Soon after the rise of Mao Zedong and the establishment of the PRC in 1949, the CCP began instituting revolutionary reforms in the Soviet style to increase mass economic efficiency. The first FYP proved largely successful in increasing production and establishing greater industry. Motivated by these previous achievements, Maoist optimism pioneered the social and economic movement recognized as the “Great Leap Forward.” However, due to adverse climatic conditions, poor management, and a lack of technological expertise, famine consumed China in 1958 and 1960, when the GLF was in full effect.
This paper will seek to evaluate Mao’s logic behind the institution of the GLF as well as the major reasons behind its shattering failure. It will provide an answer for the question:
To what extent was Mao Zedong responsible for the calamitous events of the Great Leap Forward?
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(Keay J, 1998, p. 20) In this sense, the sheer magnitude of the devastation deems an investigation in this field to be of particular historical significance. As one of contemporary society’s great powers, socially and economically, China’s modern history can be considered of notable historical relevance. A better understanding of reasons behind the failure of this grandiose plan becomes fundamental when considering the workings of China in the 21st Century. Having only occurred in the past fifty-five years, The GLF’s historical prominence further justifies a detailed study on the topic. It is of special interest to today's society to identify what caused the great famine and consequential immense loss of life, in order to prevent such violation of human rights from ever occurring
Mao Zedong was a very influential man in history. He forever changed the face of Chinese politics and life as a whole. His communist views and efforts to modernize China still resonate in the country today. Jonathan Spence’s book titled Mao Zedong is a biography of the great Chinese leader. Spence aims to show how Mao evolved from a poor child in a small rural village, to the leader of a communist nation. The biography is an amazing story of a person’s self determination and the predictability of human nature. The book depicts how a persuasive voice can shape the minds of millions and of people. It also shows the power and strength that a movement in history can make. This biography tells an important part of world history-the communist takeover of China.
Following the Chinese Revolution of 1949, China’s economy was in ruin. The new leader, Mao Zedong, was responsible for pulling the economy out of the economic depression. The problems he faced included the low gross domestic product, high inflation, high unemployment, and high prices on goods. In order to solve these issues, Mao sought to follow a more Marxist model, similar to that of the Soviet Union. This was to use government intervention to develop industry in China. In Jan Wong’s Red China Blues, discusses Maoism and how Mao’s policies changed China’s economy for the worse. While some of Mao’s early domestic policies had some positive effects on China’s economy, many of his later policies caused China’s economy to regress.
News: Politics. Meng, Xin, and Nancy Qian. The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959-61. Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research,
Ever since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the legitimacy of the revolution of which it was built upon has perennially been in question. For example, in a 1999 issue of the International Herald Tribune, a prestigious scholar claimed that all of China’s tragedies are ‘sustained by a mistaken belief in the correctness of the 1949 revolution’ and that the future progress of China depends on the recognition that the revolution was a failure. However, the CCP government was certainly not perfect and its most significant failures were its political failures such as the Anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution and also economic failures such as the great leap forward. Millions of peoples were falsely accused and persecuted during the political movements of the Mao period as the CCP focused on class struggle instead of economic development during the period and tens of Millions of peoples died due to starvation as there were widespread food shortages during the great leap forward movement.
The negative circumstances surrounding China in the 19th century were critical in driving masses out of the country. For one thing, China is no stranger to droughts, in fact “The four famines of 1810, 1811, 1846 & 1849 are reported to have killed no fewer than 45 million people in China over a 39-year period” (Barnes, 2011). The droughts across parts of the mainland during the 1840’s had left farmlands badly infertile and arid. Lack of rain caused provinces such as Guangxi and Henen to suffer crippling famines, leaving many malnourished and/or dead. The unpreparedness ...
Over the course of this semester I’ve read The Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis in which he discusses the cross-global history of the devastating famines and natural disasters that effected significant portions of the world in the late 19th century. In reading through the chapters it made clear to me that Davis placed the blame on a number of factors. However, in this paper I will only be discussing three that I found to have the most significance.
