“The national mobilization to exterminate the "Four Pests"... was the first of a series of disasters precipitated by the Great Helmsman after the Anti-Rightist Campaign. "National mobilisation" meant that all 500 million people in China stopped work in order to take up a single specific task — in this case, the extermination of sparrows, flies, mosquitoes, and rats.” ChinaCommunismMao ZedongChinese History Book:The Bitter Sea: Coming of Age in a China Before Mao Source: The Bitter Sea: Coming of Age in a China Before Mao