MAO’S RED CHINA
China Under Communist Rule
The Great Leap Forward, 1958 & The Crisis of
1959-1961
•Communism is designed to be a “permanent revolution”.
•For this reason, communists are always in a state of war.
•Communism is very strict and not very peaceful.
•Propaganda spread Mao’s message
throughout China, brainwashing the
public.
•Propaganda is the advertising of
political points of view. Propaganda
is generally untrue.
•Both Russia and China used
propaganda to make the United States
And its economic system seem evil.
Economic Reconstruction 1950s
•
•
•
•
Soviet Union model and assistance
land reform (eliminate landlord class)
heavy industry (state-owned enterprises)
First National People’s Congress (1954)
– PRC Constitution
• Zhou Enlai
– Premier
– Foreign Minister
Following the Soviet Model
• Between 1949 and 1960, China followed the
Russian strategy of industrialization.
• They built large factories in the cities.
• Many Russian engineers came to China to
assist in this effort.
• Many of the largest factories in China today
were built during this period.
China under Mao
Having defeated the Guomindang, Mao set about building a Communist China. His
first concern was rebuilding a country that had been torn apart by years of civil war.
Rebuilding China
Development
• Communist ideology
shaped new
government
• Also seized property
of rural landowners,
redistributed among
peasants
• 1957, first plan
doubled China’s
small industrial
output
• Put in place Sovietstyle five-year plans
for industrial
development
• Early efforts to build
economy successful
• Change in China’s
political, economic
systems
• Government
discouraged
practice of religion
First Plan
• Improved economy,
reduced poverty
Early Years
Improvements in literacy rates, public health
• Chinese life expectancy increased sharply over next few
decades
• Improvements came at a cost
– To consolidate Communist control over China, government soon
began to eliminate so-called “enemies of the state” who had spoken
out against government’s policies
– Many thousands—including public officials, business leaders, artists,
writers—killed, or sent to labor camps
China Modeled on Soviet Union
• Soviet Union provided financial support, aid in China’s first years
• China modeled many of its new political, economic, military policies on Soviet
system
• 1950s, territorial disputes, differences in ideology pushed China away from Soviet
ally
The Great Leap Forward
• 1958, in break from Soviet-style economic planning, Mao announced program
designed to increase China’s industrial, agricultural output
• The Great Leap Forward created thousands of communes, collectively owned
farms, of about 20,000 people each
• Each commune to produce food, have own small-scale industry
2013 The First Five Year Plan and
The Great Leap Forward
First Five Year Plan
Setting the Stage
• Recall that the Communists ultimately triumphed
over the Nationalist Kuomintang government
because the Kuomintang was corrupt, disinterested
in the people, and did not actively fight the
Japanese.
• Once in Power, Mao tightened control over China
and implemented his own Five-Year Plan to increase
industrial and agricultural production.
• Mao became “premier,” or dictator, and the
Communist Party was China’s only political party.
Prelude to the Great Leap Forward
• The Hundred Flowers Campaign
had revealed conflicting attitudes
within the CCP leadership
regarding the pace and type of
development
• Additionally, Mao was very
concerned with the increasingly
bureaucratic nature of the party
and the “loss of vitality” in China
• What is a dictator to do?
The Communists Transform China
• Just as Stalin’s Five-Year Plan had increased
production at a very high cost, Mao’s policies
were harmful to the people of China. First
among these was the collectivization of
agriculture that killed over 1 million landlords.
– Collectivization was a gradual process that began
with the creation of 5-15 family “mutual aid teams”
and culminated with 100-300 family collectives.
• Peasants were summoned to meeting places and
forbidden to leave for days until they “joined” the
collective.
INITIAL PHASE: 1950-1958
Soviet Model of Development: Central planning of the
economy
• State ownership of enterprises.
• Workers were state employees.
• Planned production targets and supply of
inputs.
• Managers were administrators of state property
and enforcers of the output plans.
