Correction: Britain halfheartedly tried to mitigate the famine that was caused by their wartime policies, their land grabbing practices and wage practices. Bengal exported food to Sri Lanka in the initial months of the famine, the same playbook as with the Irish famine. When Britain finally delivered aid, they tried to make it some market scheme, with loans, rice injections into the market and rice payment for hard labor. Harebrained. The Brits prioritized the war in the region over effective famine relief. That’s what Churchill did wrong.

Regarding Mao: The intent of most of his policies was to improve harvests. Of course, if you persecute your intellectuals, use the teachings of an absolute fucking moron as the basis of your policies and brand every failure to deliver as the work of evil rightists and saboteurs, you’re going to kill a shit ton of people. Maybe a skilled war lord, he was utterly incompetent when it came to managing this famine. And so was the entire state apparatus.