A crowd of citizens push toward government station selling rice very cheap. This was also the era of massive irrigation projects — local, regional, and national in scope — that were to result in impressive gains in crop yields in subsequent years. Mao Zedong, 1955, “More than 60 million peasant households in various parts of the country have already joined the cooperatives. Thus the landlords as a class are abolished and the exploitative feudal land ownership system is transformed… This is the greatest and most thorough reform in thousands of years of Chinese history.” We tried to do too much, we wasted part of our investments, we deferred certain essential tasks, and that is a mistake.” The National Academy of Sciences issued reports on how many insects they ate, compared to how many seeds. The result was a big mess of melted metal. In 1957, at the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, this was held in Moscow, Khrush… Mao Zedong, 1958, “With 11 million tons of steel next year and 17 million tons the year after, the world will be shaken. Improving public health by eliminating the "four pests"—rats, mosquitoes, spar rows, and flies—was one initiative of the Great Leap Forward, but the It was difficult. He criticised himself at the Shanghai Conference, admitting that he had been somewhat hotheaded… What is great about the Chairman is that he can figure out problems in time and make a quick adjustment.” But deep down the soil is no good, too compact. Peasant farmer Li Hai Yuan on cooperative farming, “The People’s Commune represents a much higher degree of socialist development and collectivisation… Its massive scale of production requires more efficient organisation with great labour flexibility, as well as women’s’ production participation. Mao Zedong on farm collectivisation, 1955, “China has two advantages. Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend. Instead, Mao envisaged a decentralisation of control to local Party cadres whose task it would be to Food rotted in the fields. I had to see to everything myself. Some were sent to farming cooperatives, while others worked in small manufacturing. Relationship: spouse. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Mao's Great Famine (Complete) Historian Frank Dikötter recounts the horrific cost of China's "Great Leap Forward" between 1958 and 1962. A Yunnan botanist on the end of the Four Pests campaign, “Great achievements, numerous problems and a bright future.” Anhui police report on cannibalism, 1960, “Cannibalism occurred in many places. Nature Flowers Thought. And the fires that were visible each night over the horizon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. The Great Leap Forward was a push by Mao Zedong to change China from a predominantly agrarian (farming) society to a modern, industrial society—in just five years. People ate corpses and fought for the bodies. known as the Great Leap Forward. Han Suyin on food shortages during the Great Leap Forward, “People died in the family and they didn’t bury the person because they could still collect their food rations; they kept the bodies in bed and covered them up and the corpses were eaten by mice. In 1955, Mao was in a rural farming village to plan for the Great Leap Forward. What does he want with chanting these liturgies all the time?” If we encounter any problems, any difficulty, it is because we have not followed the instructions of the Chairman closely enough, because we have ignored or circumscribed the Chairman’s advice.” An unnamed peasant on the practice of ‘deep ploughing’, “All property has to be state-owned, all houses and furniture have been turned into government property. Bhupesh Bhandari. He ate his own wife. There, he summed up its ethos as “more, faster, better, and more economical,” and the Great Leap Forward was set in motion. All work was shared on the communes; from childcare to cooking, daily tasks were collectivized. Mao Zedong, 1958, “The Chairman talks all the time about more, faster, better, and more economical results. In Gansu they killed outsiders; people told me strangers passed through and they killed and ate them. Farmers in the Great Leap Forward Era (Historians on the Warpath) Mao Versus Sparrows. We have known for some time that Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, was one of the last century’s most brutal and vicious mass murderers. As the originator of the disaster, he ended up being sidelined from power until 1967, when he called for the Cultural Revolution. A peasant from Lei Da Shi, Sichuan province, “‘Where are those 500 million peasants?’ my Soviet colleague wondered. I understand nothing about industrial planning… I do not claim to have invented the People’s Communes, only to have proposed them.” Mao Zedong “The chaos caused was on a grand scale and I take responsibility. Speaking at The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, said he found that during the time that Mao was enforcing the Great Leap Forward … He ate Chen Zaxi. It contains 183,984 words in 268 pages. This reform programme included the establishment of large agricultural communes containing as many as 75,000 people. Simultaneously, it would expand China's economy. Anna Louise Strong, American journalist, 1964. Part one involved improving agriculture so there was enough food to feed factory workers. A common slogan in the 1950s summed it up: “The Soviet Union’s today is our tomorrow.”At same time, however, one can detect within Mao’s policies and statements … At that time, we only thought that they