China’s Problems
 Overwhelmingly rural, and backward (85%) -tenancy, share-cropping common
 Huge population: 400+ million 1950
 Peasants backbone of revolution; different
than Russia where peasants seen as obstacle
to progress
 Land reform -- get agriculture moving
Goal of Five Year Plan
• Goal of model – rapid industrialization, selfsufficiency
• Extract surplus from agriculture to finance
industrial development –
– Rationalize process through centralized planning –
5 year plans – production targets
First Five Year Plan – 1953-1957
• Mao wanted China to “walk on
two legs” – develop both
agriculture and industry at the
same time
• Soviet Union assisted with $300
million and 10,000 Russian
engineers
• Targeted the development of
heavy industry: coal, steel,
chemicals, automobile, and
transport
China’s First 5-year plan 1953-57
• Emphasis on industry
steel, machinery, railroads, electricity plants,
metallurgy, chemicals
• Embrace rational planning – experts,
bureaucrats lead
First 5 Year Plan
1953-1957
 land reform (eliminate landlord class)
 development of heavy industry (stateowned enterprises)
by 1957, most targets had been exceeded.
 serious economic problems remained
(unemployment & no funds to build
industries)
The Communists Transform China
• Once agriculture was collectivized with Mao in
control, the government now had a monopoly on
agriculture, allowing it to buy low and sell high to
finance industrialization at the people’s expense.
– Private farming was against the law, and those found guilty
were punished severely.
– In order to satisfy government quotas, food was often
rationed, and many peasants nearly starved even in good
times.
Within China: Build Socialism
• In the countryside --- In the City
Outside: Friendship with Oppressed Peoples
& Socialist Countries
Anti-Imperialism
Women Hold Up Half the Sky
Results: rapid industrial development, but …
• Growth of bureaucracy
• New patterns of social inequality, privileged
elites
• Growing gulf between modernizing cities and
backward countryside
• Ideological decay, loss of revolutionary fervor
Effects of the First Five Year Plan
• Failure to meet the targets established by The
National Resource Committee was the
equivalent of failing China
• Overall industrial output increased 15.5% per
year (faster than the target of 14.7%)
• However, less people worked on farms, so
food production increased at an average of 2%
per year, compared to 14% from 1949-52
Effects of the First Five Year Plan
• Not building a Socialist utopia of equal
prosperity for all
Instead
• uneven development
• inequalities common in capitalism
• Making new classes
Mao’s New Theory of Economic
Development
Past economic stagnation
led to mental stagnation
To Make Socialist Person --
Not sufficient to introduce
new technologies or alter
Mode of Production as had
been done in USSR
Mao’s New Theory of Economic Development:
From “Poor and Blank” to Permanent
Revolution
• Present unburdened by Past
• Change a matter of human will to overcome objective
obstacles
extreme volunteerism, optimism
“Our revolutions are like battles; after each victory, we must
put forward a new task,” Mao 1958
Great Leap Forward
Great Leap Forward, 1958-60
• In 1958, Mao decided that the Russian
strategy of industrial development was not
suitable for China.
• This urban, large-factory system was not
having enough of an impact on the mass of
the population in the countryside.
• Mao decided to opt for a unique Chinese
method of industrialization.
Why The Great Leap Forward
Program?WhyThe beginning
• Why was Mao ready for a change in economic policy by 1958?
–Despite 5YP’s successes, Mao felt the time was ripe for the transition
from socialism to communism
• Disliked the sprawling bureaucracy and increasing individualism
• Feared an entrenched system, which would be more difficult to alter
• Disheartened by disappointing grain yields
–Also hoped for “spontaneous energizing of the whole nation” as he
was very concerned with the lack of revolutionary spirit in China
–Sino-Soviet relations were deteriorating, desired self-sufficiency
• What is the significance of the phrase poor and blank?
–Despite China’s economic “backwardness” Mao felt this description of
China’s peasantry was desirable-they were more eager for change
–Also more likely to become “red and expert”
Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)
• abandon the Soviet model of economic
development
– Soviet “scientific planning”
• mass mobilization
• people’s communes
The Great Leap Forward
Planning Disaster
• Plan was disaster; small
commune factories failed to
produce quantity, quality of
goods China needed
• Combination of poor weather,
farmers’ neglect led to sharp
drops in agricultural production
• Famine spread through rural
China; tens of millions starved
to death between 1959 and
1961
China Virtually Isolated
• Failure of Great Leap Forward
led to criticism of Mao
• Soviet criticism, withdrawal of
Soviet industrial aid widened rift
between two Communist
nations
• By early 1960s, relations had
broken down completely; China
virtually isolated in world
community
THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD
During this trip I have
witnessed the tremendous
energy of the masses. On this
foundation it is possible to
accomplish any task
whatsoever.
