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The Secret of the Great Leap Forward: How Mao Zedong Tried to Change China's Economic Destiny
In this campaign, Mao Zedong and his Communist leaders took a frivolous attitude towards the scientific nature of economic planning. They were overconfident and ignored basic economic principles and expert opinions.
Origins of the Great Leap Forward
Essentially, the idea of the Great Leap Forward was derived from the Marxist theory of the linear development of capitalism and socialism. When Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China in 1949, faced with a desperately poor country, he was confident that he could narrow China's development gap through rapid industrialization and agricultural collectivization.
“China will surpass the most powerful capitalist countries within a few decades.”
Implementation of the People's Commune
As agricultural reform progressed, Mao Zedong implemented the people's commune system in the hope of consolidating farmers' land and thus improving agricultural productivity. But in fact, this collectivization process failed to increase production as expected, but instead led to chaos and inefficiency. As scholar Darley Young pointed out, "the initial stage of collectivization brought chaos and inefficiency. efficiency, and agricultural productivity often declines.”
The impact of agricultural collectivizationUnder Mao's policies, private farming was outlawed and farmers were forced into state-run collective farms that deprived them of their land and severely restricted their lives. Grain quotas were set for farmers, making it impossible for them to get adequate food supplies, and deliberate or incorrect forecasts led to millions of farmers eventually dying of hunger.
Economic consequences of the Great Leap Forward
According to statistics, during the Great Leap Forward, the grain production in mainland China did not increase as expected. Instead, there was a "Great Famine from 1959 to 1961", with an estimated death toll ranging from 15 million to 55 million. Ten thousand people. The poor outcome was exacerbated by the CCP’s top brass’ choice to conceal reports of economic problems out of fear of Mao Zedong’s policies.
Social changes during collectivization
During the Great Leap Forward, rural society also underwent tremendous changes. All traditional religious and cultural activities were banned and replaced by propaganda activities and political meetings. The Communist Party claims that these "progressive" measures will improve education levels and the status of women in rural areas, but they will undoubtedly infringe on the traditional structure of peasant society.
"Full-scale collectivization not only failed to increase production, but also destroyed traditional farming patterns."
Opposition and the end of the movement
With the failure of the Great Leap Forward, numerous critical voices began to emerge, and Mao Zedong's fear of dissenting opinions led to the launch of the "Anti-Rightist Movement." The result of this campaign was not only the elimination of dissent, but also the persecution of millions of people, and the purism within the party made it almost impossible to eradicate opposing voices. Even at the "Seven Thousand Cadres Conference" at the end of 1962, Mao Zedong did not change his strategy, but instead blamed the problems on those officials who failed to implement the policy.
Subsequent impact and reflections
The Great Leap Forward not only caused profound damage to China's economy, it also strengthened Mao Zedong's power base and gave rise to the subsequent Cultural Revolution. All this reminds people that when implementing policies, technical experts and economic common sense cannot be ignored. In future development, how can we balance economic progress and social stability to avoid repeating the same mistakes?
