Abstract
The Great Leap Forward movement, which began in 1958, involved the entire nation. This chapter will focus on the following points: Why such a policy was launched, how it developed—what was the background of the worst famine in history? Furthermore, how many people died and what Mao’s role was in bringing about such a catastrophe? I will consider these questions, basically using the memoirs of Li Rui, one of Mao’s secretaries, as well as supplementing with other sources. Finally, I will present my own views on the meaning of this movement.
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Notes
- 1.
Li Rui was active in the water resources sector after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In 1958, he served as Deputy Minister of Water Resources and Electric Power while also concurrently holding the position of secretary to Mao Zedong. He was criticized at the Lushan Conference and ousted from office. He was restored to honor in 1979 and subsequently became one of the leading reformist intellectuals, publishing many books and essays mainly on Mao Zedong. He died at the age of 102 years old in 2019 in Beijing.
- 2.
For Mao Zedong, this “success” in agricultural collectivization was even more pleasing than the National Liberation of 1949. As Pang Xianzhi, who helped edit the book, said: “The national liberation was something we had anticipated and prepared for a long time. However, the speed and smoothness of agricultural collectivization was beyond his (Mao Zedong’s) expectations. He always thought that transforming 500 million individual farmers was the most difficult task … Now that it has been resolved smoothly, could there be any more difficult problems to solve?” (Shen 2008, p. 150).
- 3.
Li Xiannian was Minister of Finance as well as Vice Premier of the State Council at the time.
- 4.
75 years after 1955 is 2030, and there are many predictions on China’s economic prospect today, but if the current growth speed continues, China may very well catch up with the United States around 2030 in terms of total GDP, just as Mao Zedong had expected.
- 5.
According to Li Rui’s recollection, on or around June 10, 1958, he was summoned by Mao Zedong to the pool in Zhongnanhai, where, in high spirits, Mao surprised him with the announcement of a plan to double steel production. He was so astonished that it almost knocked him off his feet. The next day, when he happened to meet Minister of Metallurgical Industry Wang Heshou on the street and conveyed this news, Wang also found it to be a sudden development. On June 19, at a meeting convened by Mao with the central leaders, this plan was formally presented. Wang then expressed that “Due to insufficient production capacity, it might be difficult,” but in the end, he was overruled by Mao (Li’s Notes (2), pp. 1–3).
- 6.
The North refers to the area north of the Yellow River and the Qinling Mountains, where wheat and coarse grains are produced; the Central part refers to the area south of the Yellow River and north of the Huaihe River, also a wheat-producing area; and the South, south of the Huaihe River and the Qinling Mountains, a rice-producing area.
- 7.
Liu Shaoqi later said, “The People’s Daily must bear half the responsibility for launching the ‘Great Leap Forward’” (Li’s Notes (2), p. 47). However, compared to the responsibility of the leaders, the responsibility of the “People’s Daily,” which is the “mouthpiece” of the Party, is a minor one.
- 8.
However, “such ‘miracles’ also quickly became stale news. A month later, another photo adorned the paper, with the explanation added that ‘three adults can stand on the rice without crushing it’” (Ding 1991, p. 84).
- 9.
It is said that as reports of exaggerated grain production came in one after another from various regions, Mao Zedong, along with other leaders, was under the illusion that foodgrains were no longer a concern, but rather that overproduction of grains was the real problem.
- 10.
There were also mini blast furnaces with a volume of only a few cubic meters. Such “steel mills” were called “backyard furnaces.”
- 11.
As much as 5.4% of fiscal expenditures were used to make up the deficit caused by the large-scale steel-making campaign in 1958 (Li Xiannian Wenxuan (Selected Works of Li Xiannian 1935–1988), People’s Publishing House, 1989, p. 247. Requoted from Jiang (2015)).
- 12.
Mess hall is also translated into “communal dining hall, or canteen.”
- 13.
This is based on Mao’s utopian fantasy. He said in a speech on March 1958, “In socialism, private property still exists, factions still exist, families still exist. Families are the product of the last stage of primitive communism, and every trace of them will be eliminated in the future” (Yang 2012, p. 174).
- 14.
All deaths other than natural deaths are called abnormal deaths. Deaths due to starvation and suicide are also included in this type of death.
- 15.
Refer to Jia and Zhu (2015) for a survey of research by researchers in Mainland China.
- 16.
Therefore, if the number of abnormal deaths in these areas were added, the total number would be much higher, but the number of starvation deaths in these areas, especially in large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, would have been small.
- 17.
According to Jin Hui, using the “National Historical Drought and Flood Grade Data Table,” for the period 1959–1961 showed “three years of calm weather” when viewed nationally (Jin 1993).
- 18.
For example, the 1998 Volume 9, Number 2 of the China Economic Review, a specialized academic journal on the Chinese economy, has a special issue on this, with five papers and eight authors discussing the causes of famine and hunger during the GLF period from various angles.
- 19.
The agricultural geographical factor refers to the fact that Anhui Province has many plain fields, while Jiangxi Province has many mountains and hilly areas, and is blessed with water, with paddy fields at the center. Jiangxi Province had many alternatives to food in case of famine.
- 20.
In October 1960, Mao mentioned the mass starvation incident in the Xinyang area of Henan Province (where it is said that one million people died), saying, “In Xinyang, a large number of landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, and villains are usurping leadership and committing all kinds of evil deeds” (Yang 2012, p. 81). In my view, this prejudice of the top leader, who sees everything from the perspective of class struggle, was one of the factors that prevented an accurate grasp of the situation and the implementation of appropriate measures.
- 21.
In 1961, the “Sixty Articles on Agriculture” were enacted and it was decided that the production unit would be the cost-accounting unit and that it would not be moved for 30 years, so this issue was taken into consideration to a certain extent. However, in the early years of the communization, the idea of “the bigger and more public, the better” (yida ergong) was strong, and there was no such idea of lowering this unit below the production team.
- 22.
As we saw earlier, there are various estimates about the number of people who died of starvation, but if the number was 30 million, we can calculate the “price of life” per person who died of starvation by multiplying the international grain price at that time by the total amount of grains imported (the minimum necessary to prevent starvation) divided by 30 million people, assuming that the imported grains could save the hungry people.
- 23.
Gao Wangling named these actions “anti-actions” (fanxingwei). See Gao (2013).
- 24.
Cao Shuji has an interesting hypothesis that the large differences in mortality rates among regions may be due to differences in “historical memory” (Cao 2005). More specifically, in areas that had experienced famines in the past, cadres and farmers would have been more cautious about food supply and would have known relatively well how to cope with famines, and would have realized that over-reporting of production would lead to over-procurement; while in areas where such memories were absent or weak, cadres would have been more likely to run amok.
- 25.
See Chap. 8 for Zhou Enlai’s attitude and stance toward the Great Famine.
- 26.
This statement was found by Dikӧtter in the archives in Gansu Province (Zhou 2012, p. 20).
- 27.
The same thing was said by Mao at the “Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution” held in Moscow in November of the previous year, leaving the attendees from various countries dumbfounded.
- 28.
In the words of Yang Jisheng, that story, too, “was nothing more than propaganda by those who wanted to create a God” (Yang 2012, p. 489). At the time, Mao Zedong was fond of Western cuisine, and it is said that the menu prepared for the Chairman included more than a dozen dishes using beef and lamb.
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Nakagane, K. (2024). The Great Leap Forward, the People’s Commune, and the Great Famine: Mao Zedong’s Fantasy with Disastrous Results. In: Mao Zedong and Contemporary China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1761-3_5
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