Eliminate Sparrows campaign

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School students were among those mobilized to carry out the campaign. This 1956 promotional poster shows children killing sparrows with a slingshot. The text reads "Everyone Comes to Attack Sparrows" (Chinese: Da Jia Du Lai Da Ma Que ; pinyin: dajia dou lai da maque). Everybody Comes to Beat Sparrows.jpg
School students were among those mobilized to carry out the campaign. This 1956 promotional poster shows children killing sparrows with a slingshot. The text reads "Everyone Comes to Attack Sparrows" (Chinese :大家都来打麻雀; pinyin :dàjiā dōu lái dǎ máquè).

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. [1] [2] In the second half of 1955, while organizing the drafting of the Agricultural Development Outline (i.e., the Seventeen Articles on Agriculture), Mao Zedong decided that sparrows, rats, flies, and mosquitoes were "Four Pests" to be removed. [3] [4] In January 1956, after discussion by the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and formal adoption by the Supreme State Conference  [ zh ], 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. [3] [4] [5] [2] Sparrows were suspected of consuming approximately 2 kg (4 pounds) of grain per sparrow per year. [6]

In the autumn of 1956, a group of biologists, including Zhu Xi, a Chinese pioneer in cell biology, objected publicly to classifying sparrows as pests and eliminating them, but their objections were ineffective. [3] [4] [5] On January 18, 1957, the Beijing Daily published an article by Zhou Jianren, then Vice Minister of Education, titled "Sparrows are Clearly Pest Birds", concluding that "there is no doubt sparrows are pest birds" and "pest birds should be eradicated without hesitation", proposing:

社会已经改变了，但旧社会的某些思想方法或观点仍然会残留着。过去时代不少人把自己看作是自然界的顺民，不敢有改造自然的想头，当然也不敢把自己看作是自然界的主人。.... 还有叫做均衡论的见解，也妨碍人们改造自然的决心。... 均衡论只强调了静止的一面，忽略了生物的历史是一个过程。.... 均衡论叫人害怕自然界如失掉均衡会闹出乱子。

Society has changed, but some of the old ways of thinking and viewpoints still remain. In the past, many people saw themselves as subservient subjects of nature, afraid to even consider transforming it, let alone see themselves as masters of nature... The concept of equilibrium has also hindered people's determination to transform nature... Equilibrium only emphasizes the static aspect, ignoring the fact that biological history is a process... (Belief in) equilibrium instills a fear that nature would descend into chaos if it lost its balance. [3] [2]

Implementation

At the end of 1957, the Great Leap Forward slogan was developed, [7] and the Four Pests campaign was implemented across the country. [5] Between March and May 1958, Mao Zedong called for the elimination of sparrows at several central conferences and during the 8th National Congress of the CCP. [3] [8] Subsequently, "sparrow suppression headquarters" (Chinese :围剿麻雀总指挥部; pinyin :wéijiǎo máquè zǒng zhǐhuī bù) 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 [3] such as "Deploying Troops, Preparing Weapons, Gearing Up: The Sparrow Extermination Army Awaits the Final Assault" [9] and "The Sparrow Extermination Army Has Achieved Brilliant Results". [10] A folk song circulating at the time was called "Beat Drums and Gongs to Eliminate the Four Pests" (Chinese :擂鼓鸣金除四害; pinyin :léi gǔ míngjīn chú sì hài):

老鼠奸，麻雀坏，苍蝇蚊子像右派。吸人血，招病害，偷人幸福搞破坏。千家万户快动手，擂鼓鸣金除四害。

Rats are sly, sparrows bad, flies and mosquitoes are like right-wingers. They suck blood, bring disease, steal joy and destroy. Let every family move quickly; beat drums and gongs to eliminate the four pests. [11] [12]

On April 21, 1958, the Beijing Evening News published a poem by famed writer Guo Moruo entitled "Cursing the Sparrow" (Chinese :咒麻雀; pinyin :zhòu máquè), which included the lines:

你真是个混蛋鸟，五气俱全到处跳。犯下罪恶几千年，今天和你总清算。毒打轰掏齐进攻，最后方使烈火烘。

You're a real bastard bird, jumping around with your airs. You've committed crimes for thousands of years; today we'll finally settle accounts with you. We'll attack you relentlessly, beating, bombing, and plundering; setting it all ablaze. [3] [11] [13]

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.

