28. Maoist China Paid a High Price for The Chairman’s Failure to Understand or Respect Nature
The key to understanding the “Smash Sparrows Campaign” is the fact that Chairman Mao did not understand the natural world. In many ways, he actually despised nature and thought it should give way to human needs and wants. Notions such as living in harmony with the natural world and refraining from doing it harm were dismissed as backward spirituality and superstition that held people back, or decadent Western fru-fru. The Maoist worldview, which was inculcated among the masses via propaganda, indoctrination, repression, censorship, and utopian promises, actively pitted humans against nature.
Mao’s government repeatedly urged people to “conquer nature“, and in 1958, he famously declared: “Make the high mountain bow its head; make the river yield the way“. In short, Mao was not exactly an environmentalist or conservationist. The idea that sparrows might have an important role in maintaining an ecological balance that benefited people was alien to him and his acolytes. Mao’s subjects paid a dear price for the Chairman’s failure to grasp that. As seen below, the sparrow extermination campaign contributed to the deaths of tens of millions.