ate grain.” The Great Leap Forward planned to develop agriculture and industry. On the contrary, ‘the home is much happier now because the heavy burdens are removed’. Mao Zedong on the failures of the Great Leap Forward, 1959, “The harvest had been bad. Great Leap Forward. We collected scrap metal and pots while the grownups cut the trees. Call Number: HC430.F3 Z467 2013. Mao Zedong. Mao believed that both had to grow to allow the other to grow. Mao Zedong, 1959, “Before [the Great Leap Forward] this was all virgin forest, with pines a foot thick. Under Mao, everything is great but they only eat porridge. With hindsight, the results were predictably bad. I sweated my guts out. This plan was called the Great Leap Forward. Peng Dehuai, 1958, “It was fun to wipe out the ‘Four Pests’. He relied, however, on nonsensical Soviet farming ideas, such as planting crops very close together so that the stems could support one another and plowing up to six feet deep to encourage root growth. Great Leap Forward, in Chinese history, the campaign undertaken by the Chinese communists between 1958 and early 1960 to organize its vast population, especially in large-scale rural communes, to meet China’s industrial and agricultural problems. Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through the formation of people's communes.Mao decreed increased efforts to … Li Lei, CCP cadre from Gansu province, writing in 1999, “Among 14 work units… 3,132 persons are suffering from oedema, which afflicts 25 per cent of the staff in the most seriously affected units… The illness has struck workers more than cadres, those employed in heavy physical labour more than light work, and those eating at communal kitchens more than those taking their meals at home.” This was supposed to be the first step. Too terrible.” Mao Zedong. Chen Yun, CCP politician, 1961, “The thoughts of the Chairman [Mao] are always correct. This Chinese Revolution website is created and maintained by Alpha History. The peasants were carrying out the work of the [Communist] Party, working day and night at the mines and homemade blast furnaces… And we know the results: they did not obtain any more iron than before and there was much less bread and rice to go round.” But the temperature was too low. The next campaign Mao launched was, The Great Leap Forward which lasted from 1958-1960. Asia Society, 13 October 2010. I will not give up my convictions, even when I see the Yellow River.” It is as if a raging tidal wave has swept away all the demons and ghosts.” What Is Totalitarianism? The crucial slogan during the Great Leap Forward, a two-year campaign where Mao encouraged peasants to join together in collective farms. The United States in George Washington’s era was blank, so it could develop very rapidly. Search for More Suggested terms to look for include - diary, diaries, letters, papers, documents, documentary or correspondence. However, so many farmers had been sent into steel production work that there weren't enough hands to harvest the crops. However, this plan backfired in a tragic fashion. A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery. Mao Zedong to Dr Li Zhisui, 1961, “The peasants do nothing but complain. Between 1958 and 1960, millions of Chinese citizens were moved onto communes. This site was last updated on August 19th 2020. The official death toll from the Great Leap Forward is "only" 14 million, but the majority of scholars agree that this is a substantial underestimate. People in the countryside began to starve. ISBN: 0300184042. Status: common peasant. As a result of the exaggerations, party officials carried off most of the food to serve as the cities' share of the harvest, leaving the farmers with nothing to eat. Mao Zedong, 1959, “Even if there’s a collapse [in China’s food production] it’ll be alright. So people are setting up more and more community canteens, nurseries, sewing groups…” The program had two parts. When Mao … Friday, 17 September 2010. If you have to fart – fart! While the First Five Year Plan had succeeded in stimulating rapid industrialisation and increased production, Mao was suspicious of Soviet models of economic development. Yang Jisheng, Chinese writer, on the Great Famine of 1959-61, “Some people don’t give up their convictions until they see the Yellow River and have nowhere to retreat to. The next year, the Yellow River flooded, killing 2 million people either by drowning or by starvation after crop failures. James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson In the post-Mao reconstruction of the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC), two periods-the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years' The Independent. Then the farmers’ cooperative people came along. The brush and branches we gathered were enough for all our firewood, we never had to cut the trees… I was only 10 or 11 during the Leap. Mao Zedong's Quotes Extra Facts Project Sources The Great Leap Forward. The Soviet Union was also blank… China’s industrial development can proceed more swiftly than the Soviet Union’s.” And they ate their own children. In 1958 Mao Zedong announced the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to increase agricultural and industrial production. Chairman Mao just said ‘Forget it’. However, the Great Leap resulted in one of the greatest disasters in history. The Great Leap Forward was a push by Mao Zedong to change China from a predominantly agrarian (farming) society to a modern, industrial society—in just five years. So we stopped killing