Great Leap Forward: 1958-1960

Question 1

Origins of the GLF

Answer 1

• 1958-1960
• economy was slow moving
• Mao was determined to base an industrial revolution on the work of the peasants

Question 2

Aims of the GLF

Answer 2

• He wanted to achieve rapid and sustained economic growth
• -> he believed this would allow China to move quickly from the socialism stage to the communist stage
• He had a high expectations of China having a high steel production

Question 3

Reasons for GLF

Answer 3

• solve China’s economic problems
• Although the first Five-Year Plan increased the agricultural growth, there was still a high population in China –> food was high in demand but the food produced was not enough
• -> required more labour –> this would also solve existing unemployment (creating more jobs)
• Mao believed that there was a need to rouse the Chinese people into action to speed up the economic development (increasing industrial and agricultural out put that could be rival that of superpowers like Britain and America)

Question 4

Actions taken in the GLF

Answer 4

• Mao realised that the Soviet-style of focusing on heavy industries was not suitable for China
  1. GROUPING OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE (collective farm/commune)
• -> to abolish private, family sphere of peasants –> their farms were taken over by commune (family lives seen as a distraction)
• -> Mao wanted the peasants to follow the Eight-point agricultural constitution based on Soviet ‘scientist’ Lysenko
  2. “WALKING ON TWO LEGS”
• ordered communes to become centres of industrial & agricultural production
• -> backyard furnaces
  3. LARGE SCALE CIVIL ENGINEERING PROJECTS
• Projects were done by hand and not by machines

Question 5

Reasons why GLF failed:(

Answer 5

• new Soviet Union leader, Khrushchev and Mao quarrelled –> withdrew his advisers from China–>mao no help:(
• Mao’s basic misunderstanding of economic processes and poor science
• Mao’s reliance on intuition
• Mao’s unwillingness to accept responsibility for failure– authorities and mao knew it failed but said nothing and blamed other things
• Produced famine instead of additional food, wasted rather than successfully exploiting China’s vast natural and human resources(cus of deforestation for backyard furnaces)
• Mao’s weakness as an economic planner
• Blind compliance with Mao’s policies, the root of which could be traced back to Mao’s authoritarianism
• aims too high

Question 6

failure of backyard furnaces

Answer 6

• -> Mao thought that producing masses of steel would help solve all of China’s economic problems
• -> This became a communal activity where everyone could participate –> the people would feel that they are helping to build the new society –> slowly this became a national movement. HOWEVER, although many people built their backyard furnaces, many were not of industrial use. Therefore, the GLF failed.
• -> steel could only be a contemporary sculpture
• ->Only steel coming from large foundries were suitable for industrial use