Siege of Changchun: Memories From a Communist Famine

Starvation in encircled Chinese city killed more people than both atomic bombs

Communist troops in the Chinese civil war. Here, tanks of the People's Liberation Army participate in the Liaoshen Campaign, which brought the city of Changchun under siege in 1948. Public Domain

In June 4, 2006, the Chinese state-run Xinwenhua Bao in Jilin Province reported that a large number of skeletons had been unearthed during excavation for an underground pipeline project in Luyuan District, one of six in the city of Changchun. The article reported that “with every stroke of the shovel, there appeared many yellowish skeletons. After four days of digging, at least several thousand had been discovered.”

The skeletons were from a dark corner of modern Chinese history. After World War II, Imperial Japan’s defeat meant only brief peace in China until 1946, when negotiations broke down and the nation, having thrown out a foreign invader, was at war with herself.