Talk:Great Chinese Famine

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Infobox

The below infobox belongs on the page as it is relevant to the cultural revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cultural_Revolution — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kenixkil (talk • contribs) 03:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kenixkil (talk) 22:40, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's relevant, but it was not an event of the Cultural Revolution, so I wouldn't include the navbox on the page. Remsense聊 22:42, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Death toll table

The table is very long and mixes statistical estimates with guesstimates by historians. Would it make sense to split the table into two, or convert all non-statistical estimates into paragraph format? SocDoneLeft (talk) 12:24, 10 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, how would you distinguish the two? Gawaon (talk) 15:48, 10 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Gawaon: Papers or books which ran some kind of regression vs those which did not. SocDoneLeft (talk) 17:22, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

So you are saying that a historian who made an estimate after carefully researching the situation on the ground is somehow less qualified than a mathematician who put an arbitrary formula together to derive a result that's mathematically sound but largely unrelated to the actual situation? If so, I would be unconvinced. Dividing better from more or less arbitrary estimates could be useful, but I doubt it's primarily a question of maths. Gawaon (talk) 17:43, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Let me try two replies:

1. To divide more from less arbitrary estimates: Would you accept a divided version of the table, with one section for estimates where the method of estimation is known (and listed in the table), and one section for estimates where it is not?

2. I admit, "only regression models" went too far. But consider: When you look at, eg, the death toll of the Jewish Holocaust, the high-quality estimates almost all come from internal Nazi killing estimates; other list / tabular datasets, like payments to Deutschebahn; or demographic comparisons of pre- and post-war Jewish populations. For this famine, we have no killing estimates (because it was not an orchestrated mass murder), nor obvious tabular datasets. We're stuck with demographic estimates. High-quality demographic estimation of mass death is inherently based on mathematical models: Why? Because you want to estimate the "abnormal" or "excess" deaths. To do so, you need to estimate the counterfactual (population without the event, not including births prevented by the event). Then you subtract the actual from the counterfactual. This requires estimation (or guesstimation) of {population, birth rates, and death rates} - {before, during, and after} the event. Non-mathematical historical evidence can inform which guesses are best, of course! But any estimate which does not provide their demographic model has failed to inform the reader, IMO. SocDoneLeft (talk) 22:03, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that dividing "high-quality" from low-quality estimates seems to require OR, which we can't do here. Gawaon (talk) 22:11, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Gawaon: I agree and disagree. We can't choose "high-quality sources". But we can divide sources by their methods without OR, no? (Or, at least, add that column to the table.) SocDoneLeft (talk) 23:43, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but how? Above you have already noted that the distinction is not so easy to make. Gawaon (talk) 08:11, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

v t e Cultural Revolution
Prelude	Anti-Rightist Campaign Great Chinese Famine Great Leap Forward Hai Rui Dismissed from Office Liu Zhidan Lushan Conference Seven Thousand Cadres Conference Sino-Soviet split Socialist Education Movement Fengqiao experience Taoyuan Experience
Major events	Down to the Countryside Movement Cleansing the Class Ranks 12-3 incident January Storm February Countercurrent Great Exchange of Revolutionary Experience 1967 Hong Kong riots Wuhan incident Smashing gong-jian-fa Meridian Gate Anti-Burma Rally Arson attacks on the British Chargé d'affaires Office 9th Party Congress One Strike-Three Anti Campaign Abolition of the presidency in China Project 571 Lin Biao incident 10th Party Congress Black Painting incident Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius Snail Incident Hangzhou incident 1975 Banqiao Dam failure Counterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal-of-Verdicts Trend 1976 Nanjing incident 1976 Tiananmen incident Smashing the Gang of Four
Massacres	Red August Daxing Massacre Guangxi Massacre Inner Mongolia incident Guangdong Massacre Yangjiang Massacre Hunan Massacres Daoxian massacre Shaoyang County Massacre Yunnan Massacres Zhao Jianmin spy case Shadian incident Ruijin Massacre Qinghai 223 Incident
Key figures	Mao Zedong Liu Shaoqi Zhou Enlai Lin Biao Deng Xiaoping Gang of Four (Jiang Qing Zhang Chunqiao Yao Wenyuan Wang Hongwen) Peng Dehuai Wu Han Peng Zhen Tao Zhu Chen Boda Wang Dongxing Xie Fuzhi Ji Dengkui Wang Li Qi Benyu Wu Faxian Qiu Huizuo Yang Chengwu Chen Zaidao Kang Sheng Mao Yuanxin Hua Guofeng Ye Jianying
Documents	1970 Draft Constitution A List of Cadres to Be Protected Bombard the Headquarters Quotations from Chairman Mao May 16 Notification Six Articles of Public Security Sweep Away All Cow Demons and Snake Spirits On Class Origins On the Abolition of Bourgeois Rights "With you in charge, I'm at ease"
Concepts	Four Olds Newborn socialist things Struggle session Feudal fascism Big-character poster Cow demons and snake spirits Bloodline theory Continuous Revolution Theory Seizure of power Violent Struggle One Divides into Two Democracy Wall Eight model plays Loyalty dance Capitalist roader Peaceful Evolution theory Yiku sitian Learn from Daqing in industry Learn from Dazhai in agriculture Stinking Old Ninth Five Black Categories Five Red Categories Four Greats Three Loyalties and Four Limitlessnesses Two Newspapers and One Journal Both red and expert
Groups	61 Renegades 8341 Special Regiment Barefoot doctor Central Case Examination Group Central Organization and Propaganda Leading Group Cultural Revolution Group Five Man Group Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Teams May Seventh Cadre School May Sixteenth elements Red Guards Conservative Faction Little Red Guards Rebel Faction Scarlet Guards Ultra-Left Faction Xiaoyao Faction Revolutionary committee in Beijing in Fujian in Heilongjiang in Shanghai Sent-down youth Hunan Provincial Proletarian Revolutionary Great Alliance Committee Worker-Peasant-Soldier student Xiang River Storm and Thunder
Related topics	Maoism Mao Zedong's cult of personality Mango cult Case of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Counter-Revolutionary Cliques List of campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party Class struggle Two Whatevers Morning Sun (film) Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee Boluan Fanzheng New Enlightenment Scar literature Evaluation of the Cultural Revolution Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China
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