作者：冯仍
编辑：胡丽莉 责任编辑：鲁慧文 翻译：鲁慧文
今天我读到一篇2012年7月13日的旧文，时任中共中央政策研究室主任王沪宁在《学习时报》上发表的长文《文革反思与政治体制改革》。这篇文章在十八大前夕刊出，经过五次修改才定稿，背景极其特殊。当年胡锦涛将要交权习近平，党内对“文革”记忆与现实政治暗流涌动。文章中最引人注目的，不是所谓的“制度反思”，而是王沪宁亲口承认：“大跃进饿死四千多万人”。
这句话的分量极重。过去，关于大饥荒的死亡人数众说纷纭。官方长期回避，只用“1960年全国人口比上年减少1000万”来模糊带过。而社会上、学界与海外研究，数字在2000万到4500万之间不等。直到王沪宁以“中共中央政策研究室主任”的身份明确写出“饿死四千多万人”，这就意味着：哪怕在体制内部，这一惨烈数字也被承认为不可否认的历史事实。
中共官方一直称1959—1961年为“三年自然灾害”或“困难时期”。但大量档案与学术研究表明，天灾并非主要原因。华东师范大学教授杨奎松就指出，1958-1960年各省的气象记录并没有显示严重的天灾，真正的原因是政策性错误。
大跃进时期，高指标、浮夸风、人民公社和公共食堂，构成了大饥荒的三大根源。1958年虚报产量 “放开肚皮吃饭” ，粮食被集中进公社食堂，农民家中颗粒无存。与此同时，国家继续高征购，导致农民人均口粮不足一斤，重灾区甚至只剩几两。河南信阳事件就是极端案例：虚报产量，强征口粮，结果至少一百万人饿死。讽刺的是，当地粮库依旧满仓，而农民宁饿死也不敢抢，正如学者胡平所说，这是此前血腥运动制造的恐惧在作祟。
至于“苏联逼债”的说法，更是事后推卸责任。档案显示，苏联不仅没有逼债，还在1961年提供了上百万吨粮食援助。真正的决定，是毛泽东自行下令提前还债。
独立学者杨继绳的《墓碑》、冯客的《毛的大饥荒》，都提供了详实数据。杨继绳通过多年研究，认定饿死3600万人，少出生4000万人，共计7600万人生命消失。冯客则根据档案估算死亡人数高达4500万。中国统计局前局长李成瑞估算2200万，茅于轼、刘宾雁等均认定超过3000万。这些不同数字虽然有差距，但都指向一个结论：大饥荒是一场导致数千万非正常死亡的巨大人祸。
而王沪宁的“四千万”说，正好落在学界共识的区间内。这说明，即便在中共最高层，内部知情者早已心知肚明。
今天重读这段历史，心情异常沉重。一个政权如果连几千万生命的逝去都要掩盖、淡化、推诿，那么它的历史观和执政合法性就必然是脆弱的。王沪宁在2012年的文字，原本似乎想为体制“拨乱反正”，但他之后十年却成为新一轮极端主义的帮凶，这更凸显出中共内部的虚伪与自我矛盾。
大饥荒不是天灾，而是制度灾难。它揭示出高度集权、缺乏监督与信息封锁的政治体制，必然导致大规模的人道惨剧。社会制度不改，文革类灾难会反复重演。
几千万条生命消逝在饥荒的黑暗中，他们不是数字，而是每一个有血有肉的中国人。他们的饥饿与死亡，是历史永远抹不去的血账。无论当权者如何掩盖，真相终会昭然若揭。
Wang Huning Admits “40 Million Starved to Death” and the Truth of the Great Famine
Summary:
In 2012, Wang Huning admitted in Study Times that “over 40 million people starved to death during the Great Leap Forward.” Scholars generally agree that the Great Famine was not a natural disaster but the result of inflated production targets, false reporting, and the people’s communes with communal canteens, leading to tens of millions of unnatural deaths. The famine was a man-made catastrophe rooted in the system, and this blood account of history will ultimately be settled.
