Existing metal equipment, tools, and household goods were confiscated and melted down to fuel additional production. Due to the failures in planning and coordination, and resulting materials shortages, which are common to central economic planning , the massive increase in industrial investment and reallocation of resources resulted in no corresponding increase in manufacturing output. Most were the able-bodied male workers, breaking up families and leaving the forced agricultural labor force for the collective farms consisting of mostly women, children, and the elderly.
The increase in urban populations placed additional strain on the food distribution system and demand on collective farms to increase grain production for urban consumption. Collective farm officials falsified harvest figures, resulting in much of what grain was produced being shipped to the cities as requisitions were based on the official figures. Throughout the Great Leap forward, while millions starved to death, China remained a net exporter of grain as Mao directed grain exports and refused offers of international food relief in order to convince the rest of the world that his plans were a success.
The Great Leap Forward ended up being a massive failure. Tens of millions died by starvation, exposure, overwork, and execution in just a few years. It broke families apart, sending men, women, and children to different locations, and destroyed traditional communities and ways of life. Farmland was damaged by nonsensical agricultural practices and the landscape denuded of trees to fuel the steel furnaces.
In industry, massive quantities of capital goods and raw materials were consumed in projects that yielded no additional output of final goods. The Great Leap Forward was officially halted in Jan. The Great Leap Forward was a relatively short-lived effort by the communist regime of China to modernize its rural and agricultural sectors through collectivism and industrialization.
Rather than stimulating the economy, the measures undertaken by the Great Leap Forward resulted in massive food shortages, leading to famine and starvation—ultimately, tens of millions of Chinese citizens died as a result. The failure of this program was due to the confluence of several factors. Efforts to kill off birds increased insect populations that ruined crops. The communal farms set up by the Great Leap Forward were beset by inadequate food distribution throughout the country given China's relatively primitive infrastructure at the time.
At the same time, there was an overproduction of grain, much of which rotted before being able to be transported. In addition, there was a bias to feed residents of urban centers rather than to peasants across the countryside, leading to higher death rates among rural communities than in cities. While there is no exact count, researchers have estimated the death toll to be between 30 million and 45 million individuals. Kung, J. Economic Development and Cultural Change , 52 1 , Use precise geolocation data.
Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Kallie Szczepanski. History Expert.
Kallie Szczepanski is a history teacher specializing in Asian history and culture. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U. Updated September 03, The Chinese have always faced famine. According to one study, China experienced some 1, major famines in its long history, but what distinguishes the Great Leap Forward from its predecessors are its cause, massive scope, and ongoing concealment. Modern famines, on the other hand, stem from human factors such as war or ideology exacerbated by natural conditions.
Most tragically, the subsequent purging of Great Leap excesses from history and the unspoken taboo that continues to surround it have prevented the Chinese from reflecting on and learning from this event, even as it remains largely ignored outside of China. While doubtless many lessons could be derived from the Great Leap Forward, it perhaps stands above all as a testament to the value of independent thought and free speech. The worst peacetime famines of the modern era non-coincidentally occurred under totalitarian regimes, such as the Soviet Union in —33, with an estimated six million dead; the Great Leap Forward in China —62, with some thirty million dead; and North Korea in , which, like the Great Leap, killed around 5 percent of the population.
Download PDF From —, an estimated thirty million people died of starvation in China, more than any other single famine in recorded human history. Collectivization After the Korean War, the Chinese government turned single-mindedly to realizing socialism through domestic development on two fronts—industrialization in cities and collectivization in the country- side. A propaganda poster from chineseposters. A Hundred Flowers Bloom In early , as the first Five Year Plan reached high tide, the party, flush with success, invited comments from Chinese intellectuals and the public in a directive known as the Hundred Flowers Campaign, a metaphor equating contending ideas with blooming flowers.
The Anti-Rightist Campaign Propaganda poster depicting a bumper harvest. One of the most infamous innovations of the Great Leap involved an industrial revolution in the countryside. During the great Leap Forward, millions of backyard furnaces dotted the countryside. The giant pumpkin paraded through the commune.
