The History of Famines and the Governments That Caused Them
June 16, 2026 · Frisian News
The Bengal famine, Soviet collectivization, and Mao's Great Leap Forward all killed tens of millions. Government policy, not food scarcity, caused them.
Between 1943 and 1944, the Bengal famine killed roughly 3 million people. British policy, not crop failure, caused it. Winston Churchill continued exporting rice from India while people starved, and some historians argue his actions were deliberate.
The pattern repeats across history. Stalin's forced collectivization in Ukraine killed 4 to 5 million in the early 1930s. Mao's Great Leap Forward starved 15 to 45 million Chinese between 1958 and 1962. The common thread: central governments seized grain from peasants to fund state projects, regardless of who starved. These were not accidents or natural disasters. They were policies.
Western textbooks often blame crop failure or overpopulation. That is wrong. Crop failure happened before the modern state and killed far fewer people because local networks could shift surplus between regions. The modern famine is a state famine. It happens when a government has both the power to take food and the indifference to ignore the consequences.
Famine also serves a purpose. During collectivization, governments killed dissidents and broke peasant resistance to state control. In Bengal, Churchill's indifference freed up resources for the war effort. Starvation becomes a tool of state power, not a regrettable side effect. When millions die, ask first: who benefited?
Today, we hear about climate change, overpopulation, and supply chains as new threats to food security. We rarely hear about government power. That silence is telling. History shows that the greatest danger to your food supply is not nature. It is a government that controls it.
Published June 16, 2026 · Frisian News