- Mao
• Mao’s Goal: Making China
an Industrial Powerhouse
• Second 5-Year Plan: The
Great Leap Forward
Goal of Great Leap Forward: Permanent
Revolution
• Constant process of
ideologically inspired
mass activism
Producing “Great
Leaps” Forward and
“Cultural Revolution”
Ideology and Politics in Command
• Central planning abandoned
Economic Development
• Maoist Vision:
• De-centralized System
• Close gap between urban-rural
– Industrialize countryside
– Xiafang: technicians, intellectuals, youth to the
countryside
– commune
To create a Socialist Utopia: Dazhai Commune
• ORGANIZE POPULATION INTO PRODUCTION UNITS
– TOTAL CARE -- HEALTH,
– EDUCATION, WELFARE
– INSPIRE WITH CONTUNOUS
IDEOLOGICAL WORK
Great Leap Forward:
2nd Five Year Plan
When?
1958-1962
Why?
To bring another success to the PRC
success in carrying out land reforms
success in other campaigns to attack the
reactionaries
Mao believed the
country should focus
on industry and food.
Mao made a five year
plan and called it The
Great Leap Forward
Great Leap Forward
• The Commune is Like a Mighty Dragon, Production is awe-inspiring
To achieve self-sufficient economy
disliked Soviet way of industrialization
(putting heavy industry first)
China would not do with high-tech factories
which depended on foreign capital and
assistance
 to show that the Chinese way of
industrialization was better than the Soviet
way or the capitalist way
To end diplomatic isolation
China was being isolated from other
countries (capitalism) due to its practice of
communism
To catch up Britain and US and to break off
diplomatic isolation
To raise international status of China
To increase productivity
First Five Year plan completed earlier than
expected
But... serious economic problems remained
unchanged
unemployment (most peasants had little to do
between harvesting and sowing)
Communes and Collectivization
Great Leap Forward – Second Five
Year Plan (1958-1962)
• Collectivization became the official policy. China’s
land was divided into 70,000 communes
• He hoped that it would help unemployment and
cause a genuine communal unity
• He accused peasants of hiding grain and used force
against them
• The food would be traded for money to buy
weapons or used for fuel
How did the Great Leap Forward affect China?
• Mao believed that both industry and agriculture
had to grow to make the other work. The
industry had to be well fed to be good industry
workers, and agriculture needed industry to
make good tools for them.
• In order to make the industry and agriculture
grow, China was reformed into a series of
communes.
• A commune is a relatively small, often rural
community whose members share common
interests, work, and income and often own
property collectively.
The Great Leap Forward
• Mao’s second Five-Year Plan is known
as the Great Leap Forward, and
involved utilizing the massive amounts
of human labor to avoid having to
import industrial machinery.
• Who needs a bulldozer when you’ve
got a few hundred people with shovels,
right?
• Mao believed that steel and grain
would make China great, and these
endeavors were complete and total
disasters.
Great Leap Forward, 1958-60
• In 1958, Mao decided that the Russian
strategy of industrial development was not
suitable for China.
• This urban, large-factory system was not
having enough of an impact on the mass of
the population in the countryside.
• Mao decided to opt for a unique Chinese
method of industrialization.
THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD - THE
COMMUNES
• Develop Agriculture as well
as Industry
• Chinese Commune System All Encompassing Collective
Farm & Work Units
• Purpose: Releasing the
Worker’s Tremendous
Energy
How?
Peasants placed into communes
Mass mobilization
THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD - THE
COMMUNES
The advantage of People’s
Communes lies in the fact that they
combine industry, agriculture,
commerce, education, and military
affairs.
- Mao
• People’s Time Managed
Effectively for Work
• Commune in Control of All
Activities - Hierarchy
• Commune Creation Extremely
Speedy - More than 25,000 at
end of 1958
•
Communes were made up of many
families ( often as many as five
thousand families)
•
The commune owned everything,
tools, animals, and land.
•
People worked for the commune, not
for themselves.
•
The commune provided schools,
nurseries and healthcare so workers
could work instead of taking care of
babies and older parents
•
Would any of these things help your
family?
The Great Leap Forward
• Farming was further collectivized into
larger farms called “communes.”
26,000 communes were created, each
covering 15,000 square miles,
supporting about 25,000 people each.
• Life on the communes was strictly
controlled, peasants worked the land
together, ate together in cafeterias,
slept in communal dorms, and raised
their kids in communal nurseries.
