Programme

This paper considers the famine of the immediate post war period 1946/47 in relation to the food problems experienced by the USSR in WW2 and to the impact of the weather conditions in the 1941-47 period. Many analysts claim that the famine conforms to a general Stalinist pattern of Stalin using the famine to punish the peasantry in circumstances where harsh procurements were not necessary. The evidence considered in this paper does not support such a claim. By contrast this paper argues that in terms of the timing and the nature of the extreme food problem this famine conforms to a general pattern of Soviet famines in which a number of years of urban food problems leads to pressure on the peasantry and a general reductions of stocks, which then places the country in a dangerous position when confronted by drought and harvest failure.

Centred on Henan Province, China, the North-Central Plains Famine in 1942-43 claimed about 2-3 million lives and at least a similar number fled in search of food. In the 1920-30s, famine strucked the same region several time. Less than 20 years later, Henan was one of the worst affected areas of China’s Great Leap Forward (GLF) Famine of 1958-62 that claimed about 30 million lives, the worse famine in total deaths to date. Drawing on a variety of archive and recent Chinese-language research, this paper will explore the causes and consequences of the Henan famine. According to many contemporary accounts the famine was not just the consequence of nature’s cruelty to a region that has frequently been dealt a bad hand. It was primarily a famine resulting from human action and the folly of state policy in a front-line contested zone. Analysing the 1942 Henan famine helps shed light on the dynamics of the GLF famine.

The paper invokes archival and contemporary newspaper sources in arguing the case that while the Bengal famine occurred in a time of food scarcity, the fundamental reason for the famine was its wartime context, and the refusal of the authorities to prioritize the Bengal poor over the requirements of their military campaign.

This paper examines recent research into mortality and survival during the famine resulting from the blockade of Leningrad by the German and Finnish armies that began in September 1941. With nearly three million civilians trapped in the city, rations soon at starvation level, public utilities at a standstill, and an exceptionally bitter winter, the death rate soared, producing a demographic catastrophe unprecedented in an urban setting and a developed country. Access to declassified Russian archives has made it possible to produce detailed analyses of 'nutritional dystrophy', the prime cause of death in the winter of 1941-42. At the same time, many people did not die, despite their rations apparently being incapable of sustaining life for more than a short period. The paper reviews documentary and oral sources that shed light on physiological and psychological factors that made for survival in appalling conditions.

While enjoying a long period of peace under the rule of the Tokugawa (1603-1867), associated with regional specialization and a relatively high degree of market integration, the Japanese population experienced severe famines that claimed several hundred thousands lives. The most dramatic episodes of the 18th and 19th century occurred in 1731-1733, 1783-1786, and 1833-1838. As agricultural practices, crop mix, and degree of commercialization and specialization varied across Japan, it is worth considering the possibility of regional differences of economic systems in response to exogenous shocks. This paper evaluates the degree of market integration and investigates how regional markets functioned during famines.

CCP leaders and academics have argued for fifty years over what role bad weather played in the Great Leap Famine of 1959-61. Some have claimed that it was entirely caused by natural disaster, while others have claimed that bad weather was not the main cause of the famine. However, the quality of the data presented in support of one or other argument have tended to be either highly selective or systemic biased: Liu Shaoqi's argument that weather was no more than 30% of the problem was based on the fact that the fishpond in his hometown had not entirely dried up whereas it had in a drought in his youth (sample size N = 1); Y.Y. Kueh's argument that the weather in the famine period was truly awful is based on analysis of natural disaster data, an official tally of the reported acreage where yields fell short of the highly ambitious levels set by the early Communist government.

This paper attempts a systematic analysis of the weather in China during the Great Leap Famine, using a set of monthly meteorological data. The weather patterns corresponding to several pre-49 famines are compared with those of the Great Leap Famine. Results of analysis of the meteorological data are also compared with previous studies of reported natural disaster data, and with records of anomalous weather and crop failure collated in imperial and Republican-era gazetteers.

'Famine foods' seems a self-explanatory term but careful reading of the existing literature suggests otherwise. 'Famine foods' seem to suggest repulsive and unfamiliar foods consumed only in famine situations. This paper, using the Greek famine of 1941-43 as a case study, suggests that this is not the case. Starving people continue to use foods that they are familiar with or that other sections of the population are familiar with. The very poor sections of the population may well use fodder food, which nevertheless they are familiar with and which in most cases was also used by some of their members even in 'normal' times.

Studies of men and women exposed to the Dutch famine of 1944-1945 (also known as the ‘Hunger winter’) during different periods of life (before birth, during early childhood or during adolescence) are important because they afford a rare opportunity to look at potential long-term effects of changes in the nutrition environment on health and disease. For ethical and practical reasons it is unlikely that experimental studies in humans to examine these issues could ever be carried out. The circumstances of the Dutch famine, with civilian starvation caused by conditions of war, provide a rare opportunity however to look at the impact of dramatic changes in nutritional exposures that are not normally seen in human populations.

The Dutch famine has several unique features. It was clearly defined in place and time and occurred in a society with a well-developed administrative structure and adequate pre-famine nutrition conditions. The famine was limited to the western Netherlands and particularly affected the people living the largest cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague and Leiden. It was the result of a combination of several circumstances: a national railway strike, a transport embargo on food supplies imposed by the German occupying forces, and an especially severe winter period with the freezing over of canals and waterways that otherwise were used for the transportation of potatoes and grains from the North and of coals from the South, essential for power plants and for domestic heating. The severity and widespread nature of the famine have been extensively documented. Food availability from distributed rations in the western Netherlands declined from adequate pre-famine levels to below 900 kcal per day in January 1945 and to as low as 500 kcal per day by April 1945. Some people obtained additional food from black markets and from bartering but these supplements were not generally available. The famine ceased after liberation by the Allied forces in May 1945, after which food supplies were rapidly distributed across the country. There was a 300gm decline in birth weights of infants born in hospitals in the famine cities and also a 50% reduction in conceptions during the famine. The drop in fertility was greater among the manual than the non-manual occupational classes and was directly related to poor nutrition. After Liberation, fertility was restored and birth weights rapidly returned to pre-famine levels. It is possible in the Netherlands to study famine long term effects by tracing men and women from birth to current address or date and place of death, using the national civil registry system introduced in 1811 by Napoleon during the French occupation.

We will summarize the findings of studies of developmental and adult health outcomes among men and women exposed to the Dutch famine of 1944-1945 compared to non-exposed controls. Studies have used the military examination records of recruits at age 18, psychiatric hospital records for schizophrenia in early adulthood, and screening and follow-up records from population-based samples of adults studied for cancer incidence and mortality. In addition, men and women have been traced from birth and were then medically examined for diabetes, risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and DNA abnormalities.

We will discuss the validity and the potential of these studies for several purposes: to document the severity of the famine among individuals or selected exposure groups; to establish associations between famine exposures early in life and health outcomes later in life; and to generate hypotheses regarding the biology of human adaptations and/or responses to changes in the environment that could be tested in other study populations. We will also discuss pitfalls in the interpretation of study findings in this setting.