On February 12, 1958, Chinese leader Mao Zedong signed a historic decree to eradicate all rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows in the country.
The idea of launching a large-scale campaign, which became part of the Great Leap Forward political program, was born on February 18, 1957 at the regular congress of the Chinese Communist Party. It was initiated, oddly enough, by the biologist Zhou Jian, who at that time was the country's deputy education minister.
He was convinced that the mass destruction of sparrows and rats would lead to an unprecedented flourishing of agriculture.
They say that the Chinese cannot overcome hunger in any way because they are "eaten right in the fields by gluttonous sparrows." Zhou Jian convinced the party members that Frederick the Great allegedly conducted a similar campaign in his time, and its results were very inspiring.
Mao Zedong did not have to be persuaded. He spent his childhood in the village and knew firsthand about the eternal confrontation between peasants and pests.
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The decree was happily signed by him, and soon all over the country the Chinese with the slogans "Long live the great Mao" rushed to destroy the small representatives of the fauna designated in the decree of their leader.
With flies, mosquitoes and rats, somehow it did not work out right away. Rats, adapted to survive in any conditions up to a nuclear winter, did not want to be exterminated completely. The flies and mosquitoes did not seem to notice the war declared by them. The sparrows were the scapegoats.
At first, they tried to poison and trap the birds. But such methods proved to be ineffective. Then they decided to "starve out" the sparrows. Seeing birds, any Chinese tried to scare them, forcing them to stay in the air as long as possible.
Old people, schoolchildren, children, men, women waved rags from morning till night, knocked on pots, yelled, whistled, forcing the mad birds to flit from one Chinese to another. The method proved to be effective. Sparrows simply couldn't stay in the air for more than 15 minutes. Exhausted, they fell to the ground, after which they were finished off and stored in huge heaps.
It is clear that not only sparrows were hit, but all small birds in general. To inspire the already enthusiastic Chinese, the press regularly published photographs of multi-meter mountains of bird carcasses. It was a common practice to remove schoolchildren from lessons, give them slingshots and send them to shoot any small birds, to destroy their nests. Particularly distinguished schoolchildren were given certificates.
In the first three days of the campaign alone, nearly a million birds were killed in Beijing and Shanghai. And in almost a year of such active actions, they lost two billion sparrows and other small birds. The Chinese were jubilant, celebrating the victory. By that time, no one even remembered about rats, flies and mosquitoes. They gave up on them, because it is extremely difficult to fight them.
It was much more fun to kill sparrows. There were no particular opponents of this campaign, either among scientists or among environmentalists. This is understandable: protests and objections, even the most timid ones, would be perceived as anti-partyism.
By the end of 1958, there were practically no birds left in China. TV announcers described it as an incredible achievement for the country. The Chinese gasped with pride. No one even doubted the correctness of the actions of the party and their own.
In 1959, an unprecedented harvest was born in "wingless" China. Even skeptics, if any, were forced to admit that anti-thistle measures have borne fruit. Of course, everyone noticed that there was a noticeable increase in all kinds of caterpillars, locusts, aphids and other pests, but given the volume of the crop, all this seemed insignificant.
The Chinese were able to fully assess these costs a year later. In 1960, agricultural pests proliferated in such a volume that it was difficult to see and understand what kind of crop they were eating at the moment. The Chinese were confused. Now entire schools and industries were again removed from work and study - this time in order to collect caterpillars. But all these measures were absolutely useless. Not numerically regulated in a natural way (as small birds used to do), insects multiplied at a terrifying rate. They quickly devoured the entire crop and set about destroying the forests. The locusts and caterpillars feasted, and famine began in the country.
From TV screens, they tried to feed the Chinese with stories that all these are temporary difficulties and that everything will work out soon. But you won't be full of promises. The famine was serious - people were dying en masse. They ate leather things, the same locusts, and some even ate fellow citizens. Panic began in the country.
Party members also panicked. According to the most conservative estimates, about 30 million people died from the famine that fell on the country in China. Then the management finally remembered that all the troubles began with the extermination of the sparrows.
For help, China turned to the Soviet Union and Canada - they asked to urgently send them birds. The Soviet and Canadian leaders, of course, were surprised, but responded to the call. Sparrows were delivered to China in whole wagons. Now birds have already begun to feast - nowhere else in the world has there been such a food base as the incredible populations of insects that literally covered China. Since then, China has had a particularly reverent attitude towards sparrows.
Author: Sergey Yuriev