Mao Zedong

1
Mao Zedong

• The Great Leap Forward
• 1958-1961

2
The First Five Year Plan

• In the early stages of nationwide liberation we
  lacked the experience to administer the economy
  of the entire country. Therefore during the First
  Five-Year Plan we could only imitate the methods
  of the Soviet Union. Mao Zedong
• However, no single Soviet plan (already on 4th)
• Increased production in heavy industry
• Approx. 10,000 Soviet experts in China, and many
  Chinese technicians sent to USSR
• Stability of inflation
• Individual businesses became joint private/state
  enterprises

3
Power moves to Mao

• After 1957 Mao begins to take firmer control
• Decentralisation (Collectives)
• Support from the media (Cult of personality)
• Atmosphere of fear (100 Flowers Campaign)
• Appearance of plans working (Propaganda)

4
The New Idea

• 1958 small scale collectives should become large
  scale communes
• Family system broken down, all private property
  pooled, people organised in specialist work
  teams, allocated to dormitories
• Reduce the number of people needed to farm each
  unit of land
• Mao aim to develop both industry and
  agriculture at the same time

5
The Motivation?

• Mao politically motivated
• break down divisions between town and country
• role of managers diminished
• generate rapid growth
• Military considerations
• industrialising the rural areas, no paralysis of
  country in war
• communes task of military training

6
Interpretations

• Chinas distinctive environment? Frederick Teiwes
  
• Asserting independence from the Soviet Union?
  David Bachman, Richard Thornton
• Asserting the supremacy of the Chinese? John King
  Fairbank
• Political Trends Chinese Society? Bachman, Teiwes
• Economic policies? Fairbank vs. Gray
• Maos political thought? Jack Gray

7
Initial Success

• End 1958 the plan seemed to be a great success,
  increased grain production
• Mao increased targets for both industry and
  agriculture

8
Famine

• 1959 - 1963 China plunged into famine
• Immediate cause weather
• Problems exacerbated by departure of all Soviet
  advisers in 1960
• Up to 30 million people died of starvation in
  this period

9
Was the Great Leap to blame?

• Decentralisation centralised planning and
  distribution stopped functioning
• The rural population did not respond to the
  communal system in a socialist way
• Ate more, reluctant to pool resources, secret
  hoarding

10
Was the Great Leap to blame?

• Excess pressure applied by local party cadres
• Cadres became competitive falsification of
  figures
• Steel production became more and more important,
  agriculture left to rot
• The millet is scattered all over the ground,
• The leaves of the sweet potato are withered,
• The young and the strong have gone to melt iron,
• To harvest the grain there are children and old
  women.
• How shall we get through next year?
• I shall agitate and speak out on behalf of the
  people.
• Peng Dehuai

11
Was the Great Leap to blame?

• Autonomy a façade peasants striving to fulfill
  centrally set targets
• Long term impacts local forests destroyed top
  soil washed away
• Falsification of grain yields policy continued
  without full appreciation of disaster
• Mao was to blame? Culture of fear, and
  overestimated role of enthusiasm

12
The Great Leap abandoned

• Late 1958 central leaders concerned
• Spring 1959 senior officials toured to get
  first-hand info
• Summer 1959 Mao faced greatest attack on
  policy, some policies reversed
• Eventually blame to others! Purged local cadres
  for failure to implement ideas in the correct way