To what extent may the Great Leap Forward launched by Mao in 1958 be considered a failure?

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To what extent may the Great Leap Forward launched by Mao in 1958  be considered a failure?

When the Communist party came to power in 1949 after a brutal war against the Nationalists, China was in a devastated state. War against Japan had resulted in the destruction of many of it’s cities including Beijing. China’s people were left scared with the horrific memories of the Japanese army’s horrendous acts. Rescuing China from the gutter was to prove to be a difficult task for Mao Zedong and his communist comrades. In order to understand the fundamental problems with the Great Leap Forward, previous reforms must be considered in order to fully assess the reasons for the it’s failures.

One of China’s most notorious problems was land ownership. Most of China’s land was owned by cruel landlords. Peasants were being exploited and were forced to work long hours for poor pay and terrible living conditions. Mao used this in order to take a fundamental step in assuring that he had total control over the people. He introduced the policy of land reform. Mao re-distributed 40% of China’s land and gave it to the peasants. This proved to be a truly brilliant political decision as he swept the hearts of the peasants on his side. He realised that as 90% of China’s population were peasants, he needed to appeal to the masses. This policy was considered a success as an estimated 60% of the entire population benefited form the reform. However, this was to be a sign of Mao’s disregard for human life as this policy resulted in the death of 2 million landlords, by means of public execution during ‘struggle’ meetings. Mao also started an early form of collectivisation, by 1952, 40% of peasants were collectivised. The next step was the encouragement of cooperatives, these favoured central management of land under private ownership, and by 1956 80% of peasants were part of cooperatives.  

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The important factor of the land reform policy is that Mao was able to gain support from the peasants, the same peasants he would later use to conduct the Great Leap forward. Despite claiming to be a Marxist, Mao considered rural peasants to be the seeds of agricultural success but thought that industrial peasants were the backbone of the economy. The Great Leap Forward was to be the second economic reform Mao was to launch in China.

Inspiring himself from Stalin’s economic model, in 1953 Mao launched the first 5 year plan. This plan was to be ...

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