THESIS RATIONALE Thesis: The Great Leap Forward created by Mao to speed up modernization and industrialization in China ended in failure and caused economic chaos. Mao wanted China to be a world power and tried to get the country going by converting everything to industrial power like steel and manufactured goods. He created goals that were unrealistic for workers to meet, using manual labor (peasants and farmers). During this time, the population was growing rapidly, and the food production couldn't keep up. This led to the great famine, causing 9 million people to starve to death in 1960 alone. In 1958, they claimed they had a record 260 million tons, but this was not true. By 1960, the harvest was only 144 million tons. This is looked at as the worst famine in world history, causing million deaths. Mao also wanted to achieve the idea of people communes. In communes, several farms were joined together to create one unit. Everything is shared between the families. The communes challenged the normality of a family. Mao wanted China’s population to work for themselves, rather than use machines or experts. The Great Leap Forward was a complete failure, leading to Mao’s resignation as president of China, although he did stay chairman of the Chinese communist Party. He handed the Chinese economy over to Deng Ziaoping.

“Mao was trying to achieve economic miracles by whipping people into a fever of enthusiasm. Everyone was supposed to work very long hours under difficult conditions to do things in months that would have normally taken years.” The view of the historian, E. Moise in “Modern China”. Coal and iron cannot walk by themselves. They need vehicles to transport them. This I did not foresee. I and the Premier did not concern ourselves with this point. You could say we were ignorant of it…I am a complete outsider when it comes to economic construction. I understand nothing about industrial planning. Comrades, in 1958 and 1959, the main responsibility was mine, and you should take me to task…The chaos caused was on a grand scale, and I take responsibility. Comrades, you must analyze your own responsibility…If you have to fart, fart! You will feel much better for it.- Mao, 1959 “We are not weak, we are stronger, we have kept the backbone.” Li Jingquan

Key Li Jingquan's quote in pink-Li Jingquan was a provincial leader who lost ten million people to the famine during the Great Leap Forward. In his quote he was comparing how the Great Leap Forward is like the Long March during the revolution and how 1/10 people survived the Long March. He is saying how for the Long March the people who survived only became stronger and is comparing it to the Great Leap Forward would help China in the end. 45 million people died during the Great Leap Forward and threw the country into even more chaos, leading the economic failure and struggles with rebuilding what the Red Guards destroyed. Graph bottom of the page-The graph shows the birth and the death rates between The dashed line stands out for the birth rates and solid line stands death. In the middle of the graph shows how the famine effected the population growth of China before they recovered. Black and white picture in the middle-This picture shows farmers trying to make steel in their backyard by orders of Mao during the Great Leap Forward. Mao wanted to make China a more modern country and to have it become a world power. All of this was part of his movement call the Great Leap Forward. His goal was to "20 years in a day" and also wanted to industrialize the countryside. He tried to use the huge population of China to turn them into an industrial superpower. This all destroyed Mao's plan when all of the peasants were making steel and no one was making food for the growing population. Mao quote in purple-Mao is saying in this quote that he failed his people during the Great Leap Forward. He is telling them that it was his fault because he refused to try to get machines to help out the peasants. Mao wanted to use the massive population of China and he did, which then resulted in the deaths 45 million people and destroyed China socially and economically

Key The people riding the dragon-This is a political cartoon that shows Mao's ideas of communes showed by the dragon. The people on the dragon are the members and the box above stands for production. Mao’s idea was to have people live together and share everything to make China better. The communes were made to get rid of the old customs of family and everyone lived in army style barracks. This came back and bit Mao in the butt when people tried to make steel and didn’t focus on making crops. Most peasants had lost their incentives to produce because everything went to the people communes. Parade of trucks and other vehicles- This was a propaganda poster to make people try to help out and join the Party's effort to make China into a superpower. All of the propaganda was used to make the peasants work hard for the good of the state and not their own purposes. They urged the Chinese laborers to work long hours, whatever the weather and no matter how bad the conditions. Great Sparrow Campaign-The campaign against the birds by the peasants was started Mao who said the birds were eating the grain. This was a lie and the peasants killed thousands of birds which led to a raise in the populations of insects and rats. The rats and the insects destroyed so much grain that whole village were starving. The country side was destroyed whole families because parents would sell their children and husbands would sell their wives all for food.

Key Quote from historian E. Moise in blue-During the Great Leap Forward, Mao was trying to juristically boost his country’s industry and economy. One way he was trying to do this was by encouraging Chinese citizens to manufacture steel in their own backyards! This idea turned out to be a total disaster and the steel was very poor quality. Because of this attempt to industrialize China, the farmers who were making steel couldn’t watch over their crops. The Chinese food supply dropped dramatically due to this. To make matters worse, the land that was used for farming was now covered with furnaces for manufacturing steel. Picture of the countryside-Another one of Mao’s attempts to make China better was to increase its agricultural output. In order to achieve this, Mao devised a system called “People’s Communes”. These communes were made of collective farms. They were then joined together to make huge farms with about 30,000 people in each of these farming communities. This completely altered the traditional family view by the Chinese. They no longer lived as individuals but as mini communities supporting each other. The pay was based apon how much you worked within your commune.