Four Pests Campaign (1958-1962)
Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” targeted rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows as agricultural enemies. Chinese citizens killed sparrows by millions, banging pots until the birds dropped from exhaustion. Without sparrows eating insects, locust populations exploded. Crops disappeared under swarms of unchecked pests. The ecological chain reaction triggered a famine, killing up to 45 million people in history’s deadliest human-caused disaster.