Once China’s population began to grow at an exponential rate the government feared that there would eventually be social unrest, and chaos. This social unrest and chaos would eventually cause an internal crisis for the country. At that time, China’s leaders believed that population control was one of its top priorities because it was precondition for the coun...
Which in order to accelerate his plan he had to turn China into a modern sized industrialized state. Because of this Mao decided to launch what was known as the "Great Leap Forward". “Which began the mass mobilization of the people into collectives and many communities were assigned production of a single “commodity steel”” (Keynes 46). He wanted to increase agriculture by this and only made it worse with bad weather, chaos, and exports of food necessary to secure hard currency (Keynes 32). This resulted in the Great Chinese Famine which made food short and production fell dramatically. This caused the deaths of millions which didn 't make Mao so popular and some began to hate him as a ruler. In 1959, Mao resigned as the State Chairman and this was continued by Liu Shaoqi (Keynes
...) and bring China under uniform thought as well. Thus, in his attempt to accomplish his goals he placed less emphasis on freedom and more on developing a sturdy political backbone. Deng, on the other hand, wanted to thrust China in the global community for economic fortune at the expense of everything Mao had established. In the process, he brought a freedom and wave of democracy to the People's Republic, endowing the Chinese citizens with dreams of wealth and prosperity that were never even considered in the time of Mao. As China, progresses further into the twenty first century, its role seems quite unclear. A return to Post-revolutionary authoritarian communism seems unlikely, as does the institution of a true democracy but perhaps a new form of stability will arise to grant greater liberty to individuals or possibly even another Tiannenmen lurking in the future.
Tibet knew its first famine during 1960-62, as a result of the Chinese invasion of 1950. The food shortage occurred because Chinese colonizers settled massively, increasing the population, and because of the changes imposed on Tibetan traditional agriculture by Mao’s “Great Leap Forward.”
The second major movement began in 1958 and lasted through 1959. It was the "Great Leap Forward." This movement was one of the most destructive to China. It was a movement that w...
This essay has critically analysed and examined the effect of Communism on the Chinese Society during the period of 1946-1964. The overall conclusion that can be drawn is that the Chinese Communist Party managed to defeat the Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party and achieve victory in the Civil War, in spite of alienation by the Soviet Union and opposition from the U.S. This was primarily because of the superior military strategy employed by the Communists and the economic and political reforms introduced by this party which brought more equality to the peasants in the form of land ownership and better public services. This increased China’s production and manufacturing which not only boosted the country’s economy but also provided a more sustainable supply of food, goods and services for the Chinese people.
Dressed in the drab military uniform that symbolized the revolutionary government of Communist China, Mao Zedong's body still looked powerful, like an giant rock in a gushing river. An enormous red flag draped his coffin, like a red sail unfurled on a Chinese junk, illustrating the dualism of traditional China and the present Communist China that typified Mao. 1 A river of people flowed past while he lay in state during the second week of September 1976. Workers, peasants, soldiers and students, united in grief; brought together by Mao, the helmsman of modern China. 2 He had assembled a revolutionary government using traditional Chinese ideals of filial piety, harmony, and order. Mao's cult of personality, party purges, and political policies reflect Mao's esteem of these traditional Chinese ideals and history.
D’Addese 1 The Qing Dynasty prospered well into the 20th century despite the numerous problems the administration faced. However, during the early days of the 20th century, civil disorders continued to grow in such unmanageable factions that the administration was pushed to do something about it. The high living standards of the previous century had contributed to a sharp increase in China’s population, there was approximately 400 million people living in China around the nineteenth century. This spike increased population density, it also created a surplus of labour shortages, land shortages, inadequate food production and several famines. As an attempt for a solution, Empress Dowager Cixi proclaimed a call for proposals for reform from the generals and governors.
Overall, Chinese food industry has kept a steady and speed increase with the benefit of consequent economic growth. However in the middle of 19 century, there was a 3 years famine, which led to estimated tens of millions of people’s starving to death (Peng, 1987). Although there is no adequate data of the famine, the national mortality rate can explain the situa...