Agriculture and Industry - The Great Leap Forward 1958-62 Flashcards
Why did Mao launch the Great Leap Forward?
• Mao wanted to transform China into a great economic power
• Mao was optimistic due to successes of First Five Year Plan and Communist success in Cold War
• Mao wanted to achieve “ Walking on Two Legs”
• Wanted to promote power of the people through mass mobilisation
Successes of the Great Leap Forward
• Irrigation made land more fertile
• Urban spaces like Tiananmen Square was remodelled
Failure of Great Leap Forward
• Targets were absurd e.g. Ministry of metallurgy declared steel production would double to 20 million in 1962
• Mao believed that mobilisation of the masses would overcome any obstacles
• Anti Rightist Campaign meant that there were no intellectuals or experts to help economic planning
• Backyard furnaces were wasteful and produced poor quality steel
• Factories closed and there were shortages of raw materials
What caused the Great Famine
• GLF was a disaster for agricultual production
• Cadres refused to reveal the true conditions in communes
• ‘Wind of exaggeration’ caused inflated quotas and falsified figures
• Grain was exported to pay for heavy industry and as a free gift to other Communist countries
Life during the Great Famine
• Rural death rate increased from 11.07 to 28.68 in two years
• Regional effects, 7.8 million died in Henan and 9 million in Sichuan
• Peasants scavenged for food
• Birth rate dropped
• Children and old were vulnerable
• Cannibalism reported
• 30 to 50 million died
Why was the Great Famine so terrible?
• Typhoons in the South and droughts in the Yellow River
• Tensions between USSR and China led to Khrushchev recalling economic advisers
• Intellectuals had been purged during anti-rightist campaign
How far were Mao’s policies responsible?
• Terror led to officials concealing true conditions among peasantry
• No one dared to criticise it
• Local party leaders were corrupt
What happened at the Lushan Conference 1959?
• Peng Dehuai voiced doubt at inflated output figures
• Mao felt betrayed and accused him of forming a ‘right opportunist clique’
• Peng was denounced, kicked out of party and put under house arrest
What did Mao do after the Great Leap Forward?
• Mao did take some responsibility for the failures of the communes
• ‘Great catastrophe’ of backyard furnaces
• Mao chose to retire from day to day politics but remained as Party Chairman
Who took over from Mao?
• Liu Shaoqi as Premier ( head of state )
• Deng Xiaoping as Party General Secretary
• Pragmatism and rationality took over from Maoist Utopianism
1962 7000 party cadres speech
• Shaoqi dismisses Mao’s claims that the GLF was a success and that the failures were due to weather
• He declared that 70% of failures were man made
• He criticised the GLF but not Mao personally
What reforms did Shaoqi and Xiaoping announce?
• Motto of ‘agriculture as the foundation of the economy’
• Communes scaled back
• Peasants could use free market
• Industry emphasised profitability and supported agriculture
• Intellectuals returned to influence, rural Maoist party cadres were downgraded and replaced by urban ones
Successes of the reforms
• 1965 agricultural production had recovered to 1957 levels
• Private plots of land incentivised harder work
• End of 1962 tools were restored to pre GLF availability
• Light Industry grew at 27%, Heavy Industry grew at 17%
• Production of consumer goods doubled from 1957
