Great Leap Forward

Poster of Mao visiting a homemade steel furnace during the Great Leap Forward

The Great Leap Forward (Simplified Chinese: 大跃进; Pinyin: Dà yuèjìn) was an economic and social campaign in China during the Second Five-Year Plan. During the Great Leap Forward, peasants, who had already collectivized land, joined large communes of thousands of people. They tried to produce steel in small rural foundries, also known as backyard steel furnaces. Mao admitted that policy errors occurred and took responsibility for them, but Western claims of mass starvation are widely exaggerated.

Famine

Western sources often claim that the largest famine in history took place during the Great Leap Forward. Official Chinese documents released after Mao's death put the death toll at 16.5 million, which may be exaggerated, while bourgeois sources claim that 30 or even 38 million people died. Other sources such as The China Quarterly (a CIA funded outlet) claim 50-60 million died.

Mao spoke on the subject of over-enthusiasm in the Great Leap Forward at the Wuchang Conference saying

"In this kind of situation, I think if we do [all these things simultaneously] half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not a half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million. When people died in Guangxi, wasn’t Chen Manyuan dismissed? If with a death toll of 50 million, you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; [whether I would lose my] head would be open to question. Anhui wants to do so many things, it’s quite all right to do a lot, but make it a principle to have no deaths."

A few moments later Mao continues "As to 30 million tons of steel, do we really need that much? Are we able to produce [that much]? How many people do we mobilize? Could it lead to deaths? ”

It is true that agricultural production decreased in five years between 1949-1978 due to “natural calamities and mistakes in the work.” However, during 1949-1978 the per hectare yield of land sown with food crops increased by 145.9% and total food production rose 169.6%. During this period China’s population grew by 77.7%. On these figures, China’s per capita food production grew from 204 kilograms to 328 kilograms in the period in question.

Industrial Growth

In 1952 industry was 36% of gross value of national output in China. By 1975 industry was 72% and agriculture was 28%. It is quite obvious that Mao’s supposedly disastrous socialist economic policies paved the way for the rapid economic and industrial development of Reform and Opening Up.

Official Chinese statistics show that after the end of the Leap in 1962, industrial output value had doubled; the gross value of agricultural products increased by 35 percent; steel production in 1962 was between 10.6 million tons or 12 million tons; investment in capital construction rose to 40 percent from 35 percent in the First Five-Year Plan period; the investment in capital construction was doubled; and the average income of workers and farmers increased by up to 30 percent. Additionally, there was significant capital construction (especially in iron, steel, mining and textile enterprises) that ultimately contributed greatly to China's industrialization.

Heavy industry grew a great deal in this period too. Developments such as the establishment of the Taching oil field during the Great Leap Forward provided a great boost to the development of heavy industry. A massive oil field was developed in China.12 This was developed after 1960 using indigenous techniques, rather than Soviet or western techniques. (Specifically the workers used pressure from below to help extract the oil. They did not rely on constructing a multitude of derricks, as is the usual practice in oil fields).