I am not on the same page as with my fellow Indian compatriot, but yes, Mao's policies did lead to famine, which can't be wished away. Great Leap Forward, was a grand disaster.
Also, I agree, that this is no where close to genocide or something. But, a cold, and bloody stupidity.
For me, the CCP has more than redeemed itself. The only thing I have feud with is, that this whole topic, and its discussion is state sponsored and banned.
The event commonly called "great leap forward" is actually the second five year plan, while the plan only partially succeed in the final analysis, it is farther from "cold, and bloody stupidity" or "state sanctioned murder" as some of the posters here suggested.
The fundamental issue with these great leap forward arguments is that it is ignoring the root cause of the famine from 1959 to 1962. The root cause is a wide scale drought on main agricultural production area of China, something completely outside human control. Now, in an industrialized country like China today, during such disaster, food surplus from previous year will be release, water will be diverted through large scale artificial canals, dams and reservoirs, chemical fertilizer will be used to boost the yield of the remaining crop field. Monetary reserves can also be used to purchase food from abroad. Heck, weather satellite can be used to predict the incoming drought to give people time to make preparation, but the thing is,
NONE OF THESE WERE AVAILABLE. This is the harsh reality of a pre-industrialized nation. Throughout human history, famine due to weather change is a common occurrence and it still happens today in areas that has not achieved certain level infrastructure.
The statement "Mao's policies did lead to famine" implies the famine can otherwise avoided when it is a natural disaster on a nation that did not have the means to avoid it no matter what you do. Could they do better? Maybe, but complete avoidance is not possible given the level of infrastructure and resource available to China back in the day. Just like today's India still can't avoid hunger in 200 million of its population or 1/6 of its population. It is not out of maliciousness. There are simply hard limitations on the resource available.
Now, moving on to the issue you stated, what are you talking about? The three year of famine is a major topic in PRC history and there are plenty of discussion on it. A simple search on google shows:
Google
The sources are mostly sources in China, from all level of credibility. It is also in all historic books, including textbooks for students of all ages. I don't know what made you believe the topic is banned. If you want to look for Chinese discussion, you need to search things in Chinese.
BTW, a lot of foreigners, even many Chinese members do not realize this. The second five year plan or the great leap forward is actually the exact reason why a similar famine has not struck China later. It is during the second five plan that China established its first generation of chemical industry, as well as discovering the Daqing oil fields which gave China a steady supply of fertilizer and fuel for farming instruments. While the Chinese agriculture industry did not true take off until more than a decade after this, but the accomplishment during the 2nd five year plan allowed China to meet the bottom line for feeding its population.