Re the Famine. Chou En Lai told a journalist that a major cause was that the local areas, wanting to claim they had met their targets, over-reported their harvests and sent in their grain tax on the claimed rather than the actual figures. Then problems snowballed (including especially transportation -- China after all still had not much of a railroad system, let alone a "modern" highway system.
Of course Chou was a monster who lied for the fun of it (like the WSJ editors, perhaps, or Kissinger or Woodrow Wilson or Kennedy) -- but those arguing other causes ought to at least acknowledge Chou's claim.
Carrol