The results of this extermination drive were felt soon enough. The whole campaign had been initiated in the first place by some bigwig of the Party who had decided that the sparrows were devouring too large a part of the harvests. (It goes without saying that none of the qualified experts was consulted and that the whole campaign was conceived and planned by the Party, and executed under its supervision.) Soon enough, however, it was realized that although the sparrows did consume grain, they also destroyed many harmful insects which, left alive, inflicted far worse damage on the crops than did the birds. So the sparrows were rehabilitated. Rehabilitation, however, did not return them to life any more than it had the victims of Stalin’s bloody purges, and the insects continued to feast on China’s crops. Meanwhile, however, we Russians watched the slaughter of the sparrows with disgust, and those whose names were Vorobyov (which means “sparrow”), or Mukhin (“fly”), or Komarov (“gnat”)—very common Russian names—gloomily joked about the mortal danger that threatened them.

— Translated by Andrew MacAndrew, Soviet Scientist in Red China (1964) [14] [15]

Rocket scientist Qian Xuesen, mathematician Hua Luogeng, writer Ba Jin and other high-profile experts actively participated in the sparrow-hunting campaign. [4] [5] [11] [16] 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". [11] [16] An incomplete statistical count found that more than 200 million sparrows were killed nationwide in 1958, and according to statistics from the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee Office  [ zh ], about 2.11 billion were killed. [4] [17] [5] As a result, by the spring of 1959, the leaves on both sides of the streets in many Chinese cities had been almost completely eaten by pests. [3] [18] [19] [1] Mao Zedong persisted in describing sparrows as a pest bird, [3] [4] [5] saying in a speech at the Lushan Conference on July 10, 1959: "Some people say the Four Pests campaign is no longer effective and has been relaxed. Sparrows have become a major problem and still need to be eliminated." [20]

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". [4] [5] However, Tso-hsin Cheng had reservations about the idea of exterminating sparrows, stating that the issue of their harms and benefits should not be treated uniformly. He suggested that different seasons, regions, and environments should be taken into account when addressing the problem. [4] [2]

End of campaign

After the 1959 Lushan Conference, Mao Zedong launched the Anti-Right Deviation Struggle, demanding that the whole country "oppose right-leaning tendencies and boost morale" to achieve a greater leap forward. [3] [4] [21]

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 [22] ), 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." [4] [19] [2] On November 27, 1959, Zhang Jingfu, secretary of the Party Group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, wrote a report to Mao on the issue of sparrows, incorporating the views of national and foreign scientists. The report was forwarded to Mao Zedong by Hu Qiaomu, and Mao Zedong approved it two days later, saying that "Zhang Jingfu's report should be distributed to all comrades." [3] [4] [19] Following the arrangements of the Party Group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Biological Division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences held symposiums on the issue of sparrows on December 29, 1959, and January 9, 1960, to plan the establishment of a "Sparrow Research Coordination Group" that would conduct research on sparrows' benefits and harms. [2] Subsequently, a coordination group composed of personnel from relevant state organs and numerous research units, headed by Tong Dizhou, director of the Biological Division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was formally established on March 4, 1960. [2]

On March 18, 1960, Mao Zedong wrote "Instructions of the CCP Central Committee on Health Work", stating: "Stop killing sparrows, and replace them with bedbugs. The slogan is 'Eliminate rats, bedbugs, flies, and mosquitoes'." [4] [5] [19] On April 10, 1960, the Second Session of the 2nd National People's Congress discussed the "Revised Draft of the Outline" produced in October 1957, which changed Article 27 on eliminating the four pests to "Starting in 1956, within twelve years, rats, bedbugs, flies, and mosquitoes should be eliminated in all possible places." [4] [5] This marked the official end of the Eliminate Sparrows campaign. [4] [5]

Sparrow extermination

In an attempt to accomplish the significant task of changing the ecological order, Mao mobilized the Chinese population aged five and above. Similar to a coordinated military campaign, schoolchildren would disperse into the countryside at a specific hour to hunt sparrows. [23] 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." [23] In Beijing, the People's Daily reported "Every morning and from 4:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., when sparrows were out of their nests and returning to their nests, citizens would work together to chase them". [24] : 147–149  To organize and promote the campaign, meetings were held and propaganda posters, leaflets, films and jingles were created. [24] : 147–149  [25] : 55  Contributing to the campaign was seen as a citizen's patriotic duty. [25] : 55 

