The Great Leap Forward was started in China in 1958 and went to 1962. The great leap forward was lead by the Chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Mao Zedong. The goal of this movement was to transform China into a society that could compete with western countries. The main things Mao wanted focus on was to modernize agriculture and the Chinese industries. Mao called this movement the Five Year Plan. He was basing this plan off another Five Year Plan that the Soviets had conducted.
The Great Leap forward didn’t go to well. Records show that it gave rise to economic stagnation, (Mao Zedong)
led to food shortages and famine, and was the cause of around 55 million deaths. The five-year plan started when Mao decided that China needed to go in a different path of socialism than the Soviet Union. The main part of this would be through rural collectivization. Collectivization “was a policy of forced consolidation of individual peasant households into collective farms called 'kolkhoze' as carried out by the Soviet government in the late 1920's - early 1930's.” The hope here was to greatly improve production speeds and all around efficiency. Many people were taken from their farms and brought to produce steel. In the beginning the local farmers were sorted into groups of 20-40 households but that number soon grew to 100-300. By 1958 the countries' farmers had been divided into 26,000 groups.
During this time private farming was banned and whatever private things you owned like land or farm stock were taken and used by government. Hoping to increase productivity further, the government started to take away private homes. The demand for these properties and the workload on the farmers started to feel like the farmers were under the military's control.
Mao encouraged families to set up small furnaces in their backyard to minimalize the amount of metal and machinery that was imported. One of the down sides to this “Backyard Steel Production” was that entire forests were cut down to fuel the furnaces. Due to the fact that so many people were taken from farms to make steel, when it came to harvest season there weren’t enough people to harvest the crops so the crops rotted which caused a nation wide famine. Also during this time the Yellow River Flood occurred, which was the cause of over 2 million deaths. Not all deaths were due to famine, around 2.5 million people were beaten to death/ tortured to death by the military, while around 3 million people committed suicide.
The Great Leap Forward only ended up lasting three years. This time in China is often referred to as the “Three Bitter Years.” The rest of the party decided that this was a major loss for the Chinese and blamed it on Mao. Due to this failure Mao was removed from power and was later given power back in 1967.
Chinese Revolution
http://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/great-leap-forward/
ThoughtCo
Kallie Szczepanski
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-great-leap-forward-195154
Investopedia
Investopedia Staff
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/great-leap-forward.asp
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Leap-Forward
Measurements
Electricity: Billion KWH.
Coal, Crude oil, Crude steel, Cement, Paper, Chemical Fertilization: Million Metric Ton.
Cotton cloth: Billion meters.
Aluminum: Thousand Metric Ton.
The Great Leap forward didn’t go to well. Records show that it gave rise to economic stagnation, (Mao Zedong)
led to food shortages and famine, and was the cause of around 55 million deaths. The five-year plan started when Mao decided that China needed to go in a different path of socialism than the Soviet Union. The main part of this would be through rural collectivization. Collectivization “was a policy of forced consolidation of individual peasant households into collective farms called 'kolkhoze' as carried out by the Soviet government in the late 1920's - early 1930's.” The hope here was to greatly improve production speeds and all around efficiency. Many people were taken from their farms and brought to produce steel. In the beginning the local farmers were sorted into groups of 20-40 households but that number soon grew to 100-300. By 1958 the countries' farmers had been divided into 26,000 groups.
During this time private farming was banned and whatever private things you owned like land or farm stock were taken and used by government. Hoping to increase productivity further, the government started to take away private homes. The demand for these properties and the workload on the farmers started to feel like the farmers were under the military's control.
Mao encouraged families to set up small furnaces in their backyard to minimalize the amount of metal and machinery that was imported. One of the down sides to this “Backyard Steel Production” was that entire forests were cut down to fuel the furnaces. Due to the fact that so many people were taken from farms to make steel, when it came to harvest season there weren’t enough people to harvest the crops so the crops rotted which caused a nation wide famine. Also during this time the Yellow River Flood occurred, which was the cause of over 2 million deaths. Not all deaths were due to famine, around 2.5 million people were beaten to death/ tortured to death by the military, while around 3 million people committed suicide.
The Great Leap Forward only ended up lasting three years. This time in China is often referred to as the “Three Bitter Years.” The rest of the party decided that this was a major loss for the Chinese and blamed it on Mao. Due to this failure Mao was removed from power and was later given power back in 1967.
Chinese Revolution
http://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/great-leap-forward/
ThoughtCo
Kallie Szczepanski
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-great-leap-forward-195154
Investopedia
Investopedia Staff
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/great-leap-forward.asp
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Leap-Forward
Measurements
Electricity: Billion KWH.
Coal, Crude oil, Crude steel, Cement, Paper, Chemical Fertilization: Million Metric Ton.
Cotton cloth: Billion meters.
Aluminum: Thousand Metric Ton.