sparrows. Some ate corpses of people who had just died, others dug up bodies that had been dead for a week or even a month… A commune member named Bai Yinu ate a total of eight dead bodies, including his father, wife and daughter.” He encouraged people to set up backyard steel furnaces, where citizens could turn scrap metal into usable steel. The first Five-Year Plan for the future of China was launched by Mao Zedong in 1953, in which the Soviet Union was held up as the model for development. In that way, no one would lose anything but all would gain. Mao announced a second Five Year Plan to last from 1958 to 1963. Mao believed this program would allow him to win the race with the Soviet Union to achieve commu nism. You’ll feel much better for it.” In Hongtai Commune alone there were 170 people who ate 125 corpses, as well as killing and eating five other people… In some cases, individuals barbarously consumed their own parents, children, spouses and siblings. [But] there was too much haste. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Chinese Revolution crossword for beginners. We made ladders to knock down their nests and beat gongs in the evenings when they were coming home to roost. In order to prove that China had made the “great leap” to an industrialized, rich, communist society, Mao ordered the complete collectivization of farms, factories, and most of society. That is annoying. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U.S. and South Korea. Meat was almost non-existent and the cat population rapidly declined. This was the period during which the communes were formed and some 600,000 “backyard,” small-scale steel furnaces were built to supply local needs all over the country. Now it went above the knee. They do what they like. For more info, visit Alpha History or our Terms of Use. Mao's aims The Great Leap Forward was China's second Five Year Plan. As the commune members squatted there, swollen with malnutrition and constipated from the grim diet, the pigs would jostle them with their snouts, trying to get at the excrement before it had even fallen from their bodies.” In 1960, a widespread drought added to the nation's misery. Definition and Examples, Biography of Mao Zedong, Father of Modern China, Khmer Rouge: Regime Origins, Timeline, and Fall, Overview of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, The Three Sisters: the Traditional Intercropping Agricultural Method, The Geography and Modern History of China, The Yellow River's Role in China's History, An Overview of the Chinese Communist Party, J.D., University of Washington School of Law, B.A., History, Western Washington University. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.” In the end, through a combination of disastrous economic policy and adverse weather conditions, an estimated 20 to 48 million people died in China. All we have to do is give the peasants their own land, then everyone will have plenty to eat.” The Great Leap Forward was born from Mao Zedong’s impatience for industrial and manufacturing growth (in his words, “more, faster, better, cheaper”).. Add another eight years and we will catch up with the US.” The whole school went to kill sparrows. I remember a famous restaurant, the Lugaojian… their speciality was two salted sparrows on a stick… But after the Four Pests campaign, you couldn’t buy them any more.” “The essential content of agrarian reform is the confiscation of the land of the landlord class for distribution to the landless peasants. 150 Quotes from Mao Tse Tung Revolutionary Civil War Period 1926-1927. Mao’s ambition. 12. One is emptiness, the other is blankness, with no encumbrances of any kind. The backyard steel production plan resulted in entire forests being chopped down and burned to fuel the smelters, which left the land open to erosion. Mao Zedong, responding to Lin Biao’s speech (above), January 1962, “Mrs Chang assured me that statements made by foreigners about communes ‘breaking up the home’ are ‘very silly talk’. They are simply superb. “ Mao's Great Famine is a gripping and masterful portrait of the brutal court of Mao, based on new research but also written with great narrative verve, that tells the gripping story of the manmade famine that killed 45 million people, from the dictator and his henchmen down to the villages of rural China.” Anxious commune leaders vastly exaggerated their harvests, hoping to curry favor with the Communist leadership. The results, unfortunately, were catastrophic. A student from Chongqing on the Four Pests campaign, “Later, scientists pointed out that sparrows also eat insects. Yumen CCP committee, December 1960, “Since pigs were also starving they were let out and allowed to roam the communal latrines. It’s the spring planting season, isn’t it?’ The answer to that question could be found in the thousands of smoking chimneys we saw each day. Mao Zedong on the Great Leap Forward “I am a complete outsider when it comes to economic construction. Films of the Soviet Union were even shown to peasants and ordinary Chinese to show them what to aspire to. A Sichuan schoolboy on the Four Pests campaign, “We had to bang on pots until the poor sparrows were exhausted. Lin Biao, January 1962, “What a good speech vice-chairman Lin has made. Sky View Big. Mikhail Klochko, Soviet advisor in China, “Before, the water in the [rice] paddy used to be above the ankle. However, the extra work burden that neces… A letter from a Guangdong peasant, 1959, “Food became scarce in Beijing and queues built up at the few vegetable stores. By 1958, these agricultural collectives had become the norm, and private ownership of land was abolished, with all households being forced into the state-operated communes. To mobilize this willpower, the Great Leap Forward, obviously, was accompanied by a concerted propaganda effort, the depth and breadth of which had hitherto not been seen. “One of the many paradoxes of the Great Leap Forward was that everything was for sale, as bricks, clothes and fuel were bartered for food. If you would like to suggest a quotation for these pages, please contact Alpha History. They say that under Jiang Jieshi they suffered but had plenty to eat. None of my brothers would help me. Terrible. As a result of the successful economic reconstruction that had taken place in the early 1950’s. There were shortages… Rations differed according to work done. On p.134 of Mao’s Great Famine, Dikotter quotes Mao as saying during the Great Leap Forward ‘When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. Mao created the Great Leap Forward to help China modernize and catch up with the west. The Great Leap Forward was a movement in China that started in 1958 and lasted two years till 1960. Online Sources: Great Leap Forward China's Great Leap Forward, 1958-1961 ... Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine, 1958-1962 by Zhou Xun. I thought that sounded alright.” Liu Shaoqi, 1950, “Landlords in general will only be deprived of their land and abolished as a social class, but they will not be physically eliminated… Therefore it is a stipulation that after their lands have been confiscated, the landlords will still be given shares of land… That way they can make a living by their own labour, reform themselves through labour and become new men.” It was an impossible goal, of course, but Mao had the power to force the world's largest society to try. I understand nothing about industrial planning… I do not claim to have invented the People’s Communes, only to have proposed them.” For Mao, the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962) stands out. We have had many natural disasters, a bad drought in the north. Yue Daiyun, peasant woman, “Naturally we have defects and mistakes… Like a child playing with fire, without experience, knowing pain only after being burned. Mao also wanted to free China from the need to import steel and machinery. Wood can never burn hot enough to make steel.” Why can’t other Party leaders be so perceptive?” It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.’ Formerly the young wife in poorer families would have to work in the field and rush home to get the meals on a very slow stove, then stay up half the night to grind the grain… The husband would grumble if the meal wasn’t ready at once when he came home from work… ‘Now all this grumbling is over’, said Mrs Chang.” His words are always so clear and direct. If we can reach 40 million tons in five years, we may possibly catch up with Great Britain in seven years. It was so dense that I was afraid to go in there at night. The Great Chinese Famine (Chinese: 三年大饥荒, "three years of great famine") was a period between 1959 and 1961 in the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC) characterized by widespread famine. Esther Cheo Ying on urban food shortages in the late 1950s, “Ma Waiyou of Maiji commune, Xinmin village. It had political repercussions for Mao Zedong as well. Liu Shaoqi, 1950, “When the Third Five Year Plan is completed in 1967, the yields for grain and many other agricultural products should be double or triple the highest yields before the People’s Republic was founded [in 1949].” We turned it over to the local steel factories to process further. Families had to meet quotas for steel production, so in desperation, they often melted down useful items such as their own pots, pans, and farm implements. There were many fewer sparrows after that. For both Chinese and westerners, failure to acknowledge the true nature of the Great Leap Forward carries serious costs. The period between 1958 and 1960 is known as the "Three Bitter Years" in China. Children were taken from their parents and put into large childcare centers to be tended to by workers assigned that task. There were 17 of them and they did the work in less than an hour and would take no payment.” Ronald Radosh. A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. Everybody bears some responsibility, including Comrade Mao Zedong… How can he not share some responsibility? These farming strategies damaged countless acres of farmland and dropped crop yields, rather than producing more food with fewer farmers. This page contains a collection of Chinese Revolution quotations about agrarian reform and the Great Leap Forward, made by prominent leaders, figures, observers and historians. Millions also left the countryside to work in underground” Part of an authoritarian regime is the dedication to ideological-based projects, even at the expense of economic or social progress. "Dare to … The Great Leap Forward, the second five-year plan of the Chinese revolution, was an attempt to develop rapidly both industry and agriculture. These quotations have been selected and compiled by Alpha History authors. Backyard Steel Furnace during the Great Leap Forward. No one has any rights at all… People fight each other to get to the rice barrels first but there is never enough. Comrades, if you have to shit – shit! Pulling workers from agriculture into the manufacturing sector half can eat their ’... 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