• Propaganda
was
everywhere –
including the
fields
workers
could listen
to political
speeches as
they worked
• Propaganda posters often
use symbolism
• The dragon in this picture
symbolizes steel production
• The bird symbolizes grain
production
• How does this poster make
you feel?
THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD PROPAGANDA & ENTHUSIASM
• Propaganda a Key Element
• Goal to Inspire Workers to Overachieve Goals
• Impressive Construction Projects Completed
• Write at least
two sentences
that you think
this poster might
be saying.
The Great Leap Forward
• Funerals, weddings, and religion
were replaced with meetings and
propaganda.
• Only work points, not pay, were
awarded.
• Only the state profited from this
labor, and peasants had no reason
to work hard.
• Criticism of the commune would
label you as dangerous, and escape
was next to impossible.
Effects of Communes
Economic difficulties
Most peasants had lost their incentives to produce
get everything in the people communes
communal eating halls provided the peasants
with very generous meals free of charge
lower productivity = food crises, decline in
production, devaluation of money, high inflation
and a huge national deficit
Effects: Great Famine
Causes of the Famine
• 1958 had particularly good weather for
growing food. Party leaders claimed that
the harvest for 1958 was a record 260
million tons
• – which was not true.
• Still the leaders over-reported their
harvests to their superiors in Beijing, and
what was thought to be surplus grain was
sold abroad.
The Famine
• What factors contributed to the famine of 1959-62?
• “Encouraged by expectations of a great leap in agricultural
productivity from collectivization, the government diverted massive
amounts of agricultural resources to industry and sharply raised
grain procurement from the peasants, eventually leading to
malnutrition among peasants and decimation of their labor
productivity in growing next year's crops. The consecutive years of
bad weather also aggravated the fatal economic policies. The
decline in food availability was indeed a cause of the GLF famine.
But other institutional factors, including urban bias in China's food
distribution system, radical local policies, and grain exports, were
also major contributors of the excess mortality. By and large, the
GLF catastrophe was the result of a series of failures in central
planning.”
• While the inflated numbers reported by communes contributed to
the famine, what is more disturbing is that the top CCP officials
knew it was happening, and yet continued to take large portions of
the grain yields.
Causes of the Famine
• The excellent growing weather of 1958
was followed by a very poor growing year in
1959.
• Some parts of China were hit by floods.
• In other growing areas, drought was a
major problem.
The harvest for 1959 was 170 million tons
of grain – well below what China needed at
the most basic level.
• In parts of China, starvation occurred.
Results
• Famine!
– “When there is not enough to eat people starve to
death. It is better to let half of the people die so
that the other half can eat their fill.” -Mao
The Famine
• 1960 had even worse weather than 1959.
• The harvest of 1960 was 144 million tons.
9 million people are thought to have
starved to death in 1960 alone; many
millions were left desperately ill as a result
of a lack of food.
• The government had to introduce rationing.
• This put people on the most minimal of
food and between 1959 and 1962, it is
thought that 20 million people died of
starvation or diseases related to
starvation.
The Famine (con.)
• Estimates range from 30-45 million deaths; it
is the worst famine in recorded history
– 2-3 million of those were beaten to death or
buried alive
– The power of the local cadres also played a rolethey could deny food to anyone not “on board”
with the GLF
– In 1962, having lost about ten million people in
Sichuan, provincial leader Li Jingquan compared
the Great Leap Forward to the Long March in
which only one in ten had made it to the end: “We
are not weak, we are stronger, we have kept the
backbone”
年大饑荒 - The Great Famine
Birth & Death Rates
Great Sparrow Campaign
Great Sparrow Campaign
• The Great Sparrow Campaign (打麻雀运动) was part of Mao
Zedong’s Four Pests Campaign (除四害运动, Chú Sì Hài Yùndòng).
• A part of the Great Leap Forward (大跃进, Dà Yuèjìn) from 19581962, the goal of the Four Pests Campaign was to get rid of rats,
flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows.
• Sparrows were considered pests because they ate grain seeds.
• Farmers were encouraged to tear down sparrows’ nests, break
sparrow eggs, and bang pots and pans to scare sparrows away.
• Later, China’s authorities discovered that sparrows actually prefer
to eat insects rather than grain seed.
• More importantly, sparrows had served an important function in
the farm ecology by eating locusts.