Methods of eliminating sparrows included catching them by hand; using glue traps, net traps, and other traps; using poisoned bait; and attacking them with poles. [5] [18] [19] Sparrow nests were destroyed, eggs were broken, and chicks were killed. Many people organized into groups and banged loud objects together to prevent sparrows from resting in their nests, with the goal of causing them to drop dead through sheer fatigue. [6] [26] Tools employed included wire clamps, wire cages, bamboo poles, red flags, firecrackers, stones, slingshots, gongs, megaphones, washbasins, air guns, and scarecrows. [4] [19] [8] Citizens shot the birds down from the sky with slingshots or guns. [27] [28] The campaign depleted the sparrow population, pushing it to near extinction within China. [27]

Some sparrows found a refuge in the extraterritorial premises of various diplomatic missions in China. The personnel of the Polish embassy in Beijing denied the Chinese request to enter the embassy premises and scare away the sparrows who were hiding there, and as a result the embassy was surrounded by people with drums. After two days of constant drumming, the Poles had to use shovels to clear the embassy of dead sparrows. [29]

Impact

Ecological disaster

Millions of sparrows were killed. [30] While the campaign was meant to increase yields, concurrent droughts and floods as well as the lacking sparrow population decreased rice yields. [31] [32] 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. [33] [34]

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. [32] Although sparrows were removed from the Four Pests in 1960, the disruption of ecological balance, combined with errors in food distribution policies and the exaggeration of crop production figures, led to the Great Chinese Famine. [35] [36] [37] [38] 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. [39]

After the ending of the Four Pests campaign, the Eurasian tree sparrow was practically extirpated from China, which afterwards imported 250,000 Eurasian tree sparrows from the Soviet Union to recover its population. [39] [40]