Author: Feng Reng
Editor: Hu Lili Executive Editor: Lu Huiwen Translator: Lu Huiwen
Today I read an old article dated July 13, 2012, in which Wang Huning—then Director of the CCP’s Central Policy Research Office—published a long essay in Study Times titled Reflections on the Cultural Revolution and Political System Reform. The piece appeared on the eve of the 18th Party Congress, finalized only after five revisions, against an extraordinarily sensitive backdrop: Hu Jintao preparing to hand power to Xi Jinping, with memories of the Cultural Revolution and undercurrents of current politics colliding.
What stood out most in the article was not its so-called “institutional reflection,” but Wang Huning’s explicit admission: “Over 40 million people starved to death during the Great Leap Forward.”
This sentence carries enormous weight. For decades, the death toll of the Great Famine had been subject to dispute. Official accounts long evaded it, vaguely stating only that “China’s population decreased by 10 million in 1960 compared to the previous year.” Independent research, both inside and outside China, placed the number between 20 million and 45 million. That Wang, in his capacity as Director of the CCP’s Policy Research Office, put into print “over 40 million starved to death” signaled that even within the system, this staggering figure was acknowledged as undeniable historical fact.
The CCP officially referred to 1959–1961 as the “Three Years of Natural Disasters” or “Three Years of Hardship.” Yet archival evidence and academic studies demonstrate that natural calamities were not the main cause. Yang Kuisong, professor at East China Normal University, noted that meteorological records from 1958–1960 showed no major disasters. The true causes were policy errors.
During the Great Leap Forward, inflated quotas, falsified yields, the people’s communes, and communal dining halls formed the core roots of the famine. In 1958, exaggerated reports of bumper harvests led to the slogan “Eat your fill,” with grain concentrated into communal canteens, leaving nothing in farmers’ homes. At the same time, the state maintained high procurement levels, resulting in rations of less than half a kilo per person per day—sometimes mere ounces in the hardest-hit areas. The Xinyang Incident in Henan is a notorious example: inflated yields and forced grain requisitions led to the starvation of at least one million people. Grimly, local granaries remained full, but terror from previous bloody campaigns left villagers too afraid to seize grain, even to save their lives.
As for the claim that the Soviet Union demanded debt repayment—it was little more than retrospective scapegoating. Archives reveal that not only did the USSR not press for repayment, but in 1961 it provided over one million tons of grain aid. The decision to repay early was Mao Zedong’s alone.
Independent scholar Yang Jisheng’s Tombstone and Frank Dikötter’s Mao’s Great Famine both supply extensive data. Yang’s years of research concluded that 36 million died of starvation, and 40 million fewer were born, totaling 76 million lives lost. Dikötter’s archival work estimated 45 million deaths. Li Chengrui, former head of China’s National Bureau of Statistics, estimated 22 million. Mao Yushi, Liu Binyan, and others placed it above 30 million. Though the figures differ, they all point to one conclusion: the Great Famine was a man-made calamity that caused tens of millions of unnatural deaths.
Wang Huning’s figure of 40 million falls squarely within the scholarly consensus. This indicates that even at the highest levels of the CCP, insiders had long known the truth.
Rereading this history today, I feel an overwhelming heaviness. A regime that must conceal, downplay, or deflect responsibility for the deaths of tens of millions cannot help but reveal the fragility of its historical narrative and political legitimacy. Wang’s words in 2012 might have seemed like an attempt at “rectifying the record,” but his subsequent decade as an architect of new extremism only underscores the hypocrisy and contradictions within the CCP.
The Great Famine was no natural disaster—it was a systemic disaster. It demonstrates how a highly centralized, unsupervised, and information-sealed political system inevitably produces mass humanitarian catastrophes. Without systemic change, Cultural Revolution-style tragedies will recur.
Tens of millions of lives perished in the darkness of famine. They are not numbers, but flesh-and-blood human beings. Their hunger and deaths are a blood account history cannot erase. However much the rulers try to conceal it, the truth will ultimately stand revealed.
