GREAT LEAP FORWARD

China Great Leap Forward Mao Zedong

History of China Great Leap

Introduction

History of China Great Leap Forward (Mao Zedong)

The Great Leap Forward is a policy launched by Mao Zedong and implementation of 1958 in early 1960. Designer of the Great Leap Forward (GBA), Mao Zedong wanted to give a new policy to China. The campaign, which mobilizes the propaganda and coercion of the whole population, aims to boost in record time production by the collectivization of agriculture, expansion of industrial and infrastructure projects of public works of scale. Unrealistic, this program turns out to be a fiasco, the China narrowly escaping the collapse of its economy.

The Great Famine of China raging between 1958 and 1962 and result of this policy was so unexpected which was not even expected by the experts who doubted on its existence. It seemed to assume that the socialist leader had managed to find ways to feed the large Chinese population and to end chronic food shortages that hit China throughout its history. Only in the mid-1980s that U.S. demographers have had access to the statistics of the population after the opening policy of China in 1979. Their findings were staggering: at least 30 million people died of hunger during this episode in the history of the People's Republic - a figure never considered before that date (Former US president, Pp. 1).

Mao based his program on the theory of productive forces. However, the Great Leap demonstrated an economic disaster that affects the growth of the country for several years. Historically, it is considered by most authors as the main cause of serious famine in 1960 that killed 14 million to 43 million people.

Deng Xiaoping's Reforms

From 1980, Deng Xiaoping China engaged on economic reform policies ("Four Modernizations": industry and commerce, education, military organization and agriculture) and openness that began with a de-collectivization of land, followed by industrial reforms which aimed to decentralize government controls in the industrial sector. Deng developed the idea of ??Special Economic Zone where foreign investment could invest without government restriction on capital base. He considered light industry as the basis for development of heavy industry.

In the countryside, the system of "responsibility" brings farmers to sign contracts with the state that give them, for years, usufruct of communal lands. Now the notion of profitability prevails regarding the production, purchase of fertilizers and equipment.

In December 1985, the people's communes disappear, as the state monopoly on grain. At the same time, production increases, followed by the regular income farmers: the effectiveness of the "responsibility" are added the effects of the "Green Revolution", based on the increased use of fertilizers, pesticides and mechanization: the harvest of 1984 exceeds 400 million tones. But the end of collectivization also has negative aspects: it renders useless nearly 200 million rural people (Lai, 2005, Pp. 1).

The rapid development of economic sectors of consumption and export, the creation of an urban middle class with 15% of the population, increasing standards of living (seen through a significant increase in the ...