THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD(1958 – 1962)

-The success of the First Five Year Plan encouraged Mao to start thinking about a second plan.- There was the feeling that some peasants were not putting effort into the land and were quite content to reap the benefits of the collectivization.- After returning from Moscow in 1957, Mao was convinced that the way forward was best achieved by a massive increase in steel production.

-He also believed that by creating new and larger types of communes, through which industrial productivity could be increased, the nation would move ideologically to his own goal of socialist state.- China’s massive population would be directed into labor-intensive industries that did not need much capital investment.- By the end of 1958, almost all the peasants had been merged into about 27.000 communes, each with 5.000 households.- Private ownership of land was abolished.

The Great Leap Forward

• What do you see in the picture?• What are the people doing?• Why are the people there?• Who are these people?• How many people do you think are in the

picture?• How do they feel about the Great Leap

Forward, and how does this affect them?

-The communes were like small towns. They included schools, nurseries, banks, care for the elderly, communal kitchens.- The commune managed the agricultural, industrial material and tools that belonged to the collectives.- Targets were set by the state, but they were not based on economic principles and the projected figures were unrealistic.- In order to achieve the targets backyard furnaces were build in every village to produce home-made steel.

MAO’s REFORM PROGRAMMES

INDUSTRY FARMING

1953-1957 - 1ST FIVE YEAR PLAN

1950 - LAND REFORM ACT

EXPANSION OF HEAVY INDUSTRIES: IRON + STEEL, COAL, MACHINERY

1952 – MUTUAL AID TEAMS

COLLECTIVISATION

1953 – CO-OPERATIVE FARMS

1955 – COLLECTIVE FARMS

1958-1963 - 2ND FIVE YEAR PLAN:

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD

THE ‘BACKYARD’ STEEL CAMPAIGN

COMMUNES EXTREME COMMUNIST LIFESTYLE

FARM PRODUCE TO PAY FOR

FOREIGN MACHINERY

PEASANTS USED TO HELP EXPAND STEEL PRODUCTION

THINGS TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT1.After nearly ten years of communism, Mao was worried that China was settling back into old ways. He saw a middle class of “experts” growing up, running the factories, business, hospitals and universities. To Mao they were too much like the old class who ruled China under the emperors. He wanted another revolution in order to hand control back to the peasants.2.Despite the successes of the First Five Year Plan, there was unemployment in the cities and peasant had little to do between harvesting and sowing.3.Finally, there was a problem of how China could raise enough money to build more industries.

WAS THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD A SUCCESS?- The Great Leap Forward tried to do too much too fast,

and led to huge mistakes:INDUSTRY- Thousands of small factories proved to be inefficient and

wasteful.- Much of the backyard iron and steel was of low quality and

could not be used.- In 1960, after a deterioration in relations with the USSR,

Russia began to withdraw their technicians and advisers.AGRICULTURE- Food production also slumped and too many peasants had

been moved from agriculture to industry.- By 1961 China was having to buy the grain from abroad.- This situation was not helped by three years of disastrous

harvest caused by floods and droughts.

THE COMMUNES- These were not the great success hoped for.- Many proved to be too large to be run efficiently.- Peasant resented the loss of their private plots and the attacks on family life.- The members of the commune were not, at first, allowed to have any private possessions.- They all received the same wages.

- In 1958 the harvest was exceptionally high, but the reports were inflated (they were afraid of being accused of defeatists or counter-revolutionaries), which led to another disaster when the government took their quota from the exaggerated figures leaving the peasants with little or nothing to eat.

- It was apparent the TGLF targets were unrealistic, the government reduced the steel and grain targets for 1959, but it was too late.

- The outcome was catastrophic, particularly when the “three bad years” (1959, 1960, 1961) brought drought, floods, famine.

- Peasant began to starve, the situation was desperate, some villagers were forced into cannibalism and one family strangled and ate their eight-old year daughter.

- It’s thought that more than 50 million people died as a result of the Great Leap Forward.

RETREAT FROM THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD- Mao took part of the blame for the failure and, in 1959 resigned

as China’s head of state. China’s affairs were now controlled by Liu Shaoqi. New policies were introduced.INDUSTRY- Thousands of factories were closed down. Other factories

were grouped together.- People were encouraged to set up their own business.- Bonuses were given for increased output. AGRICULTURE- Millions of peasants were returned from manufacturing to

farming.- To encourage peasant to produce more food, private plots

were returned.

COMMUNES- These were reduced in size to about one-third of their

original size.

- Mao was angry at these changes. He felt that the new policies were creating new forms of social inequality.

THE GREAT PROLETARIAT CULTURAL REVOLUTION

- In 1962 Mao came out of semi-retirement to launch the “Socialist Education Movement” (1962 – 1966). This was a campaign to get the people back on the right path to Communism.

- Mao could do little because he was not the head of the state, therefore he turned to the army for help.

- Lin Biao had been appointed as Minister of Defense, and he fully supported Mao Zedong and Chen Boda compiling the “Little Red Book”.

- Soldiers were ordered to study Mao’s thoughts contained in the “Little Red Book of Quotations from Chairman Mao”.

- OATH TAKEN BY THE RED GUARDS: “WE VOW TO APPLY SENTENCE BY SENTENCE EACH OF CHAIRMAN MAO’S ORDERS, EVEN IF WE DO NOT AT FIRST UNDERSTAND THEM”

- The Socialist Education Movement aimed fostering the three “isms” of collectivism, patriotism and socialism; and getting rid of the “four olds” old ideas, old culture, old customs and old ways of life.

- By 1965 Mao had enough support to launch the super-campaign known as the Cultural Revolution.

- Jiang Qing (Mao’s wife) and Lin Biao helped to launch the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (GPCR)

- They began to move against those members of the CPC who had been identified as counter-revolutionaries (Liu Shaoqi and his supporters).

- In 1966 schools and universities were closed down. The students joined the groups of Red Guards from the army, and destroyed churches, libraries, museums and temples

- The Red Guards and students were ordered to get rid of Communist Party of the enemies of Mao’s policies.

- Opponents were humiliated, tortured, or executed and many party officials were removed from their positions.

- Huge posters with the names and crimes of teachers and party bosses appeared on the streets.

- Red Guards were fighting with peasants and workers, China was on the verge of civil war.

Results: - The cult of Mao steadily grew, millions of

students caused an amount of damage.

- Liu Shaoqi was dismissed from his post and placed under house arrest. He finally died in 1969, having being labeled as a “counter-revolutionary revisionist” and bourgeois element.

- Mao begun to lose control of the Red Guards and they split into factions and

fought each other.

- Foreign embassies were attacked in Shanghai.-Jiang Qing and Lin Biao started their own campaign of terror, persecuting “counter-revolutionaries” all over China.

- A lot of people were killed, others committed suicide and millions were sent into the countryside to learn from the peasant how to be revolutionaries.- The cost of the Cultural Revolution economically and socially was incalculable.- The GPCR almost made China bankrupt.- Agriculturally and industrially , China suffered reversals that multiplied the failings of the Great Leap Forward.- Education was disrupted and many intellectuals were sent into the countryside.