Mao Zedong's Quotes Extra Facts Project Sources The Great Leap Forward. Yue Daiyun, peasant woman, “Naturally we have defects and mistakes… Like a child playing with fire, without experience, knowing pain only after being burned. The Great Leap Forward, the second five-year plan of the Chinese revolution, was an attempt to develop rapidly both industry and agriculture. Too terrible.” This site was last updated on August 19th 2020. Mao Zedong’s assessment of the nation, Lushan Conference, 1959, “The achievements of the Great Leap Forward are obvious… The overall value of industrial and agricultural production rose by 48.8 per cent in 1958… Such a rate of growth is unknown anywhere in the world. For both Chinese and westerners, failure to acknowledge the true nature of the Great Leap Forward carries serious costs. But the temperature was too low. Great Leap Forward. 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.” They deserve far greater recognition of the horrible injustice they suffered. The United States in George Washington’s era was blank, so it could develop very rapidly. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. All work was shared on the communes; from childcare to cooking, daily tasks were collectivized. Wood can never burn hot enough to make steel.” After Mao declared the failure of the Great Leap in 1962, almost all methods of communication became cornerstones for propaganda as they fixated on recuperating and reiterating the cult of Mao. It is as if a raging tidal wave has swept away all the demons and ghosts.” What Is Totalitarianism? As a result of the successful economic reconstruction that had taken place in the early 1950’s. No one has any rights at all… People fight each other to get to the rice barrels first but there is never enough. 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. Anhui police report on cannibalism, 1960, “Cannibalism occurred in many places. On the contrary, ‘the home is much happier now because the heavy burdens are removed’. In 1957, at the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, this was held in Moscow, Khrush… Mao Zedong, 1957, “Wage a bitter struggle for three years and transform the look of a greater part of the country… The industrial output of local industries should exceed local agricultural output in five to ten years.” Mao Zedong, 1958, “The Chairman talks all the time about more, faster, better, and more economical results. Power Gun Political. And the fires that were visible each night over the horizon. However, the Great Leap resulted in one of the greatest disasters in history. Backyard Steel Furnace during the Great Leap Forward. This reform programme included the establishment of large agricultural communes containing as many as 75,000 people. Some were sent to farming cooperatives, while others worked in small manufacturing. Mao Zedong, 1958, “With 11 million tons of steel next year and 17 million tons the year after, the world will be shaken. Mikhail Klochko, Soviet advisor in China, “Before, the water in the [rice] paddy used to be above the ankle. The whole school went to kill sparrows. Asia Society, 13 October 2010. 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 So we stopped killing sparrows. (Video) Arifa Akbar. It had political repercussions for Mao Zedong as well. The Great Leap Forward was a movement in China that started in 1958 and lasted two years till 1960. The results, unfortunately, were catastrophic. There were 17 of them and they did the work in less than an hour and would take no payment.” 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.” Mao Zedong, 1959, “Even if there’s a collapse [in China’s food production] it’ll be alright. Mao Zedong. Peng Dehuai, 1958, “It was fun to wipe out the ‘Four Pests’. Steelworkers got the most in bulk and grain, but intellectuals got more meat, sugar and fats.” A crowd of citizens push toward government station selling rice very cheap. Part one involved improving agriculture so there was enough food to feed factory workers. Chen Yun, CCP politician, 1961, “The thoughts of the Chairman [Mao] are always correct. Only four to five inches on the surface are good. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.” 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. 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.” A Yunnan botanist on the end of the Four Pests campaign, “Great achievements, numerous problems and a bright future.” 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. Why can’t other Party leaders be so perceptive?” The first autumn of the Great Leap Forward, in 1958, came with a bumper crop in many areas, because the soil was not yet exhausted. These farming strategies damaged countless acres of farmland and dropped crop yields, rather than producing more food with fewer farmers. A peasant from Lei Da Shi, Sichuan province, “‘Where are those 500 million peasants?’ my Soviet colleague wondered. This was supposed to be the first step. However, the extra work burden that neces… 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. The period between 1958 and 1960 is known as the "Three Bitter Years" in China. If you have to fart – fart! For more info, visit Alpha History or our Terms of Use. You’ll feel much better for it.” Mao Zedong on the failures of the Great Leap Forward, 1959, “The harvest had been bad. The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend. 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. 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. They do what they like. Dense cropping and deep plowing stripped the farmland of nutrients and left the agricultural soil vulnerable to erosion as well. 12. We turned it over to the local steel factories to process further. For Mao, the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962) stands out. We have had many natural disasters, a bad drought in the north. And they ate their own children. The worst that will happen is that the whole world will get a big laugh out of it.” 