Persecution of scientists

The Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966. Although scientist Zhu Xi, who had prominently opposed the Eliminate Sparrows campaign, had passed away 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. [3] [4] [5] [2] 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 supreme instructions  [ zh ], among other crimes, and was subjected to brutal struggle sessions.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Guó niǎo píngxuǎn: Wèishéme shì máquè" 国鸟评选：为什么是麻雀 [Selecting a national bird: Why the sparrow?]. Nándū zhōukān南都周刊[Southern Metropolis Weekly] (in Chinese). Sina News. 2008-09-22. Archived from the original on 2022-04-15.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Xue Pangao (薛攀皋) (1998). "Wèi máquè fān'àn de jiānnán lìchéng" 为麻雀翻案的艰难历程 [The Difficult Journey of Rehabilitating the Sparrow]. Yanhuang Chunqiu. Archived from the original on 2018-08-27. Retrieved 2025-11-08.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Lei Yi (雷颐) (2009). "1955 nián miè sì hài guōmòruò xiě shī zhòu máquè: Nǐ zhēnshi gè húndàn niǎo (yuán biāotí ""máquè" yǒu gùshì")" 1955年灭四害郭沫若写诗咒麻雀：你真是个混蛋鸟（原标题《“麻雀”有故事》） [In 1955, during the Four Pests campaign, Guo Moruo wrote a poem against sparrows: "You truly are a scoundrel bird" (Original title: "The Story of the Sparrow")]. Húyàobāng shǐliào xìnxī wǎng胡耀邦史料信息网[ Hu Yaobang Historical Material Informational Network] (in Chinese). Yanhuang Chunqiu. Archived from the original on 2022-04-30.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Xiong Weimin (熊卫民) (2016-04-02). "Máquè suī xiǎo, què kěnéng dǎngzhù tàiyáng de guānghuī—máozédōng shídài de gōnggòng juécè" 麻雀虽小，却可能挡住太阳的光辉——毛泽东时代的公共决策 [Even a small sparrow can block out the sun's brilliance—public decision-making in the Mao Zedong era]. Zhīshì fēnzǐ知识分子[Intellectual] (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 2022-04-25.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Xiong Weimin (熊卫民). "Máquè de bēigē" 麻雀的悲歌 [The Sparrow's Lament]. Chinese University of Hong Kong . Southern Weekly. Archived from the original on 2022-04-22. Retrieved 2025-11-08.
  6. 1 2 "Red China: Death to Sparrows". Time. 5 May 1958. ISSN   0040-781X. Archived from the original on 25 April 2017. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  7. ↑ Shen Zhihua (沈志华) (2007-11-11). "Yě tán yǐ "yuè jìn" yī cí dàitì "mào jìn" yī cí cóng hé ér shǐ" 也谈以“跃进”一词代替“冒进”一词从何而始 [On the origin of replacing the term "rush forward" with "leap forward"]. Aì sī xiǎng爱思想[The Love of Thought] (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 2022-01-07.
  8. 1 2 Li Xinglian (李兴濂) (2013-10-09). "Nàxiē nián de "rén què dàzhàn": Máquè jiélùn wǔshí nián jì" 那些年的“人雀大战”：麻雀劫难五十年祭 [The "Man vs. Sparrow" battle of a bygone era: The 50th anniversary of the sparrow catastrophe]. Sina History (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 2022-06-14.
  9. ↑ Lei 2009: Chinese :调兵遣将、准备武器、摩拳擦掌：灭雀大军待命总攻; pinyin :Diào bīng qiǎn jiàng, zhǔnbèi wǔqì, móquáncāzhǎng: Miè què dàjūn dàimìng zǒnggōng
  10. ↑ Lei 2009: Chinese :灭雀大军战果辉煌; pinyin :Miè què dàjūn zhànguǒ huīhuáng
  11. 1 2 3 4 "1958 nián Zhōngguó "chú sì hài" yùndòng nèimù" 1958年 中国“除四害”运动内幕 [The inside story of China's 1958 Four Pests campaign]. Fènghuáng Wǎng凤凰网[Phoenix Network] (in Chinese). Phoenix Television. 2009-05-22. Archived from the original on 2022-04-30.
  12. ↑ "Dà yuè jìn qí wén lù: Gōngshè shítáng yào chī hóu tóu yàn wō" 大跃进奇闻录：公社食堂要吃猴头燕窝 [Oddities of The Great Leap Forward: Commune Canteens Serve Monkey Head and Bird's Nest Soup]. Sohu (in Chinese). Phoenix Television. 2006-08-22. Archived from the original on 2022-04-30.
  13. ↑ "Guō Mòruò jiěfàng hòu shī xuǎn" 郭沫若解放后诗选 [Selected Poems of Guo Moruo After Liberation]. Aì sī xiǎng爱思想[Thinking China] (in Chinese). 2004-08-13. Archived from the original on 2021-04-22.
  14. ↑ Klochko, Mikhail Antonovich (1964). "Chapter 5: Drives and Campaigns". Soviet Scientist in Red China. Translated by MacAndrew, Andrew. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. p. 69. LCCN   64-16681.
  15. ↑ Klochko, Mikhail Antonovich (1964). "A Soviet scientist on the 'Four Pests' campaign (1964)". Alpha History. Australia. Retrieved 2025-11-08.
  16. 1 2 Zheng Guanglu (郑光路). "1958 nián wéijiǎo máquè de "rénmín zhànzhēng" shì rúhé fādòng de?" 1958年围剿麻雀的“人民战争”是如何发动的？ [How the "People's War" to Exterminate Sparrows Was Launched in 1958]. Chinese University of Hong Kong . Party History and Consensus Network. Archived from the original on 2022-03-16.
  17. ↑ Yuan, Li (2022-04-14). "China's 'Zero Covid' Mess Proves Autocracy Hurts Everyone" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on 2022-06-11.
  18. 1 2 Meng Rang (孟冉) (2007-03-03). "Chú sì hài shíqí xiǎo máquè de "dà jiénàn"" 除四害时期小麻雀的“大劫难” [The "Great Calamity" of Sparrows During the Four Pests Campaign]. Sina News (in Chinese). Dahe Daily. Archived from the original on 2022-04-30.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Li Xinglian (李兴濂) (2013-08-13). "1958 Nián quánguó bǔshā máquè 2.1 yì yú zhǐ máquè xiǎn mièjué (2)" 1958年全国捕杀麻雀2.1亿余只麻雀险灭绝(2) [Over 210 million sparrows were killed nationwide in 1958, nearly leading to their extinction (2)]. Sohu (in Chinese). 《看历史》杂志. Archived from the original on 2022-04-30.
