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Mao and his supporters, once the Communists were firmly in power, launched a massive effort to remake the Chinese economy, convinced that 'scientific' Marxist ideology and central control gave them the capacity to achieve in decades what took centuries in the West. Mao and his associates conceived of the idea that the organization of large-scale rural communes could meet the country's industrial and agricultural challenges. Capital as a result of Marxist ideology had negative implications. Thus Mao decided to use labor-intensive methods to develop the economy. Rather than capital and machinery, Mao set about mobilizing manpower. This was a plan prepared by poorly educated politicians who saw themselves as infallible social engineers despite the experimental nature of their undertaking. Not involved in the planning were competent agronomists and engineers. The economic goal behind the endeavor was to bypass the slow, gradual process of industrialization followed by capitalist countries. The most famous example of the Great Leap Forward approaches was communities throughout China build "backyard" steel furnaces. These furnaces required little capital to build, only the mobilization of local labor. The iron and steel produced, however, was of such poor quality that it was virtually useless. As with much of the production in Communist countries, the product produced was actually worth less that the inputs. The Soviet Union possessed immense raw material resources, productive agricultural land, highly competent technicians, and the ability to exploit its Eastern European Empire. Thus the impact of Communist economics was a poor standard of living compared to the Capitalist West. China was in a much more precarious situation and, as a result, the result of the Great Leap forward was a social and economic disaster of immense proportions. The Great Leap forward and adverse weather conditions generated perhaps the most dreadful famine in human history. Millions of Chinese died in the famine resulting from Mao's Great Leap Forward. It is no accident that two of the greatest famines in world history were caused by the political leadership of the two great Communist countries--the Soviet Union and the People's Republic. The Great Leap should not only be viewed in economic terms, like the Cultural Revolution to come, there were underlying political factors. [Gabriel] Mao in the 1950s was the most important figure, but he was not a Stalinist dictator. There were other important figures in the Party. The Great Leap can be seen as an effort to seize total control of the apparatuses of government and Communist Party as Stalin did in the Soviet Union. Other Communist Party figures had a more conservative outlook--men like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping who saw Mao's policies as not only dangerous "adventurism", but also the underlying political implications. Many of these men wanted to follow the proven Soviet policies of transforming an agrarian society into an industrial society rather than accepting Mao's more experimental approach. (At the time, the weaknesses of Soviet-style Communist economics were not yet exposed.)
Mao and his supporters, once the Communists were firmly in power, launched a massive effort to remake the Chinese economy, convinced that 'scientific' Marxist ideology and central control gave them the capacity to achieve in decades what took centuries in the West. Mao and his associates conceived of the idea that the organization of large-scale rural communes could meet the country's industrial and agricultural challenges.
Capital as a result of Marxist ideology had negative implications. Thus Mao decided to use labor-intensive methods to develop the economy. Rather than capital and machinery, Mao set about mobilizing manpower. This was a plan prepared by poorly educated politicians who saw themselves as infallible social engineers despite the experimental nature of their undertaking. Not involved in the planning were competent agronomists and engineers. The economic goal behind the endeavor was to bypass the slow, gradual process of industrialization followed by capitalist countries.
Upon gaining control of China, Mao Zedong's agrarian policy involved land reform, collectivization, and the establishment of agricultural cooperatives. The goal was the Communist version of redistribute land to peasants, increase agricultural production, and industrialize China. The peasantry wanted to own their land. Mao like Stalin did not want this. His version of returning land to the peasantry was various versions of collectivization. his a not something Mao talked about as he rose to power. He like Stalin assumed that would increase productivity and the surplus could be used to finance Mao's major goal -- industrialization. Mao's land reform began with confiscating land from landlords. China was different than Russia in that their were no huge estates owned by aristocrats. And here were no peasant land seizures. Mao encouraged peasants to cooperate in Mutual Aid teams which quickly turned into various forms of mandatory collectivization. Peasants with small land holdings, especially if hey had a few workers, often got the same treatment. Communist authorities held 'Speak Bitterness' sessions, meetings to denounce landlords followed by mass killing of landlords. Mao forced peasants to join collective farms which were grouped people's communes. The Chinese state centrally controlled production, resource allocation, and food distribution. Land ownership was transferred to the state in a system based on the Soviet Kolkhutz collectivization program. This system of course sharply reduced Soviet productivity and harvests. We are not sure that Mao was aware of that because of course Soviet propaganda sought to cover that up. As in the Soviet Union as part of collectivization, the Communists attempted to modernize agriculture. This included investing in fertilizers, hybrid seeds, and irrigation schemes. They established the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps to build dams, roads, and railways and attempted to introduce new agricultural techniques. All of this sounds positive, but was commonly more propaganda than substantive action. One widely publicized campaign was an effort to exterminated sparrows, which Mao got in his head were adversely impacting the country's grain crop. Sparrows were classified as one of the 'Four Pests' along with rats, flies, and mosquitos. Mao believed that sparrows were eating too much grain and harming crop yields. The loss of sparrows severely disrupted the ecosystem, leading to an uncontrolled population explosion of insects that sparrows normally preyed upon. Unlike sparrows the huge increase in the insect population which significantly impacted crop yields. Combined with the impact of collectivization, Chinese harvests plummeted with devastating consequences. Socialist true believers can write lengthy tomes about the evils of private property, but the factual evidence s unchallenged. It is farmers who own their own land, a system set in motion by the the United States with the Northwest Ordinance (1787), that are the most efficient producers worldwide..
