The Great Leap Forward

1
The Great Leap Forward

• 1959 Steel production
• famine
• More,
• Faster,
• Better

2
THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD - THE BACKYARD STEEL
CAMPAIGN

• Small Commune Factories Set Up
• Emphasis on Steel Production
• Backyard Steel Furnaces Set Up
• 1958 a Good Year For Overall Production

3
The Great Leap Forward

• Steel production was similarly controlled, and
  although Mao had no knowledge of metallurgy, he
  encouraged every village to build small furnaces
  to produce steel.
• Trees were eliminated near the communes to fuel
  the furnaces, and even peasants doors and
  furniture was burned.
• The very pots and pans that the people cooked
  their food with were requisitioned as scrap
  metal so that the commune could meet its quota.

4
Steel Production

• The whole country was mobilised, so that by the
  end of the year 600,000 "backyard furnaces" had
  sprung up making steel, often melting down useful
  items like cooking pots and tractors just to
  increase steel "production".

5
Back-yard" production plants

• The most famous were 600,000 backyard furnaces
  which produced steel for the communes.

6
Makeshift Furnaces
7

• "back-yard" production plants.
• they added a considerable amount of steel

8
Propaganda Poster for Steel Plan
9
Backyard Steel Furnaces

• The most mocked aspect of the Great Leap Forward
  was the backyard steel furnaces.
• Mao thought that peasants could learn to make
  steel on a broadly decentralized basis.
• Most areas of China, however, lacked the ore and
  fuel for this.

10
Effects of Steel Plan

• A great deal of steel was created, but it was of
  such poor quality that it was useless.
• Mao learned in 1959 that only traditional large
  scale steel mills were capable of producing good
  quality metal, but Mao waited to cancel the steel
  program quietly later to save face.
• While focusing on steel, a great deal of Grain
  was left to rot in the fields.

11

• farm machinery fell to pieces when used.
• thousands of workers were injured after working
  long hours
• Steel produced by the backyard furnaces was too
  weak

12

• The backyard furnaces also used too much coal and
  Chinas rail system, which depended on coal
  driven trains, suffered accordingly.

13
THE CRISIS YEARS, 1959-1961

• Ours is the only chemical factory of its kind
  and the boiler is 70 years old. But one day a
  Party official arrived and told me to increase
  the pressure in the boiler from a hundred to a
  hundred and fifty pounds per square inch so that
  the reactor process could be completed 9 times a
  day instead of 6. When I told him he was turning
  it into a bomb, he accused me of being a
  bourgeois reactionary. So what was I to do? Great
  Leap? The connecting pipe burst when the pressure
  reached 120 pounds, and we were out of production
  for a week while repairs were made.

14
Why Did The Steel Production Plan Fail?

• What went wrong ?
• Quickly produced farm machinery produced in
  factories fell to pieces when used.
• Many thousands of workers were injured after
  working long hours and falling asleep at their
  jobs.
• Steel produced by the backyard furnaces was often
  too weak to be of any use and could not be used
  in construction.
• Buildings constructed by this substandard steel
  did not last long.
• Backyard production method had taken many workers
  away from their fields so desperately needed
  food was not being harvested

15
THE CRISIS YEARS, 1959-1961

• Things Begin Going Wrong in 1959
• Unrealistic Demands for More Production From the
  Party
• Backyard Steel Campaign Fails
• Too Little Agricultural Production