Great Sparrow Campaign
• Illogical agricultural methods were used, such as
overplanting. Mao believed the seeds of the
same species would not compete, and higher
harvests would result. Grain production actually
fell.
• As part of the Great Leap, Mao also launched
the Great Sparrow
Campaign in which the Chinese
people were encouraged to kill
sparrows because it was believed that
they ate the grain.
Great Sparrow Campaign
• Sparrows eat insects. The kinds of
insects that eat grain… With no birds,
the insect population exploded and
China’s crops were devastated.
• Officials were often pressured to lie
about their to produce grain, resulting
in communes being forced to sell more
grain that they could afford to give.
Great Sparrow Campaign
• Initially, the campaign did improve the harvest.
• While the sparrow population declined, the
locust population grew:
– Sparrows are a predator of the locusts in the food
chain
• Locusts swarmed the country and caused
disruptions to crop harvesting.
Great Sparrow Campaign
• While the Great Sparrow Campaign initially
appeared to produce an increase in grain output,
the countryside became infested with locusts, a
much more serious pest than sparrows.
• Mao called the plan off, but it was too late.
• Swarming locusts coupled with bad weather and
the misguided Great Leap Forward led to the Great
Chinese Famine (三年大饥荒, Sān Nián Dà
Jīhuang), which killed 30 million people between
1958 and 1961.
• Propaganda Poster to
encourage rural
children to hunt and kill
the sparrows
• Picture of
rural
family
looking at
all the
sparrows
they have
killed.
• Propaganda Poster to
encourage peasants to
hunt and kill the
sparrows.
Industrialization
Policies Under the Great Leap
Forward
• Forests were stripped of trees to be used as fuel for
factories, so deforestization resulted
• Anything that peasants could melt down into steel was put
in backyard furnaces, but the steel was poor quality and led
to poor equipment being created
• Mao ordered huge drives to build irrigation systems using
poor equipment. Some of these projects are still unstable
today
• Mao also wanted to raise output in factories, so common
sense and rules went to the wayside in the name of speed.
Accidents frequently caused tens of thousands of deaths
Industrialization
• Technically, the GLF was part of Mao’s 2nd FYP
• Improvements in heavy industry was still a major
goal, though Mao seemed more concerned with
the scale of the undertaking than the quality
• In addition to the mobilization of small-scale
industry in the communes, state-owned
enterprises (SOEs) were established
– Often inefficient
– Created the “iron rice bowl” mentality
– Output of some goods actually fell
Look for
positive images
and symbols in
this picture. List
several and
explain to the
person next to
you why you
think they are in
this picture.
Large Scale Infrastructure Projects
• “the empire of the blue
ants”
• Expansion of
Tiananmen Square
• Ming tombs
• Irrigation Systems
• Canals, Dams, etc
Conservancy Projects
• Millions of peasants were pulled away from
their agricultural tasks in order to engage in
industrialization or water conservancy
projects.
• This lack of attention to the crops added to
the problem of a serious drought and up to 30
million people died in China during this
period.
There were not enough machines, there was no cement,
no mortar and other building materials. Beijingers were
summoned to build this dam with their bare hands and
feet by voluntary shift work. Hundreds of thousands of
inhabitants of Beijing, including all the civil servants and
university professors, doctors, students, etc. set out to
execute the order. In 8 hours shifts, they worked day and
night without a break. They scratched away the earth
from the surrounding hills often with no more than their
fingernails, they split stones with primitive tools, and
carried earth and stone in little baskets carrying poles to
the river bed, where more thousands stood and
stamped the stones and earth flat with their feet, urged
on by the Party…men with megaphones…Mao Zedong
himself and all the members of the Politburo and the
government came and joined in the work of building the
dam…In six months the dam was built. It is 2088 feet
high and 38 feet wide at its base.
- Eyewitness, Hugo Portisch
The Great Leap Forward
• 1959 Steel production
• famine
“More,
Faster,
Better”
Elena Songster & Jessica Stowell, OU
THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD - THE
BACKYARD STEEL CAMPAIGN
• Small Commune Factories
Set Up
• Emphasis on Steel
Production
• Backyard Steel Furnaces Set
Up
• 1958 a Good Year For
Overall Production
The Great Leap Forward
• Steel production was similarly
controlled, and although Mao had no
knowledge of metallurgy, he
encouraged every village to build small
furnaces to produce steel.
– Trees were eliminated near the communes
to fuel the furnaces, and even peasant’s
doors and furniture was burned.
