Why did Mao launch the Great Leap Forward? LO: To examine Mao’s aims of the 2nd 5 Year Plan

Recap: Consequences of the 100 flowers campaign

• The second five year plan to develop the agriculture and industry in China.

• 大跃进 (dà yuè jìn)

• Introduced in 1958 to great fanfares.• Targets and quotas constantly set and reset.• Not based on sound economic analysis.• They were plucked from the air on a whim.• Acts in faith in Communism.•Were revised upwards to impress Mao’s call

for collective effort.

MORE! FASTER! BETTER! CHEAPER!

Aims:

• De-centralisation -> control to go to local party cadres to avoid ‘over-cautious’ bureaucracy

• Transform (v. quickly) China from Socialism to Communism (ideological goal)

• Euphoria -> Mao became caught up in the Euphoria of this belief that mass-mobilisation can achieve more than the realities

• Steel & Grain targets = vastly more than had ever been produced. Mao gives targets that are higher than his economic advisors say.

• Steel & grain = key

Key to unlocking potential:

Agricultural Co-operatives people’s communes. Could consist of up to 20,000

people and became the basic unit of rural life – everything was there!

Aim in establishing these communes was to abolish the family life of a peasant. e.g Children cared for in kindergartens, meals in mess halls. Family ties – dismissed as ‘bourgeoisie emotional attachments’

The agricultural communes are at the heart of the Great Leap Forward

Lysenko theories:

Grain productionSoviet ‘scientist’Plant crops close togetherPlough soil much deeper than usualIntended to increase outcome and productivityHad disastrous consequences Mao didn’t listen to peasant experience

The Four Noes Campaign

To help grain production by getting rid of pests Mistakenly focused on sparrows – thought they ate all the grain.Mass campaign to make noise all day and all night so the sparrows couldn’t land and rest, and so died of exhaustion. Was so successful that the ecological system of China was interrupted and caterpillars, who the sparrows would usually eat, became prevalent and ate all the crops.

‘Walking on 2 legs’

Backyard Furnaces:Alongside poor agricultural planning, the peasant farmers attention was being diverted. Why not make steel too?Backyard furnaces – as it sounds. In schools, farms, colleges, factories. Encouraged to burn anything down to make steel. They had huge targets to meet so attention was on that, not the grain. Failure!

Target triangle

• High targets set• Party Cadres wanted to prove that their areas were doing

well / fear of not meeting targets • Mao = euphoria at targets being met or exceeded! • Targets raised!

The Great Leap Forward - What were the four key contexts which influenced Mao’s thinking?

Political Economic

International Ideological

The Great Leap Forward - What were the four key contexts which influenced Mao’s thinking?

Political• Nobody challenged Mao post-Hundred Flowers;

everyone afraid (e.g. Zhou Enlai).• Lower-level, regional cadres fell into line with Mao.• Technical engineers’ roles given over to Party

cadres, again reinforcing Mao’s will.• The CPC takes over economic planning (instead of

the state bureaucracy). People opposed to Mao’s ideas lose power (e.g. Chen Yun).

• Politics is put above above economics.

Economic• FFYP plan resulted in low agricultural rise (3.8%).• Needed more food to drive industrialisation (i.e. to feed

the growing urban population).• Also needed more peasants to work on industrial

projects and not on farms.• Communes offered a solution – make peasants work

harder and drive them through mass mobilisation and propaganda to do so.

International• China needed to catch up with the West and the

USSR.• Sputnik launch showed what was needed.• Needed to go nuclear to ward off possible attacks

from Taiwan (GMD) and USA.• Sino-Soviet split fast approaching and so could not

rely on the USSR’s support for much longer.• Mao angry at Khrushchev’s de-Stalinsation policy

and ‘peaceful coexistence’ stance.

Ideological• Mao wanted the revolution to continue.• Feared bureaucratic interference; the masses needed

regular re-invigoration.• Mass mobilisation, coupled with adherence to political

aims, would always trump economic laws and practical considerations.

• As before, the peasants were key to China’s development and so Mao returned to them yet again in his hunt for a Communist utopia.

• GLF one more stage on the the above path.

Reason for heavy industry first – why steel?

The steel works at Anshan in Manchuria, built in the 1950s

Heavy industries’ are those basic industries that a country needs to develop before other areas of its economy can expand.

IronCoal

SteelOil

Cement

Chemical Fertilizer

Identify the various materials that were needed to construct the features shown below. How does this help answer the question above?

Nanjing Bridge over the Yangzi River

Steel -bridge spars

Girders – Steel

Steel -Diesel engine

Steel – railway lines

Steel - pipes

Iron -Railings

Steel - Motor Vehicles

Iron – lamp posts

Ships

IRON COAL CEMENT OIL RUBBER

Video

• Great Leap Forward People’s Century is very good from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4srwSkD05ws 21m 22s – 34m 18s

Start at 16.40

• These are also good – similar stuff to People’s Century: talking heads + some contemporary footage.

•  • Clip 1 - from 6:11• Clip 2• Clip 3