Chuck, thank you for posting these documents in the Digital Archive. I should perhaps mention how I came across the Gansu document. Some years ago I and an (American-Japanese) colleague flew out to Lanzhou for a few days of research at the municipal archives. I got the idea to visit the archives from reading Frank Dikotter’s book and in fact while I was there I had the book in my backpack. The first question I heard from the archive’s director was whether I was in any way connected to the “Dutchman” (荷兰人). Needless to say, I disclaimed any knowledge of such a person. I more or less followed Frank’s endnotes, entering one document after another (of course I also looked for other documents, using the archive’s digital 目录). The document in question appeared exactly where it was supposed to appear, and I printed it out along with many other documents. I recently sent the document to Chuck, but Frank Dikotter later sent me a better copy, which is the one that can now be viewed in the Digital Archive under http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/123036. I would like to thank Frank Dikotter for supplying his copy of the document, and also Chuck for uploading it to the Digital Archive so that now other scholars can read it without going as far as Lanzhou (not to discourage anyone from visiting this exotic destination).

There was a long exchange about this particular document a few years back, between Frank Dikotter and Warren Sun. The exchange was on a closed list-serv, which is too bad, because it is not easily accessible. To summarize, there was a number of disagreements both about the date of the document, whether or not it reflected Mao’s verbatim comments or whether it was something that was subsequently written up, and, most importantly, whether the passage about people dying was quoted out of context. Frank Dikotter defended his interpretation of the passage by citing similar passages, including Mao’s infamous remarks at the 1957 Moscow Conference concerning the consequences of a nuclear war. He also argued that it was a strange thing to say in the middle of a famine, and also in the middle of a conference in which the Chairman urged his underlings to get at the grain before the villagers could. This was a useful debate, though one thing I regret was that it was somewhat acrimonious and contained allegations about Frank Dikotter’s work, which I personally found unfortunate. Irrespective of how we look at the document (and my reading of the passage leads me to think that Mao was referring to industrial projects as “people”), it is important to keep things in perspective. Interpretations are constantly challenged and errors are corrected – this is the whole point of academic work. The key thing is to provide references, so that other scholars can follow in one’s footsteps. And if you feel really generous, donate your documents to the Digital Archive: http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org after your books and articles are published.