Great Leap Forward

Great Leap Forward stemmed as a result of multiple factors including "the purge of intellectuals, the surge of less-educated radicals, the need to find new ways to generate domestic capital, rising enthusiasm about the potential results mass mobilization might produce, and reaction against the sociopolitical results of the Soviet's development strategy."^[5] Mao ambitiously sought an increase in rural grain production and an increase in industrial activity. Mao was dismissive of technical experts and basic economic principles, which meant that industrialization of the countryside would solely be dependent on the peasants. Grain quotas were introduced with the idea of having peasants provide grains for themselves and support urban areas. Output from the industrial activities such as steel was also supposed to be used for urban growth.^[5] Local officials were fearful of Anti-Rightist Campaigns and they competed to fulfill or over-fulfill quotas which were based on Mao's exaggerated claims, collecting non-existent "surpluses" and leaving farmers to starve to death. Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies, and national officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in food output, took little or no action.


The major changes which occurred in the lives of rural Chinese people included the incremental introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization. Private farming was prohibited, and those people who engaged in it were persecuted and labeled counter-revolutionaries. Restrictions on rural people were enforced with public struggle sessions and social pressure, and forced labor was also exacted from people.^[6] Rural industrialization, while officially a priority of the campaign, saw "its development ... aborted by the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward".^[7] The Great Leap was one of two periods between 1953 and 1976 in which China's economy shrank. (The Cultural Revolution was the other period during which the economy shrank.)^[8] Economist Dwight Perkins argues that "enormous amounts of investment only produced modest increases in production or none at all. ... In short, the Great Leap [Forward] was a very expensive disaster".^[9]


The CCP studied the damage that was done at various conferences from 1960 to 1962, especially at the "Seven Thousand Cadres Conference" in 1962, during which Mao Zedong ceded day-to-day leadership to pragmatic moderates like Chinese President Liu Shaoqi and Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping.^[10][11][12] Acknowledging responsibilities for the Great Leap Forward, Mao did not retreat from his policies; instead, he blamed problems on bad implementation and "rightists" who opposed him.^[12][5] He initiated the Socialist Education Movement in 1963 and the Cultural Revolution in 1966 in order to remove opposition and re-consolidate his power.^[12] In addition, dozens of dams constructed in Zhumadian, Henan, during the Great Leap Forward collapsed in 1975 (under the influence of Typhoon Nina) and resulted in the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure, with estimates of its death toll ranging from tens of thousands to 240,000.^[13][14]