“Friends and relatives encouraged me to erect a gravestone for my father. I thought that even though I was not a high official, I would erect for my father a tombstone grander than any of those others. Then I recalled that in 1958, many of the village's tombstones had been dismantled for use in irrigation projects or as bases for smelting ovens in the steelmaking campaign during the Great Leap Forward; some had been laid out on roadways. The more impressive the monument, the greater the likelihood of it being demolished. My father's tombstone had to be erected not on the ground, but in my heart. A tombstone in the heart could never be demolished or trampled underfoot.” LoveDeathFatherLossGriefFamilyCommunismStarvationFamineTombstone Book:Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 Source: Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962
“At Hongguang Commune, a roadside area of more than 2,000 mu was cleared of more than 180 dwellings. At least 12,000 homes were dismantled throughout the county. Unrelated families were obliged to share quarters, sometimes with domestic fowl. Cadres burst into homes without notice, tossed out belongings, and reduced a house to rubble in an instant. Commune members returning from deployment elsewhere wept upon finding their homes, wives, and children gone. Some families relocated seven times in a year. Cadres ransacked homes, often snatching desirable goods. Some commune members retaliated by hiding snakes in their rice jars.” ChinaSocialismCommunismMarxismMao ZedongMaoismLeninismGreat FamineRed China Book:Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 Source: Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962