As a result of the successful economic reconstruction that had taken place in the early 1950’s. Backyard Steel Furnace during the Great Leap Forward. Too terrible.” You’ll feel much better for it.” These quotations have been selected and compiled by Alpha History authors. We collected scrap metal and pots while the grownups cut the trees. Mao Zedong. While the First Five Year Plan had succeeded in stimulating rapid industrialisation and increased production, Mao was suspicious of Soviet models of economic development. His words are always so clear and direct. Sky View Big. I had to see to everything myself. Terrible. They killed him and ate him.” Anhui police report on cannibalism, 1960, “Cannibalism occurred in many places. However, the Great Leap resulted in one of the greatest disasters in history. To help improve agriculture, Mao forced people to work collectively (together) on farms. [But] there was too much haste. known as the Great Leap Forward. Backyard smelters run by peasants with no metallurgy training produced such low-quality material that it was completely worthless. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.” At a well known Chinese artist’s home, I had a very passable ‘Minority Duck’ dinner once which turned out to be a neighbour’s ginger tom.” Instead, Mao envisaged a decentralisation of control to local Party cadres whose task it would be to This plan was called the Great Leap Forward. Bhupesh Bhandari. In 1957, at the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, this was held in Moscow, Khrush… Mao Zedong, 1957, “Wage a bitter struggle for three years and transform the look of a greater part of the country… The industrial output of local industries should exceed local agricultural output in five to ten years.” The Great Leap Forward was a push by Mao Zedong to change China from a predominantly agrarian (farming) society to a modern, industrial society—in just five years. Some scholars have also included the years 1958 or 1962. This was also the era of massive irrigation projects — local, regional, and national in scope — that were to result in impressive gains in crop yields in subsequent years. Mao Zedong, 1959, “Even if there’s a collapse [in China’s food production] it’ll be alright. By 1958, these agricultural collectives had become the norm, and private ownership of land was abolished, with all households being forced into the state-operated communes. In the third year, I did not manage to finish my ploughing. Part of an authoritarian regime is the dedication to ideological-based projects, even at the expense of economic or social progress. “One of the many paradoxes of the Great Leap Forward was that everything was for sale, as bricks, clothes and fuel were bartered for food. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. Food rotted in the fields. Li Lei, CCP cadre from Gansu province, writing in 1999, “Among 14 work units… 3,132 persons are suffering from oedema, which afflicts 25 per cent of the staff in the most seriously affected units… The illness has struck workers more than cadres, those employed in heavy physical labour more than light work, and those eating at communal kitchens more than those taking their meals at home.” If you would like to suggest a quotation for these pages, please contact Alpha History. Chinese Revolution crossword for beginners. The Great Leap Forward was a movement in China that started in 1958 and lasted two years till 1960. The Great Leap Forward was not simply a whim of Mao Zedong, but the program of … Millions also left the countryside to work in underground” The official death toll from the Great Leap Forward is "only" 14 million, but the majority of scholars agree that this is a substantial underestimate. 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