Telling the Truth: China’s Great Leap Forward, Household Registration and the Famine Death Tally

Yang Songlin has worked as a senior researcher at the Provincial Development Research Center of Henan and the Institute of Chinese Economic Systemic Reform in Beijing. His focus of research is on political economy and social history. He has published many papers, and his books include An Economic History of Henan (Kaifeng: Henan People’s Publisher, 1988), West China: New Direction of Development and Reform (Beijing: Current Affairs Press, 1988); Economic Development at the County Level (Kaifeng: Henan People’s Publisher, 1992); Dao and Tianxia: Debates on Issues concerning Contemporary World (Hong Kong: Dafeng Publisher, 2008); and The Truth Must be Told (Haikou: Nanhai Publishing Co., 2013).

• 1.Introduction: Someone Must Finally Speak the Truth.- 2.Current Research and Dilemmas.- 3.How to Resolve the Statistical Dilemma.- 4.Causes of Two Sets of Population Growth Data and Data Adjustment.- 5.Bewildering Birth Data: Origin and Adjustment.- 6.Astounding Death Figures, Cause and Adjustments.- 7.There were 2.6-4 million deaths in the three years of difficulty in excess of normal years.- 8.Institutional Constraints on China’s Population Statistics.- 9.Problems in the Research of a Number of Chinese Scholars.- 10.Other Research and Findings.- 11.Tombstone: A Most Influential Work.- 12.The Extent of Natural Disasters.- 13.An Analysis on Policy Factors.- 14 Are Socialism, Planned Economy and Collectivism Responsible for the Calamities?.- 15.Concluding Remarks.