In 1958, Chinese dictator Mao Tse Tung (also known as "Mao Zedung"), implemented as part of his "Great Leap Forward" (a plan to industrialize Red China and perfect a socialistic utopia) the "Four Evils Campaign." This was a militant extravaganza directed at the elimination of four natural pests--rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows.
With the same type of patriotic fervor and eye-catching propaganda displayed by various nations in mobilizing their citizens during World War II, Mao exhorted everyone in the population over the age of five to engage in a full-court press to destroy every sparrow in the nation. Hordes of schoolchildren and adults combed the countryside killing the birds, destroying their nests, and beating gongs at night to interrupt their roosting. The campaign resulted in the massacre of approximately 1 billion birds with only a few survivors, including a handful which had unknowingly obtained sanctuary on the grounds of the Polish embassy.
What did the government have against sparrows? Sparrows eat grain, and the officials wanted to protect the grain stores from consumption by the birds. Unfortunately, the government overlooked the fact that sparrows also eat insects. Without the predation of the sparrows, the locust population ballooned drastically and swarmed and destroyed vast amounts of rice and other grains in the fields. The resulting famine from 1958-1962 killed some 20 to 30 million people through starvation. Eventually, the government realized its boo-boo and substituted bed bugs for sparrows as a target for elimination.
Sometimes, it is not a good idea for politicians to pretend that they know science.
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| China Government, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
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