Peasants were by far the main victims of both the Soviet famine of the early 1930s and Great Chinese Famine of 1958–61. The peasant policy of the respective ruling revolutionary regimes, which deprived farmers of a substantial part of the grain they produced, was the single most important cause of both catastrophes. The Bolsheviks, whose understanding of Marxism identified the peasantry with barbarism, were from the onset hostile to peasants. By contrast, most Chinese Communists were born and raised in villages and as a rule had a positive attitude toward peasants, who had helped them to come to power. This lecture seeks to reconcile how such divergent predispositions ultimately resulted in similarly destructive policies leading to mass famine.

Lucien Bianco is an eminent French historian and Sinologist specializing in the history of the Chinese peasantry in the 20th century. His Les origines de la révolution chinoise 1915-1949 (1967; published in English in 1971 and subsequently in revised editions) remains a highly regarded signature work. He has also written the award-winning studies Peasants without the Party (2001) and Jacqueries et révolution dans la Chine du XXe siècle (2005).