– The very pots and pans that the people
cooked their food with were requisitioned
as “scrap metal” so that the commune
could meet its quota.
Steel Production
• The whole country was mobilised, so
that by the end of the year
600,000 "backyard furnaces" had
sprung up making steel, often
melting down useful items like
cooking pots and tractors just to
increase steel "production".
“Back-yard" production plants
The most famous were 600,000 backyard furnaces which
produced steel for the communes.
Makeshift Furnaces
•
•
"back-yard" production plants.
they added a considerable amount of steel
Propaganda Poster for Steel Plan
Backyard Steel Furnaces
• The most mocked aspect of the Great Leap
Forward was the backyard steel furnaces.
• Mao thought that peasants could learn to
make steel on a broadly decentralized basis.
• Most areas of China, however, lacked the ore
and fuel for this.
Effects of Steel Plan
• A great deal of steel was created, but it was of
such poor quality that it was useless.
– Mao learned in 1959 that only traditional large
scale steel mills were capable of producing good
quality metal, but Mao waited to cancel the steel
program quietly later to save face.
– While focusing on steel, a great deal of Grain was
left to rot in the fields.
• farm machinery fell to
pieces when used.
• thousands of workers
were injured after
working long hours
• Steel produced by the
backyard furnaces was
too weak
• The backyard furnaces also used too much coal and China’s
rail system, which depended on coal driven trains, suffered
accordingly.
THE CRISIS YEARS, 1959-1961
Ours is the only chemical factory of
its kind and the boiler is 70 years
old. But one day a Party official
arrived and told me to increase the
pressure in the boiler from a
hundred to a hundred and fifty
pounds per square inch so that the
reactor process could be completed
9 times a day instead of 6. When I
told him he was turning it into a
bomb, he accused me of being a
bourgeois reactionary. So what was
I to do? Great Leap? The
connecting pipe burst when the
pressure reached 120 pounds, and
we were out of production for a
week while repairs were made.
Why Did The Steel Production Plan
Fail?
• What went wrong ?
• Quickly produced farm machinery produced in factories fell
to pieces when used.
• Many thousands of workers were injured after working long
hours and falling asleep at their jobs.
• Steel produced by the backyard furnaces was often too weak
to be of any use and could not be used in construction.
• Buildings constructed by this substandard steel did not last
long.
• Backyard production method had taken many workers away
from their fields – so desperately needed food was not being
harvested
THE CRISIS YEARS, 1959-1961
• Things Begin Going
Wrong in 1959
• Unrealistic Demands for
More Production From
the Party
• Backyard Steel
Campaign Fails
• Too Little Agricultural
Production
Effects of the Great Leap Forward
Accomplishments of Maoist Era
• Technology and Technical expertise transferred
to Countryside
• Infrastructure: education, electrification, roads,
rural industry, health care
• Gap between urban-rural narrowed
THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD FAILURE
Coal and iron cannot walk by themselves.
They need vehicles to transport them.
This I did not foresee. I and the Premier
did not concern ourselves with this point.
You could say we were ignorant of it…I
am a complete outsider when it comes to
economic construction. I understand
nothing about industrial planning.
Comrades, in 1958 and 1959, the main
responsibility was mine, and you should
take me to task…The chaos caused was
on a grand scale, and I take responsibility.
Comrades, you must analyze your own
responsibility…If you have to fart, fart!
You will feel much better for it.
- Mao, 1959
Results of the Great Leap
Forward
• 38 million died of:
– Being worked to death
– Others were killed, tortured, or imprisoned
– Famine (the average daily calorie intake was 1,534.8 for
men and 1,200 for women – Aushwitz got between
1,300-1,700 calories per day)
• Heavy industry developed (although it was still
behind most large industrial countries)
• Agriculture lagged behind
Results of the Great Leap Forward
• Agriculture failed because:
– Unscientific agricultural methods were used
– There was a shortage of agricultural labor
because of peasants working on industrial
projects
– The peasants disliked losing their private lots
– Natural disasters – droughts and floods
– Peasants didn’t work hard because grain was
taken from them
Great Leap Forward Fails
• Ends in massive famine -- 3 lean years
• Struggle “Experts” vs. “Reds”
• Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
• Failure of Ideologically based Mass Campaigns
THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD FAILURE THE FARMING CRISIS
• Failure in the Countryside
and Towns
• Not Enough People Working
in Farming
• Over-reporting of Grain
Harvests
• Good Weather Turns to
Bad…Famine Intensifies
• 20 Million Die Due to
Famine & Malnutrition
PROBLEMS:
– POPULATION EXHAUSTED FROM POLTICAL
CAMPAIGNS
– INDUSTRIAL AND AGRICULTURAL STAGNATION
– Population triples (1.3 billion), 85% still in
agriculture
The Great Leap
Forward
• The Great Leap was made worse by
ecological problems, and in 1959 and
1960, drought ravaged China.
