in China and ofcourse sparrows were one of them.

The basic idea was to reduce the number of sparrows till such extent that they became extinct.  

People  were mobilized to eradicate the birds, the citizens would use huge nets to catch the sparrows , many sparrow nests were tore down , people played drums to scare away the sparrows and to keep them flying until they died of exhaustion.

The result was a famine which China had never seen before. People starved and ran out of anything to eat, millions lost their lives due to it,people began to eat whatever they could find.Mass killings took place for food,children killed their parents,parents killing children ,neighbours killing each other and if anyone was found hoarding food then they were to be executed.The people of China lived under constant fear,environmental disaster and terror.

 

The reason??? Well it turned out that sparrows not only ate the grains but mostly ate the insects and other pests.Due to the sudden extinction of the sparrows there were very few animals to actually keep a check on the ever growing insect population. Just after an year of the campaign China was attacked by locusts and the entire farming industry was ruined. The government was not able to complete its target and this hasty,easy measure thought by Mao ended up causing more problems than what China started with.

 

In order to save  his country from this environmental crisis Mao turned to his faithful communist neighbour the Soviet Union for help. The Soviet Union responded by exporting 250,000 sparrows to China to replenish their population

References:- Vintage News,Wikipedia,Quora.