Peng Dehuai L : Korean war hero and minister of defense, R : under house arrest as an accused rightist. Chinese peasant woman and child during the famine. Famine Starvation became a widespread problem with the harvest of Estimates of deaths directly related to the famine range from a minimum of twenty- three million to as many as fifty-five million, although the figure most often cited is thirty million.
Conclusion The Chinese have always faced famine. Today, China does indeed lead the world in steel production, but the transition from net importer to exporter of steel occurred only in , nearly half a century after the Great Leap Forward. Search for:. Transform the Hai River, temper yourself, Despite the indications that the Great Leap had failed to reach its objectives, the movement continued to be upheld. The movement turned into a disaster when in the period China was struck by natural disasters.
More than an estimated 30 to 40 million people died in the ensuing famine. Long live the General Line! Long live the Great Leap Forward!
Moreover, as a result of the break-up of the relations with the Soviet Union , China was confronted with total economic collapse. The readjustment of the economy started in , and took place under the leadership of Liu Shaoqi , Deng Xiaoping , Chen Yun and others. Mao accepted the responsibility for the disasters and withdrew to Shanghai.
From here, he plotted his return to the pinnacle of power, which resulted in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Production takes leap after leap! The nation is becoming ever more prosperous! The vegetables are green, the cucumbers plumb, the yield is abundant, If the conditions in China turned from bad to worse from onwards, with the famine that resulted from the Great Leap as the nadir, how did the propaganda apparatus deal with this situation?
It showed abundance. The melons are sweet, grain and rice are fragrant, everybody tries the flavor, One of the essential aspects of propaganda is that it should reflect reality, while at the same time providing an optimistic outlook of what lies ahead. The posters below, all published in , belied what actually had been taking place and continued to provide a surreal picture of life.
Start the movement to increase production and practise thrift, with foodstuffs and steel at the center, with great force! Beat the battledrum, in we will continue the Great Leap Forward! While the poster above, designed by none other than veteran artists Ha Qiongwen and Weng Yizhi , continued to drum up support for the already discredited developmental strategy, the anonymous images below -- parts of an incomplete series -- attempted to put a spin on what had been achieved.
They all can serve as examples of the Illustrator-Realist style that marked the Great Leap. The only indication of the material scarcity at the time is the fact that all these posters have either been printed on paper previously used to publish texts, or that they have been recycled for printing texts.
Whatever the reason, the printed text shimmers through the very thin paper of mediocre quality. A sedan produced by our own country, ca. Bumper harvest after bumper harvest, leap forward after leap forward! Mobilize the whole population, to make sure that steel is doubled! Drowning the enemy in a torrent of steel! The industry of the fatherland develops by leaps and bounds Blast furnaces rise in level ground releasing red rays everywhere, Let the "Sputnik" of high production circle around the sky forever, Prosperity brought by the dragon and the phoenix, Pigs are "fertilizer factories" as well as "treasure bowls", When the dining hall is well-run, the production spirit will increase, More pigs, more fertilizer, higher grain production, Automatisation of production makes the work easier, The workshop revolution, operates and presses buttons ; produces continuously, renews the look day-by-day, Make use of scientific theories to raise the standards of production, Let a hundred flowers bloom in a blaze of color, China Famine [in Chinese].
Peter J. Sharpe, Our Facebook page. Our posters on Flickr. Brave the wind and the waves, everything has remarkable abilities, The Chinese people were to go all out in a concerted effort to surpass England in 15 or even less years and to make the transition from socialism to communism at the same time, thereby leaving the Soviet Union far behind. The East leaps forward, the West is worried, On the basis of an exaggerated belief in the power of ideology on human consciousness, the radicals were convinced that by putting "politcs in command", the objective difficulties created by lagging industrialisation and mechanisation could be overcome in a relatively short time.
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