– Those that had embraced Mao’s reforms the
most suffered worse than others, and in
some areas, cannibalism arose.
– OFFICIAL CHINESE REPORTS STATE THAT 14
MILLION PEOPLE STARVED.
• Actual figures may be much higher, in the 2043 million range. All the while, officials hid the
starvation and failures of steel production from
Mao, but even when he found out, nothing was
done because he could not admit that even
nature had proven him wrong.
Intensified diplomatic isolation
PRC was isolated from the western countries.
disliked Khrushchev and blamed him for
revising Marxism-Leninism.
 Khrushchev openly criticized the
Great Leap Forward
the relationship between China & the Soviet
Union began to deteriorate
Russian Response to Great Leap
Forward
• The Russians were insulted that the Chinese
were no longer following their advice and
pulled out their engineers.
• Many factories that were being built could not
be finished because the Russians had the only
plans and because the Russians were to
provide the machinery.
Russian Response
• The Russians were insulted that the Chinese
were no longer following their advice and
pulled out their engineers.
• Many factories that were being built could not
be finished because the Russians had the only
plans and because the Russians were to
provide the machinery.
Sino-Soviet Dispute, 1960
• From 1960 onward, China and Russia had a
great ideological quarrel.
• Mao asserted that the world was in a
revolutionary situation.
• Mao expected revolution to come from the
poor peasants of Asia, Africa and Latin
America.
Sino-Soviet Dispute
• The Soviet Union was led in 1960 by Nikita
Khrushchev and he insisted on the need for
“peaceful coexistence” with the West.
• Khrushchev was against promoting revolution
in Third World countries as China wished to
do.
The Great Failure
Great Leap Forward was failure
could not bring increase in agricultural
and industrial production
Paved the way for the Cultural Revolution
Aroused conflicting opinions among the Party leaders
Mao Zedong wanted to gain back his power and to
remove the opposition within the Party
The Cultural Revolution
• As the late 1950s moved on, China and the USSR
competed to be the dominant Communist country in
the world. Combined with the failure of the Great
Leap Forward, Mao took a lesser role in China’s
politics.
– Some policies were relaxed, and Chinese farmers could
finally move back into their homes and work their own
small farm plots.
– As his brand of Communism weakened, Mao felt that
China had lost its revolutionary spark, and used the young
adults of China to start his “Cultural Revolution.”
Results of the Great Leap Forward
• As a result of the failure on
the Great Leap Forward, Mao
retired from the post of
chairman of the People's
Republic of China
• His place as head of state was
taken by Liu Shaoqi, but Mao
remained important in
determining overall policy
The Rise of the Moderates
• “The 3 Bitter Years”
Caused by Mao
• Party Leaders Blame Mao
for the Damage
The disaster was 70%
manmade and 30% due to
natural causes.
- Liu Shaoqi
• More Moderate Leaders
Assume Power…Mao
Loses Power. Enter Liu
Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, &
Deng Xiaoping
The rise of the moderates
The Chinese referred to the years of the famine as the
‘three bitter years’
They put part of the blame on the great leap forward
Liu Shaoqi deputy leader of the party stated that :
‘The disaster was seventy per cent man made and thirty per
cent natural causes
THE WANING OF MAO?
• Mao’s Power Gone?
• Still Extremely Popular and
the Face of the Revolution
• Mao Reaction to the
Moderates…The Cultural
Revolution
Peasants have dirty hands and
cowshit-sodden feet, but they
are much cleaner than
intellectuals.
- Mao
He’s Baaaaaaack!
• In the early 1960s Mao became highly critical of the
foreign policy of the Soviet Union. He was upset
that:
– Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin
– Khrushchev was the head of the communist world
– Khrushchev backed down over the Cuban Missile Crisis
Mao staged this media
event – him swimming in
the Yangze River – to
indicate that he was still
vigorous and capable to
lead China