Why did Mao launch the
Great Leap Forward?
LO: To examine Mao’s aims of the 2nd 5 Year
Plan
Recap: Consequences of the
100 flowers campaign
• The second five year plan to
develop the agriculture and
industry in China.
• 大跃进 (dà yuè jìn)
• Introduced in 1958 to great fanfares.
• Targets and quotas constantly set and reset.
• Not based on sound economic analysis.
• They were plucked from the air on a whim.
• Acts in faith in Communism.
• Were revised upwards to impress Mao’s call for
collective effort.
MORE! FASTER! BETTER! CHEAPER!
• De-centralisation -> control to go to local party cadres to avoid
‘over-cautious’ bureaucracy
• Transform (v. quickly) China from Socialism to Communism
(ideological goal)
• Euphoria -> Mao became caught up in the Euphoria of this
belief that mass-mobilisation can achieve more than the
realities
• Steel & Grain targets = vastly more than had ever been
produced. Mao gives targets that are higher than his economic
advisors say.
• Steel & grain = key
Aims:
Agricultural Co-operatives
people’s communes. Could consist of up to 20,000 people
and became the basic unit of rural life – everything was
there!
Aim in establishing these communes was to abolish the
family life of a peasant. e.g Children cared for in
kindergartens, meals in mess halls. Family ties –
dismissed as ‘bourgeoisie emotional attachments’
The agricultural communes are at the heart of the Great
Leap Forward
Key to unlocking potential:
Grain production
Soviet ‘scientist’
Plant crops close together
Plough soil much deeper than usual
Intended to increase outcome and productivity
Had disastrous consequences
Mao didn’t listen to peasant experience
Lysenko theories:
To help grain production by getting rid of pests
Mistakenly focused on sparrows – thought they ate all the
grain.
Mass campaign to make noise all day and all night so the
sparrows couldn’t land and rest, and so died of exhaustion.
Was so successful that the ecological system of China was
interrupted and caterpillars, who the sparrows would
usually eat, became prevalent and ate all the crops.
The Four Noes Campaign
Backyard Furnaces:
Alongside poor agricultural planning, the peasant
farmers attention was being diverted.
Why not make steel too?
Backyard furnaces – as it sounds. In schools,
farms, colleges, factories.
Encouraged to burn anything down to make steel.
They had huge targets to meet so attention was on
that, not the grain.
Failure!
‘Walking on 2 legs’
• High targets set
• Party Cadres wanted to prove that their areas were doing
well / fear of not meeting targets
• Mao = euphoria at targets being met or exceeded!
• Targets raised!
Target triangle
The Great Leap Forward - What were the four key contexts which influenced Mao’s thinking?
Political
Economic
International
Ideological
The Great Leap Forward - What were the four key contexts which influenced Mao’s
thinking?
Political
• Nobody challenged Mao post-Hundred Flowers;
everyone afraid (e.g. Zhou Enlai).
• Lower-level, regional cadres fell into line with Mao.
• Technical engineers’ roles given over to Party cadres,
again reinforcing Mao’s will.
• The CPC takes over economic planning (instead of
the state bureaucracy). People opposed to Mao’s
ideas lose power (e.g. Chen Yun).
• Politics is put above above economics.
Economic
• FFYP plan resulted in low agricultural rise (3.8%).
• Needed more food to drive industrialisation (i.e. to feed
the growing urban population).
• Also needed more peasants to work on industrial
projects and not on farms.
• Communes offered a solution – make peasants work
harder and drive them through mass mobilisation and
propaganda to do so.
International
• China needed to catch up with the West and the
USSR.
• Sputnik launch showed what was needed.
• Needed to go nuclear to ward off possible attacks
from Taiwan (GMD) and USA.
• Sino-Soviet split fast approaching and so could not
rely on the USSR’s support for much longer.
• Mao angry at Khrushchev’s de-Stalinsation policy
and ‘peaceful coexistence’ stance.
Ideological
• Mao wanted the revolution to continue.
• Feared bureaucratic interference; the masses needed
regular re-invigoration.
• Mass mobilisation, coupled with adherence to political
aims, would always trump economic laws and practical
considerations.
• As before, the peasants were key to China’s
development and so Mao returned to them yet again in
his hunt for a Communist utopia.
• GLF one more stage on the the above path.
Reason for heavy industry first
– why steel?
Heavy industries’ are
those basic industries
that a country needs to
develop before other
areas of its economy
can expand.
Chemical
Fertilizer
The steel works at Anshan in
Manchuria, built in the 1950s
Cement
Coal
Oil
Steel
Iron
Identify the various materials that were needed to construct the features
shown below. How does this help answer the question above?
IRON
COAL
CEMENT
OIL
RUBBER
Ships
Steel bridge
spars
Steel Diesel
engine
Girders
– Steel
Steel –
railway
lines
Steel pipes
Iron Railings
Iron –
lamp
posts
Steel - Motor Vehicles
Nanjing Bridge over the Yangzi River
• Great Leap Forward People’s Century is very good from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4srwSkD05ws 21m 22s –
34m 18s
Start at 16.40
• These are also good – similar stuff to People’s Century: talking
heads + some contemporary footage.
•
• Clip 1 - from 6:11
• Clip 2
• Clip 3
Video