Steel Production (2a.2) Flashcards
How did De-centralisation work?
- Key change from 1st 5 year plan was the move to decentralise economic activity
- Idea was to give more freedom to cadres, to harness the energies of the masses
Why did Mao support decentralisation?
Mao became convinced that if state bureaucrats continued to control planning, it would hold back the pace of change
What were the problems with decentralisation
- If China was to advance at the required speed
- It would need the cadres to unleash the potential of the millions of peasants and workers
- Who Mao believed were eager to participate in transforming the country
How did backyard furnaces work?
- Production of as much steel as possible
- Mao announced in 1957 that steel production would quadruple in the next 4 years to 20 mil per annum
- Target for 1958 went from 6 mil- 10.7 mil tonnes
- Once it was obvious that this was not possible, Mao launched the backyard furnace campaign
Why did Mao support the backyard furnace campaign?
- Was buoyed up by apparent success of water conservancy campaign in which 100 mil peasants had been involved in digging reservoirs/canals with minimal equipment
- Mao had same idea for increasing steel production
- Every family encouraged to construct own backyard furnace and melt down metal objects to produce ‘steel’
Positives of backyard furnace campaign
- Response was spectacular
- Became a national movement immediately
- In 1958, 14% of steel came from local furnaces
- At peak 1/4 population abandoned normal activities to take part
What were the problems with backyard furnaces?
- Put unsustainable strain on food production
- Closed schools and deployed peasant shock brigades (made up of anyone available) to get in the harvest
- Spring 1959 realised the steel was useless
- Didn’t want to lose face so collected in ‘steel’ and buried it out of sight
- Economically damaging to deploy people on futile projects
- Ecological consequences: faster soil erosions and worse flooding, night sky turned red and in the day smoke blotted out the sun
How did state owned enterprises work?
- A consolidation of the earlier move towards state ownership of businesses
- What were initially private enterprises then changed hands and became known as State Owned Enterprises (SOEs)
- Prices, output and wages set by the state
Why did Mao support SOEs?
He believed it meant people would work harder for industrialisation
What were the positives of SOEs?
- Workers enjoyed guaranteed jobs and wages (so-called ‘iron rice bowl’)
- As well as medical and educational benefits
What were the problems with SOEs?
- Removed the incentive to work harder
- Whether the SOE was run efficiently or not didn’t matter to workers or management as any surplus went straight to the state
How did construction projects work?
‘Great Leap Forward’ was first used to describe the water conservancy projects which included millions of peasant workers
Why did Mao support the construction projects?
- Mao saw the masses as China’s main asset
- Argued that sheer numbers could achieve the desired result without needing access to advanced machinery
- Work brigades set out from the communes to construct dams/reservoirs using only shovels, baskets and carrying poles
What were the positives of the construction projects?
- Some of the smaller projects were relatively success
- Expert advice was welcomed when it sped things up
What were the problems with the construction projects?
- Some irrigation schemes were total disasters
- By 1961 twice as much mid was being deposited downstream, foreign visitors banned from going near the dam
- Led to an increase in salinisation which reduced the productivity of the land
