Eliminate Sparrows campaign

Origin . In 1955, farmers reported that sparrows were damaging crops. When Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, received these reports, he said sparrows were harmful pest birds and should be eliminated. In January 1956, after discussion by the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and formal adoption by the Supreme State Conference, the expanded version of the Draft Outline was adopted. Article 27 of the Draft Outline stipulated that starting from 1956, rats, sparrows, flies, and mosquitoes should be more or less eliminated in all possible locations within 5, 7, or 12 years, respectively. and the Four Pests campaign was implemented across the country. Subsequently, "sparrow suppression headquarters" () were established in various parts of the country, with local leaders directing efforts, and the Eliminate Sparrows campaign was launched. Newspapers across the country reported on the campaign extensively, often using military headlines and "The Sparrow Extermination Army Has Achieved Brilliant Results". A folk song circulating at the time was called "Beat Drums and Gongs to Eliminate the Four Pests" (): {{Translated blockquote On April 21, 1958, the Beijing Evening News published a poem by famed writer Guo Moruo entitled "Cursing the Sparrow" (), which included the lines: {{Translated blockquote In 1961, Mikhail Antonovich Klochko, an advisor to the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a Soviet chemist, recorded his observations from Beijing three years earlier. Rocket scientist Qian Xuesen, mathematician Hua Luogeng, writer Ba Jin and other high-profile experts actively participated in the sparrow-hunting campaign. The ''People's Daily'' reported at the time that more than 2,000 scientists and staff members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences participated in the "battle". On January 8, 1956, Tso-hsin Cheng, renowned Chinese ornithologist and researcher at the Institute of Zoology in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a lengthy article titled "The Harm of Sparrows and How to Eliminate Them" in the ''People's Daily''. Later, he also compiled pamphlets such as "How to Prevent and Eliminate Sparrows" and "Preventing Sparrow Damage". Nevertheless, Zhu Xi, director of the Institute of Experimental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (who had almost been labeled a rightist in the 1957 Anti-Rightist Movement), Feng Depei, a researcher at the Institute of Physiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, neurophysiologist Zhang Xiangtong, and other scientists demanded that sparrows be "rehabilitated." A firsthand account from a former Sichuan schoolchild at the time of the campaign recounted, "It was fun to 'Wipe out the Four Pests'. The whole school went to kill sparrows. We made ladders to knock down their nests, and beat gongs in the evenings, when they were coming home to roost." To organize and promote the campaign, meetings were held and propaganda posters, leaflets, films and jingles were created. Contributing to the campaign was seen as a citizen's patriotic duty. Tools employed included wire clamps, wire cages, bamboo poles, red flags, firecrackers, stones, slingshots, gongs, megaphones, washbasins, air guns, and scarecrows. The campaign depleted the sparrow population, pushing it to near extinction within China. == Impact ==

Ecological disaster Millions of sparrows were killed. While the campaign was meant to increase yields, concurrent droughts and floods as well as the lacking sparrow population decreased rice yields. The extermination of sparrows upset the ecological balance, which subsequently resulted in surging locust and insect populations that destroyed crops due to a lack of a natural predator. With no sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and pesticides. According to a 2025 study, the anti-sparrow campaign accounted for a nearly 20 percent drop in crop production, leading to the deaths of two million people. By the end of the Four Pests campaign, the Eurasian tree sparrow was practically extinct from China, which afterwards imported 250,000 Eurasian tree sparrows from the Soviet Union to recover its population. Persecution of scientists The Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966. Although scientist Zhu Xi, who had prominently opposed the Eliminate Sparrows campaign, had died in 1962, he was still accused of publicly opposing Mao. As a result, his grave was desecrated, and his bones were exhumed by Red Guards. Ornithologist Tso-hsin Cheng, who had also expressed reservations about the Eliminate Sparrows campaign, was also accused of using the issue to oppose Chairman Mao, the Great Leap Forward, and Mao's , among other crimes, and was subjected to brutal struggle sessions. == In popular culture ==

• Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun is a 2006 instrumental post-rock album by the U.S. band Red Sparowes about the Eliminate Sparrows campaign and Great Chinese Famine. • Smash Sparrow is a 2023 poem by Indian poet Vinita Agrawal about the Eliminate Sparrows campaign and Great Chinese Famine, published in the Indian Literature literary journal. • Sparrows is a 2008 poem by U.S. poet Victoria Chang about the Eliminate Sparrows campaign, published in The Kenyon Review. == See also ==