Survival depended on disobedience, but the many strategies of survival devised by people at all levels, from farmers hiding the grain to local cadres cooking the account books, also tended to prolong the life of the regime. They became a part of the system.

It may be tempting to glorify what appears at first sight to be a morally appealing culture of resistance by ordinary people, but when food was finite, one individual’s gain was all too often another’s loss.

‘When you are poor you are inclined to be revolutionary. Blank paper is ideal for writing.’

Some 30 million people were recruited in October 1957. By January one in six people was digging earth in China.

But most of the time buildings made of mud and straw were torn down to provide nutrients for the soil.

Human waste extended to hair, and in some Guangdong villages women were forced to shave their heads to contribute fertiliser or face a ban from the canteen.17

Elsewhere in the province farmers were conscripted to sow more than 250 kilos of kernels on a single hectare: by the end of the season the yield per hectare turned out to be a paltry 525 kilos of peanuts.

In what is one of the most bizarre and ecologically damaging episodes of the Great Leap Forward, the country was mobilised in an all-out war against the birds. Banging on drums, clashing pots or beating gongs, a giant din was raised to keep the sparrows flying till they were so exhausted that they simply dropped from the sky. Eggs were broken and nestlings destroyed; the birds were also shot out of the air. Timing was of the essence, as the entire country was made to march in lockstep in the battle against the enemy, making sure that the sparrows had nowhere to escape. In cities people took to the roofs, while in the countryside farmers dispersed to the hillsides and climbed trees in the forests, all at the same hour to ensure complete victory.