And the great famine was exacerbated by the campaign to eliminate the “four pests”, but the experts at the time were divided on the issue, and the party corrected course as soon as they saw other pests such as locusts increase and on the advice of other experts. They weren’t just handing down nonsense orders willy nilly, they were desperately experimenting on the fly to make sure that famine stopped being an issue, and it did relatively soon.