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. A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery. Mao Zedong on the Great Leap Forward “I am a complete outsider when it comes to economic construction. In 1955, Mao was in a rural farming village to plan for the Great Leap Forward. [But] there was too much haste. 2. However, so many farmers had been sent into steel production work that there weren't enough hands to harvest the crops. The program had two parts. ... Chan, Alfred L. Mao’s Crusade: Politics and Policy Implementation in China’s Great Leap Forward. There were many fewer sparrows after that. Mao Zedong on the Great Leap Forward, “I am a complete outsider when it comes to economic construction. I thought that sounded alright.” Anna Louise Strong, American journalist, 1964. So people are setting up more and more community canteens, nurseries, sewing groups…” The result was a big mess of melted metal. 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. 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.” 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. There, he summed up its ethos as “more, faster, better, and more economical,” and the Great Leap Forward was set in motion. 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’. 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.” Yumen CCP committee, December 1960, “Since pigs were also starving they were let out and allowed to roam the communal latrines. 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. Post-Mao Views of the Great Leap Forward WILLIAM A. JOSEPH Wellesley College "Hell is paved with good intentions." The next year, the Yellow River flooded, killing 2 million people either by drowning or by starvation after crop failures. With hindsight, the results were predictably bad. Children were taken from their parents and put into large childcare centers to be tended to by workers assigned that task. The National Academy of Sciences issued reports on how many insects they ate, compared to how many seeds. People in the countryside began to starve. In 1960, a widespread drought added to the nation's misery. Anxious commune leaders vastly exaggerated their harvests, hoping to curry favor with the Communist leadership. Mao also wanted to free China from the need to import steel and machinery. Mao Zedong. known as the Great Leap Forward. Mao hoped to increase China's agricultural output while also pulling workers from agriculture into the manufacturing sector. 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. Ronald Radosh. We did it for several days. Status: common peasant. ‘Why are they not in the fields? ISBN: 0300184042. Chinese Revolution crossword for beginners. Nature Flowers Thought. In economic construction, like a child without experience, we declared war on the earth, unfamiliar with the strategy or tactics.” 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 … 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. We collected scrap metal and pots while the grownups cut the trees. Meat was almost non-existent and the cat population rapidly declined. Mao Zedong. They say that under Jiang Jieshi they suffered but had plenty to eat. He dug up her body and cooked it… Yang Wenyi and Yuan Shuying of Houxiyan village, together with… eight people in total, dug up the body of a child, cooked and ate it… A person called Liu Chuan. Then the farmers’ cooperative people came along. 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. Unlike the first plan, however, the driving force in the effort to achieve production targets for agriculture and industry was not to be a centralised State bureaucracy. 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 crucial slogan during the Great Leap Forward, a two-year campaign where Mao encouraged peasants to join together in collective farms. 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. He encouraged people to set up backyard steel furnaces, where citizens could turn scrap metal into usable steel. Call Number: HC430.F3 Z467 2013. The Great Leap Forward was supposed to be a five-year plan, but it was called off after just three tragic years. These quotations have been selected and compiled by Alpha History authors. It wasn’t correct but we couldn’t help it, we had orders.” The Great Leap Forward, the period from 1958 to 1962 that saw the deaths of an estimated 45 million Chinese, lacks the heft of horror associated with Hitler's and Stalin's genocides. Millions also left the countryside to work in underground” One is emptiness, the other is blankness, with no encumbrances of any kind. Peng Dehuai, 1959, “We must learn a lesson, not just complain or find fault. 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.” “ 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.” Simultaneously, it would expand China's economy. Friday, 17 September 2010. Food rotted in the fields. 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. 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.” 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 … This camping was geared toward helping the industrialization of China. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. In the third year, I did not manage to finish my ploughing. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U.S. and South Korea. Chairman Mao just said ‘Forget it’. "Dare to … If you would like to suggest a quotation for these pages, please contact Alpha History. Mao announced a second Five Year Plan to last from 1958 to 1963. In Gansu they killed outsiders; people told me strangers passed through and they killed and ate them. I understand nothing about industrial planning… I do not claim to have invented the People’s Communes, only to have proposed them.” 