The Oddest Conspiracies that Ever Saw the Light of Day

1. A Modernization Plan That Backfired and Killed Tens of Millions

Mao and his followers sought to revolutionize China’s countryside, where most of the population toiled as peasants. So they prohibited private farms, and ordered mandatory agricultural collectivization. Private farm plots were combined into big fields that belonged to the entire community. The theory was that economies of scale would come into play, and the big collectivized fields would prove more efficient and productive than the small plots. However, poor planning led to poor implementation of collectivization, and the yield of the big fields turned out to be less than that of the private plots.

Additionally, the Great Leap Forward emphasized ideological purity and fervor, rather than competence. So collectivization was led by enthusiastic and zealous overseers, instead of capable and competent managers. A series of natural disasters from 1959 to 1961 made things worse. The result was history’s greatest manmade disaster. By 1960, it was obvious that the plan for the Great Leap Forward had not been well thought out, but by then it was too late. The diversion of labor from farms to ill-advised industries such as backyard furnaces, plus the disruptions of collectivization, combined to produce a catastrophe. Between 1959 to 1962, up to 55 million Chinese starved to death or otherwise perished because of the screw-ups caused by the Great Leap Forward.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Becker, Jasper – Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine (1998)

Business Insider, May 17^th, 2016 – Here’s the Story of How the Hunt Brothers Tried to Corner the Silver Market

Cookridge, E. H. – The Baron of Arizona (1967)

Cracked – 6 Flat-Out Crazy Conspiracy Theories (That Really Happened)

De Blecourt, Willem, and Davies, Owen – Witchcraft Continued: Popular Magic in Modern Europe (2004)

Discover Magazine, February 26^th, 2014 – Paved With Good Intentions: Mao Tse Tung’s ‘Four Pests’ Disaster

Encyclopedia Britannica – Great Leap Forward

Fall, Bernard B. – Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (1967)

Guardian, The, February 4^th, 1999 – Zinoviev Letter Was Dirty Trick By MI6

Guardian, The, October 9^th, 2014 – Satanic Panic: How British Agents Stoked Supernatural Fears in Troubles

History Collection – Conspiracy Theories About Our Founding Fathers

Imperial War Museums – Grenade, Anti-Tank, No 74 Mk I (‘Sticky Bomb’)

Independent, The, February 4^th, 1999 – Official: Zinoviev Letter Was Forged

New York Times, December 15^th, 2010 – Mao’s Great Leap to Famine

Powell, Donald M. – The Peralta Grant: James Addison Reavis and the Barony of Arizona (1960)

Petre, Francis Loraine – Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia, 1806 (2004)

Priceonomics – How the Hunt Brothers Cornered the Silver Market and Then Lost it All

Shapiro, Judith – Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China (2001)

Spartacus Educational – Zinoviev Letter

True West Magazine, November 21^st, 2017 – The Great Swindler James Addison Reavis

Weeks, John – Men Against Tanks: A History of Anti-Tank Warfare (1975)

Wikimedia – James Reavis