  20. ↑ Lei 2009: Chinese :有人提除四害不行了，放松了。麻雀现在成了大问题，还是要除。; pinyin :Yǒurén tí chú sì hài bùxíngle, fàngsōngle. Máquè xiànzài chéngle dà wèntí, háishì yào chú.
  21. ↑ "Zhōnghuá rénmín gònghéguó dà shìjì guǎncáng bào zhǐ zhǎn (1959 nián)" 中华人民共和国大事记馆藏报纸展（1959年） [The Major Events of the People's Republic of China: Newspaper Exhibit (1959)]. 中国国家图书馆[National Library of China]. Archived from the original on 2022-06-14.
  22. ↑ Zhang Zhijie (张之杰) (2008-11-17). "Zhū xǐ yǔ wú zhèngfǔ zhǔyì—wèi shēngwù xuéjiā Zhū xǐ chuánjì bǔ yí" 朱洗与无政府主义——为生物学家朱洗传记补遗 [Zhu Xi and Anarchism: Addendum to the Biography of Biologist Zhu Xi]. 中国科学院自然科学史研究所[Institute for the History of Natural Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences]. Science & Culture Review. Archived from the original on 2022-06-14.
  23. 1 2 Shapiro, Judith (2001). Mao's War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Studies in Environment and History (1. publ ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. pp. 86–87. ISBN   978-0-521-78150-3.
  24. 1 2 Sheng, Zhao; Zhiliang, Su (2025). "Chapter 10: The "Eradicating Four Pests" Campaign of the People's Republic of China". In Bu, Liping; Fang, Xiaoping (eds.). Medicine, Health and Social Welfare in Post-1949 China. Historical Studies of Contemporary China, Volume 5. Translated by Xiaoqin, Zhang; Yiyang, Li. Leiden: Brill. pp. 135–149. doi:10.1163/9789004737990_011. ISBN   978-90-04-73799-0.
  25. 1 2 Welch, David (2025). "3 Know Your Enemy: Propaganda and Stereotypes of the "Other" From World War I to the Present". In Ribeiro, Nelson; Zelizer, Barbie (eds.). Media and Propaganda in an Age of Disinformation. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003474760-3. ISBN   9781003474760.
  26. ↑ Bruno, Debra (18 September 2014). "Saving the Clangs, Songs, and Shouts of Old Beijing". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 16 May 2021. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  27. 1 2 Dvorsky, George (July 18, 2012). "China's Worst Self-Inflicted Environmental Disaster: The Campaign to Wipe Out the Common Sparrow". io9. Archived from the original on 22 August 2012. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  28. ↑ Weatherley, Robert (2022). Mao's China And Post-Mao China: Revolution, Recovery And Rejuvenation. World Scientific Publishing Company. p. 48.
  29. ↑ "Chiny. Historia" [China. History] (in Polish). 2 June 1999. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  30. ↑ Weatherley, Robert (2022). Mao's China And Post-Mao China: Revolution, Recovery And Rejuvenation. World Scientific Publishing Company. p. 48.
  31. ↑ McCarthy, Michael (2 August 2006). "The secret life of sparrows". The Independent. Archived from the original on 20 December 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2009.
  32. 1 2 Summers-Smith, J. Denis (1992). In Search of Sparrows. London: Poyser. pp. 122–124. ISBN   0-85661-073-9.
  33. ↑ Schmalzer, Sigrid (2016). Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China. University of Chicago Press. p. 248. ISBN   978-0-226-33029-7.
  34. ↑ Huang, Yanzhong (2015). Governing Health in Contemporary China. Routledge. p. 147. ISBN   978-1-136-15548-2.
  35. ↑ Peng, Xizhe (1987). "Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces". Population and Development Review. 13 (4): 639–670. doi:10.2307/1973026. JSTOR   1973026.
  36. ↑ Akbar, Arifa (17 September 2010). "Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'". The Independent . Archived from the original on 11 May 2020. Retrieved 28 August 2017.
  37. ↑ Wang Chuanye (王传业). "Zài "dà yuè jìn" de kuángrè rìzi lǐ" 在“大跃进”的狂热日子里 [In the Frenzied Days of the Great Leap Forward]. Chinese University of Hong Kong . Archived from the original on 2021-10-21.
  38. ↑ Meng, Xin; Qian, Nancy; Yared, Pierre (January 2015). "The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959–1961" (PDF). Review of Economic Studies. 82 (4): 1568–1611. doi:10.1093/restud/rdv016. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-09-06.
  39. 1 2 "How the persecution of sparrows killed 2m people" . The Economist . 22 October 2025. ISSN   0013-0613. Archived from the original on 22 October 2025. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  40. ↑ Platt, John R. (21 October 2024). "Six Lessons From the World's Deadliest Environmental Disaster: China's Great Sparrow Campaign aimed to "conquer nature" but resulted in as many as 75 million human deaths. - Lesson 5: Given Time and Effort, Some Things Recover". The Revelator. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  41. ↑ Agrawal, Vinita (2023). "Smash Sparrow". Indian Literature. 67 (5 (337)): 42–43. JSTOR   27291912 . Retrieved 2025-11-09.
  42. ↑ Chang, Victoria (2008). "Sparrows". The Kenyon Review. 30 (3): 115. JSTOR   27653833 . Retrieved 2025-11-09.
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Eliminate Sparrows campaign
Chinese 消灭麻雀运动
Literal meaning"Eliminate/Exterminate Sparrows Campaign"
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin xiāomiè máquè yùndòng