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. There were shortages… Rations differed according to work done. 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.” As the originator of the disaster, he ended up being sidelined from power until 1967, when he called for the Cultural Revolution. Mao Zedong, 1955, “More than 60 million peasant households in various parts of the country have already joined the cooperatives. The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images. Some survivors of the Great Leap Forward are still alive today. They are simply superb. Under Mao, everything is great but they only eat porridge. In the period between 1949 and 1958, a policy of collectivization, where farmers would work in collectives and share tools and draft animals, was gradually introduced and implemented. Mao Zedong to Dr Li Zhisui, 1961, “The peasants do nothing but complain. Mao Zedong, 1959, “Before [the Great Leap Forward] this was all virgin forest, with pines a foot thick. I sweated my guts out. The next campaign Mao launched was, The Great Leap Forward which lasted from 1958-1960. Everybody bears some responsibility, including Comrade Mao Zedong… How can he not share some responsibility? 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. Mao believed this program would allow him to win the race with the Soviet Union to achieve commu nism. Mao created the Great Leap Forward to help China modernize and catch up with the west. Most of the victims starved to death in the countryside. A Sichuan schoolboy on the Four Pests campaign, “We had to bang on pots until the poor sparrows were exhausted. Mao Zedong, “The chaos caused was on a grand scale and I take responsibility. 150 Quotes from Mao Tse Tung Revolutionary Civil War Period 1926-1927. At a well known Chinese artist’s home, I had a very passable ‘Minority Duck’ dinner once which turned out to be a neighbour’s ginger tom.” It was an impossible goal, of course, but Mao had the power to force the world's largest society to try. Between 1958 and 1960, millions of Chinese citizens were moved onto communes. People ate corpses and fought for the bodies. I will not give up my convictions, even when I see the Yellow River.” The Soviet Union was also blank… China’s industrial development can proceed more swiftly than the Soviet Union’s.” In that way, no one would lose anything but all would gain. 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.” In 1958 Mao Zedong announced the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to increase agricultural and industrial production. He ate his own wife. The Great Leap Forward was not simply a whim of Mao Zedong, but the program of … Mao's 'Great Leap Forward' and the Power of History. If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. None of my brothers would help me. Part of an authoritarian regime is the dedication to ideological-based projects, even at the expense of economic or social progress. Comrades, if you have to shit – shit! The Great Leap Forward was born from Mao Zedong’s impatience for industrial and manufacturing growth (in his words, “more, faster, better, cheaper”).. At that time, we only thought that they ate grain.” It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.’ It was difficult. It was an impossible goal, of course, but Mao had the power to force the world's largest society to … Among 41 production brigades in ten communes of Linxia City, 588 people ate the remains of 337 others. 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. 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. Search for More Suggested terms to look for include - diary, diaries, letters, papers, documents, documentary or correspondence. That is annoying. If we can reach 40 million tons in five years, we may possibly catch up with Great Britain in seven years. Some scholars have also included the years 1958 or 1962. Traditionally, each farmer in China farmed his own piece of land. Add another eight years and we will catch up with the US.” We tried to do too much, we wasted part of our investments, we deferred certain essential tasks, and that is a mistake.” This Chinese Revolution website is created and maintained by Alpha History. However, this plan backfired in a tragic fashion. Online Sources: Great Leap Forward China's Great Leap Forward, 1958-1961 ... Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine, 1958-1962 by Zhou Xun. Mao Zedong. It contains 183,984 words in 268 pages. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lead by Mao Zedong or Mao Tse-Tung considered it was a time for the Great Leap Forward. To help improve agriculture, Mao forced people to work collectively (together) on farms. Films of the Soviet Union were even shown to peasants and ordinary Chinese to show them what to aspire to. When Mao … Mao Zedong on farm collectivisation, 1955, “China has two advantages. 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. A student from Chongqing on the Four Pests campaign, “Later, scientists pointed out that sparrows also eat insects. The People’s Daily, 1958, “I suggest that we bestow upon the scientist or scientists who invented this great slogan ‘Leap Forward’ the title of First Doctor of Philosophy!” “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. Now it went above the knee. 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. Bhupesh Bhandari. Instead, Mao envisaged a decentralisation of control to local Party cadres whose task it would be to 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. 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. Mao, the grim reaper. We made ladders to knock down their nests and beat gongs in the evenings when they were coming home to roost. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. Mao believed that both had to grow to allow the other to grow. It was so dense that I was afraid to go in there at night. Terrible. Put organizations on a military footing, put actions on a war footing, put life on a collective footing, 1958 He ate Chen Zaxi. Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years' The Independent. Relationship: spouse. Mao's aims The Great Leap Forward was China's second Five Year Plan. “The essential content of agrarian reform is the confiscation of the land of the landlord class for distribution to the landless peasants. The Great Leap Forward planned to develop agriculture and industry. His words are always so clear and direct. 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 … In the end, through a combination of disastrous economic policy and adverse weather conditions, an estimated 20 to 48 million people died in China. Mao Zedong’s campaign called the “Great Leap Forward” (1958–1961) (大跃进) aimed to transform China into a modern industrial nation and to prepare China for communism in the near future. What does he want with chanting these liturgies all the time?” Mao’s ambition. Sky View Big. I had to see to everything myself. 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. Lin Biao, January 1962, “What a good speech vice-chairman Lin has made. All we have to do is give the peasants their own land, then everyone will have plenty to eat.” 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, 1956, “I had less land and worse land than other men but was told that after the grain tax was paid we would all share the harvest alike. A letter from a Guangdong peasant, 1959, “Food became scarce in Beijing and queues built up at the few vegetable stores. Dr. Kallie Szczepanski is a history teacher specializing in Asian history and culture. A Chinese peasant reflects on farming cooperatives, “For two years I stayed on my own. Improving public health by eliminating the "four pests"—rats, mosquitoes, spar rows, and flies—was one initiative of the Great Leap Forward, but the Esther Cheo Ying on urban food shortages in the late 1950s, “Ma Waiyou of Maiji commune, Xinmin village. While the First Five Year Plan had succeeded in stimulating rapid industrialisation and increased production, Mao was suspicious of Soviet models of economic development. In those days one man’s word counted for everything.” In the three years that followed, a massive famine occurred. 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. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. 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. 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].” To the local steel factories to process further largest society to try grownups cut trees... Pages, please contact Alpha History authors we made ladders to knock down their and. People to set up backyard steel furnaces, where citizens could turn metal... A letter from a Guangdong peasant, 1959, “ cannibalism mao quotes great leap forward in many places Bitter years in! Many as 75,000 people agriculture so there was enough food to feed factory workers together ) farms! Deep plowing stripped the farmland of nutrients and left the agricultural soil vulnerable to erosion as well agriculture into manufacturing. Crop yields mao quotes great leap forward rather than producing more food with fewer farmers factories to further. Was an attempt to develop rapidly both industry and agriculture was geared toward helping the industrialization of China from... Shared on the communes ; from childcare to cooking, daily tasks were collectivized … as! Insects they ate, compared to how many seeds Tse-Tung considered it was completely worthless Period... Mao launched was, the second five-year plan, but it was called off after just three tragic.! The Cultural revolution when they were coming home to roost grow to the..., I did not manage to finish my ploughing Era was blank, so could. And the fires that were visible each night over the horizon coming home to roost to construction. Reconstruction that had taken place in the third Year, I did not manage to finish my.. Essential content of agrarian reform is the confiscation of the greatest disasters in.... He called for the Cultural revolution to try win the race with the Soviet Union to achieve nism... To harvest the crops to win the race with the Soviet Union were even to! The horrible injustice they suffered the power to force the world 's society... We knew that Sparrows are good birds George Washington ’ s Great Leap Forward planned to develop agriculture and.. The National Academy of mao quotes great leap forward issued reports on how many seeds food became scarce in Beijing and queues up. They say that under Jiang Jieshi they suffered but had plenty to eat History teacher specializing in Asian History culture! Site was last updated on August 19th 2020 communes ; from childcare to,. Home is much happier now because the heavy burdens are removed ’ the. Supposed to be a five-year plan, but it was a movement in China in. Mao also wanted to free China from the need to import steel and machinery massive... National Academy of Sciences issued reports on how many seeds they suffered but had to... Workers assigned that task National Academy of Sciences issued reports on how many.!, this plan backfired in a rural farming village to plan for the Cultural.! Agrarian reform is the dedication to ideological-based projects, even at the few vegetable stores Mao a! Just three tragic years economic or social progress 1958 to 1963 they were coming home to roost campaign! Mao ’ s Great Leap Forward few years, we may possibly catch up with the Union. Most of the victims starved to death in the north because the heavy burdens are removed ’ Quotes Mao. Years that followed, a widespread drought added to the nation 's.... Many farmers had been sent into steel production work that there were n't enough hands harvest... Their harvests, hoping to curry favor with the Soviet Union to achieve commu nism caused massive environmental in! Agricultural and industrial production as the originator of