🌾 Farming neglected
Millions of peasants were sent to tend furnaces and build dams. There were too few people left to bring in the harvest, so crops rotted in the fields. Communal canteens also wasted food, because it was free.
Change Under Mao, 1949-63 » The Great Leap Forward: Famine and Failure
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B4, Key topic 3
- How the Great Leap Forward hurt China's farming and industry
- Why officials sent false reports and how the great famine of 1959-61 followed
- How Peng Dehuai's criticism at Lushan in 1959 failed, and how Mao stepped back
- How Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping brought recovery by 1963
The Great Leap Forward was meant to make China rich in a few years. Instead it led to one of the worst disasters in modern history. This lesson explains what went wrong, who suffered, and how China recovered. It ends by drawing together the changes made under Mao between 1949 and 1963.
Key terms:
- False reporting: officials sending in output figures that were much higher than the truth.
- Great famine: the severe food shortage in China from 1959 to 1961, in which millions died.
- Lushan Conference: the Party meeting of July and August 1959 at which Mao's critics were defeated.
- Production team: a small group of neighbouring households, the smallest unit of a commune.
- Private plot: a small patch of land a family could farm for itself.
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Unlock This CourseWhy did output fall?
At first the Party claimed that the Great Leap Forward was a triumph. The truth was very different.
🔥 Poor-quality steel
Backyard furnaces could not reach the heat needed for good steel. Much of what they made was brittle iron that factories could not use.
🍃 Bad farming methods
Peasants were told to plant seeds very close together and to plough deeper than usual, advice that often ruined the crop. Sparrows were hunted because they ate grain, but they also ate insects, so pests spread.
🌧️ Floods and droughts
Bad weather in some years made things worse, and the Party later blamed it for everything. Most historians agree that the policies of the Great Leap Forward were the main cause.
Grain output fell from about 200 million tonnes in 1958 to about 143 million tonnes in 1960. Factories also ran short of materials, workers were weak from hunger, and industrial output fell sharply in 1961 and 1962.
False reporting
Local officials were under great pressure. Mao and the Party praised those who reached huge targets, and anyone who reported failure risked being called an enemy of the Party. So officials began false reporting: they claimed record harvests that did not exist.
This had terrible results. The government believed the figures and took a large share of the grain in tax, leaving too little in the villages. It also went on exporting grain, to pay for imports and to show that the Leap was working. Leaders in Beijing did not know how bad things were, and officials who knew were afraid to tell them.
The great famine, 1959-61
By 1959 food was running out in many places. The great famine followed, and it was worst in rural provinces such as Anhui, Henan and Sichuan. Families ate grass, leaves and bark. Some villages lost many of their people, and the old and the very young died first.
No one knows exactly how many people died, because the records were false and the government kept the figures secret. Historians' estimates range from about 15 million to 45 million. It was one of the worst famines in history.
Why it lasted so long
The famine did not end quickly because the truth was hidden, grain was still being taken, and, as the next section shows, those who spoke out were punished.
Criticism at Lushan, 1959
Some leaders did see the danger. At the Lushan Conference in July 1959, the defence minister Peng Dehuai wrote privately to Mao. He said that the Leap had brought real losses as well as gains, and that Party members had been carried away by their own enthusiasm.
Mao took this as an attack on him. At the conference he turned on Peng, accused him of leading a group against the Party and soon afterwards had him removed as defence minister. Lin Biao took his place. The Party then launched a campaign against “right-wing” thinking, so officials dared not admit the Leap was failing. This is why the famine got worse in 1960.
Mao steps back and recovery
By 1961 the damage could not be hidden. Mao had already given up the post of head of state in 1959, when Liu Shaoqi took it, though Mao stayed chairman of the Party. In 1962 a large Party meeting heard Liu say that the disaster was about three parts natural and seven parts man-made. Mao made a limited self-criticism and played a smaller part in running the economy for a time.
Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping then led a recovery. They:
- closed the communal canteens and made the communes smaller, so that the production team became the main unit of farming;
- allowed families private plots and local markets;
- stopped the backyard furnaces and sent many workers back to the farms;
- bought grain from abroad, including from Canada and Australia.
In 1962 Deng defended these changes by quoting a proverb: it does not matter whether a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice. By 1963 harvests and industry were recovering. Mao was still very powerful, and he did not forget those who had questioned his plans.
Change under Mao, 1949-63
This is a good point to see the whole period together.
- Land and farming: land reform gave land to peasants, then cooperatives, collectives and communes took it back into shared ownership. By 1962 the peasants had some private plots again.
- Industry: the first Five-Year Plan used Soviet help to build heavy industry. The Great Leap Forward tried a faster way, and failed.
- Women: the Marriage Law of 1950 and work in the fields and factories changed women's lives, though old attitudes lasted.
- Politics: Thought Reform, the Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns and the Anti-Rightist Campaign gave the Party tight control over what people said.
- Leadership: Mao's ideas drove the great changes, and the Leap showed what happened when nobody could question him.
Common mistakes
Common mistakes
- Blaming only the weather. The weather mattered, but Liu Shaoqi himself said most of the disaster was man-made.
- Giving one effect only. Questions ask for two, for example falling output and the famine.
- Saying Mao lost power. He gave up the post of head of state, but he stayed Party chairman and kept great influence.
- Quoting one exact death figure. Say the estimates range from about 15 million to 45 million.
Exam-style question
How far was the Great Leap Forward the key turning point in the lives of Chinese peasants in the years 1949-63? Explain your answer. [16 marks]
You may use the following in your answer:
- land reform
- the great famine
You must also use information of your own.
Model answer
The Great Leap Forward was a turning point for the peasants because it brought the worst suffering of the period, but it was not the only major change. I will argue that it was the key turning point, because it reversed the gains that had come earlier.
Land reform under the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950 changed peasant life first. By 1953 about 300 million peasants had received land, and landlords had lost their power. For many families this was a great improvement. The Great Leap Forward then reversed it. In 1958 the collectives were joined into people's communes, where land, tools and meals were shared. Peasants lost control of their own farming, and the state could demand what it wanted from them.
The great famine was the worst effect. Peasants were sent to build dams and run furnaces, so crops were left in the fields. Officials sent false reports of record harvests, so the state took too much grain. Grain output fell from about 200 million tonnes in 1958 to about 143 million in 1960, and estimates of deaths range from about 15 million to 45 million. No other change in these years cost so many lives.
However, other changes mattered too. Cooperatives and then collectives from 1953 had already moved peasants away from owning their land, and the state had begun to buy grain at fixed prices. Women's lives also changed after the Marriage Law of 1950, as they gained the right to divorce and worked in the fields. These changes came before the Leap and had lasting effects.
In conclusion, my test is which event changed peasants' lives most and caused the greatest break with what came before. Land reform gave a lot, but the Leap took it away and brought mass death. It was followed by a partial reversal, with private plots and smaller communes after 1961, yet the state still bought the grain and peasants stayed under Party control. This shows that the Leap broke the trend of earlier gains rather than continuing it. So the Leap was the key turning point, though earlier changes set the scene.
What lifts this to the top level: it covers three aspects (land reform, the famine, and collectivisation and women), weighs both sides and reaches a judgement against a stated test.
Exam tip
In a turning point question, say what life was like before and after the event, then compare it with other changes. Name your test for “key” in the conclusion.
Recap
- Output fell because farming was neglected, backyard steel was poor and the methods were bad.
- False reporting hid the truth and led to too much grain being taken.
- The great famine of 1959-61 killed millions, with estimates from about 15 million to 45 million.
- At Lushan in 1959 Mao defeated Peng Dehuai, which made officials afraid to speak out.
- Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping brought recovery by 1963, while Mao stepped back for a time.