Mao saw China's huge population as its greatest strength and promoted population growth. He set out to organize China's vast population in a mass mobilization to fast forward industrialization. Farm collectivization was designed to expand productivity providing capital and freeing up labor for industrialization, following Stalin's strategy. Mao was impatience o achieve the industrial and manufacturing growth of Western capitalism. As he phrased it, the Great Leap Forward would enable China to industrialize 'more, faster, better, cheaper'. Mao was convinced that he could develop labor-intensive methods of industrialization. This would harness China's huge population, emphasizing e manpower rather than machines and capital expenditure which China lacked. Mao hoped to avoid the slow process of industrialization followed in he West, meaning the through gradual accumulation of capital and purchase of the heavy machinery needed for industrial production. The best example of his much publicized Great Leap Forward approach was the small backyard steel furnaces built in every village and urban neighborhood. Steel is the backbone of industry. And these backyard furnaces were intended to accelerate China's industrialization process. They required little capital to build, only the mobilization of local labor. The iron and steel produced, however, was of such poor quality that it was virtually useless. As with much of the production in Communist countries, the product produced was actually worth less that the raw material inputs. The Soviet Union which possessed immense raw material resources, productive agricultural land, highly competent technicians, and the ability to exploit its Eastern European Empire. Thus the impact of Communist economics was a poor Soviet standard of living compared to the Capitalist West. This proved increasingly difficult to explain as time passed. Not only did the Great Leap Forward industrial projects fail, but the whole premise failed when the increased agricultural production failed to materialize.
The Soviet Union which possessed immense raw material resources, productive agricultural land, highly competent technicians, and the ability to exploit its Eastern European Empire. Thus the impact of Communist economics was a poor Soviet standard of living compared to the Capitalist West.
China was in a much more precarious situation than the Soviet Union and, as a result, the result of the Great Leap forward was a social and economic disaster of immense proportions.
The Great Leap forward and adverse weather conditions generated the most dreadful famine in human history. The inefficiencies of the communes and the impact on the motivation of the peasantry as well as the the large-scale diversion of farm labor into the Great Leap Forward's small-scale industry seriously disrupted Chinese agriculture still the primary economic sector. This meant that agriculture lacked the ability to adjust to adverse weather conditions. Three consecutive years of poor growing conditions and natural calamities meant that a manageable disruption morphed into a national disaster. There is no precise accounting, but over 20 million people are known to have perished, starving because of the crop failures (1959-62). The estimates we see most commonly are about 30 million. But many authors accepting the 30 million figure add that about the same number of births were lost or postponed. 【Smil】 The famine was undeniably caused by ideologically based policies. Unlike Stalin's famine created to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry (1930-31), Mao had no desire to kill millions of peasants, although he was all to willing to accept it. This Great Leap Forward famine stands along with the two World Wars as public man-made death. 【Rhodes】 Huge famine deaths in Europe were prevented by American relief efforts. America basically invented international humanitarianism to save starving Europeans. The Chinese were on heir own, in part because the Communists were unwilling to admit that they caused the greatest famine in history in t heir new worker's paradise. China was on its own. Some estimates are as high as 45 million. One historian insists that top Chinese officials were the direct cause of the famine. Mao and Zhou Enlai increased the food procurement quota demanded from from the countryside to pay for international imports. This meant that severe food shortages developed in the countryside. "In most cases the party knew very well that it was starving its own people to death." 【Dikötter, "Mao's"】 Mao was quoted as saying in Shanghai "When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill." 【Dikötter, "Key"】 It is no accident that two of the greatest famines in world history were caused by the political leadership of the two great Communist countries--the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. China has still not honestly addressed the causes and extent of Mao's famine. Research on the Famine has been conducted outside of China, meaning China great firewall makes it inaccessible to the Chinese people.
The Great Leap should not only be viewed in economic terms, like the Cultural Revolution to come, there were underlying political factors. [Gabriel] Mao in the 1950s was the most important figure, but he was not a Stalinist dictator. There were other important figures in the Party. The Great Leap can be seen as an effort to seize total control of the apparatuses of government and Communist Party as Stalin did in the Soviet Union. Other Communist Party figures had a more conservative outlook--men like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping who saw Mao's policies as not only dangerous 'adventurism'", but also the underlying political implications. Many of these men wanted to follow the proven Soviet policies of transforming an agrarian society into an industrial society rather than accepting Mao's more experimental approach. (At the time, the weaknesses of Soviet-style Communist economics were not yet fully exposed.)
Dikötter, Frank. "Key arguments" (2021).
Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62 (2010).
Gabriel, Satya J. "Political Economy of the Great Leap Forward: Permanent Revolution and State Feudal Communes," China Essay Series Essay No. 4 (September 1998).
Rhodes R. "Man-made death: a neglected mortality," JAMA (1988), Vol. 260, No. 5, pp. 686–687.
Smil, Vaclav. "China's great famine: 40 years later," BMJ (1999), p. 319.
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