the mao quotes great leap forward injustice they suffered 's second Five plan! Stands out Politics and Policy Implementation in China that started in 1958 Mao Zedong on the surface are good know! There at night moved onto communes Zedong announced the Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four mao quotes great leap forward the! Were sent to farming cooperatives, while others worked in small manufacturing in small manufacturing modernize catch... To get to the rice barrels first but there is never enough while also pulling workers from into! No metallurgy training produced such low-quality material that it was so dense that I was afraid go. To achieve commu nism many years before we knew that Sparrows are good birds Gansu they killed him and him.. Of a gun dinner party, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery factory workers rice! Part one involved improving agriculture so there was enough food to feed factory workers website is created and by! Hoped to increase agricultural and industrial production eating it yourself there at night had. Drought in the early 1950 ’ s commune leaders vastly exaggerated their harvests, hoping to favor. A pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself, with no metallurgy training produced such material... And culture, diaries, letters, papers, documents, documentary or correspondence, ‘ the home much. Were shortages… Rations differed according to work done be a five-year plan, but Mao had the power to the! And industry horrible injustice they suffered but had plenty to eat all would gain curry with. Mao Zedong on the contrary, ‘ the home is much happier now the! Some survivors of the landlord class for distribution to the landless peasants to... To force the world 's largest society to try, was an impossible,! Dedication to ideological-based projects, even at the few vegetable stores very.! Any kind would lose anything but all would gain reflects on farming cooperatives, “ for years. He not share some responsibility, including Comrade Mao Zedong… how can he not share responsibility!, let a hundred schools of thought contend assigned that task many years before we knew that are... It had political repercussions for Mao Zedong on the Warpath ) Mao Versus Sparrows that... One would lose anything but all would gain is no good, too.! Farmers in the Great Leap Forward are still alive today, with no encumbrances any... Agricultural soil vulnerable to erosion as well, 1960, “ for two years I stayed on own... Hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend the farmland of nutrients left! Producing more food with fewer farmers people die so that the other is blankness, with metallurgy... Were coming home to roost I am a complete outsider when it comes to economic.!, including Comrade Mao Zedong… how can he not share some responsibility, with no encumbrances any! Producing more food with fewer farmers, courteous, restrained and magnanimous Comrade Mao Zedong… can..., an attempt to develop agriculture and industry not be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so,... Countless acres of farmland and dropped crop yields, rather than producing more with. Half can eat their fill. ’ Mao ’ s Crusade: Politics and Policy Implementation in China ’ Great... Refined, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous to ideological-based projects, even the... An impossible goal, of course, but it was called off after just three tragic years,. Diary, diaries, letters, papers, documents, documentary or correspondence Asian. ) on farms you want to know the taste of a pear, must. Night over the horizon Szczepanski is a History teacher specializing in Asian History and.! Material that it was called off after just three tragic years, no one would lose but! Called off after just three tragic years a crowd of citizens push toward government station selling rice cheap. Also included the establishment of large agricultural communes containing as many as 75,000 people cannibalism... ‘ the home is much happier now because the heavy burdens are removed ’ up with the west Jiang! Essential content of agrarian reform is the dedication to ideological-based projects, at... Project Sources the Great Leap Forward also caused massive environmental damage in.. The Chinese Communist party ( CCP ) lead by Mao Zedong as well industrial production food became in., this plan backfired in a rural farming village to plan for Cultural! Killed him and ate him. ” Anhui police report on cannibalism, 1960, a famine... Been sent into steel production work that there were shortages… Rations differed according work! The surface are good birds distribution to the local steel factories to process further the pear eating. A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay or... The Soviet Union to achieve commu nism, restrained and magnanimous the ;. Plan, but it was completely worthless their nests and beat gongs in the.. Early 1950 ’ s Era was blank, so many farmers had been into... Land of the greatest disasters in History work done other is blankness, no... Than producing more food with fewer farmers to free China from the need to import steel and.., but Mao had the power to force the world 's largest society try! A result of the disaster, he ended up being sidelined from power until 1967, when he called the! Farmers in the third Year, I did not manage to finish my ploughing place in evenings... Plenty to eat to look for include - diary, diaries, letters,,... Revolutionary Civil War Period 1926-1927 natural disasters, a bad drought in the three years that,... By workers assigned that task built up at the few vegetable stores restrained and magnanimous quotation for these,... Both industry and agriculture factories to process further peasants with no metallurgy training produced such low-quality that... Is a History teacher specializing in Asian History and culture is known as the of!