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China The Great Leap Forward, 1958-60
The antirightist drive was followed by a militant approach
toward economic development. In 1958 the CCP launched the Great
Leap Forward campaign under the new "General Line for Socialist
Construction." The Great Leap Forward was aimed at accomplishing
the economic and technical development of the country at a vastly
faster pace and with greater results. The shift to the left that
the new "General Line" represented was brought on by a combination
of domestic and external factors. Although the party leaders
appeared generally satisfied with the accomplishments of the First
Five-Year Plan, they--Mao and his fellow radicals in particular--
believed that more could be achieved in the Second Five-Year Plan
(1958-62) if the people could be ideologically aroused and if
domestic resources could be utilized more efficiently for the
simultaneous development of industry and agriculture. These
assumptions led the party to an intensified mobilization of the
peasantry and mass organizations, stepped-up ideological guidance
and indoctrination of technical experts, and efforts to build a
more responsive political system. The last of these undertakings
was to be accomplished through a new xiafang (down to the
countryside) movement, under which cadres inside and outside the
party would be sent to factories, communes, mines, and public works
projects for manual labor and firsthand familiarization with grassroots conditions. Although evidence is sketchy, Mao's decision to
embark on the Great Leap Forward was based in part on his
uncertainty about the Soviet policy of economic, financial, and
technical assistance to China. That policy, in Mao's view, not only
fell far short of his expectations and needs but also made him wary
of the political and economic dependence in which China might find
itself
(see Sino-Soviet Relations
, ch. 12).
The Great Leap Forward centered on a new socioeconomic and
political system created in the countryside and in a few urban
areas--the
people's communes (see Glossary).
By the fall of 1958,
some 750,000 agricultural producers' cooperatives, now designated
as production brigades, had been amalgamated into about 23,500
communes, each averaging 5,000 households, or 22,000 people. The
individual commune was placed in control of all the means of
production and was to operate as the sole accounting unit; it was
subdivided into production brigades (generally coterminous with
traditional villages) and production teams. Each commune was
planned as a self-supporting community for agriculture, small-scale
local industry (for example, the famous backyard pig-iron
furnaces), schooling, marketing, administration, and local security
(maintained by militia organizations). Organized along paramilitary
and laborsaving lines, the commune had communal kitchens, mess
halls, and nurseries. In a way, the people's communes constituted
a fundamental attack on the institution of the family, especially
in a few model areas where radical experiments in communal living--
large dormitories in place of the traditional nuclear family
housing-- occurred. (These were quickly dropped.) The system also
was based on the assumption that it would release additional
manpower for such major projects as irrigation works and
hydroelectric dams, which were seen as integral parts of the plan
for the simultaneous development of industry and agriculture
(see Agricultural Policies
, ch. 6).
The Great Leap Forward was an economic failure. In early 1959,
amid signs of rising popular restiveness, the CCP admitted that the
favorable production report for 1958 had been exaggerated. Among
the Great Leap Forward's economic consequences were a shortage of
food (in which natural disasters also played a part); shortages of
raw materials for industry; overproduction of poor-quality goods;
deterioration of industrial plants through mismanagement; and
exhaustion and demoralization of the peasantry and of the
intellectuals, not to mention the party and government cadres at
all levels. Throughout 1959 efforts to modify the administration of
the communes got under way; these were intended partly to restore
some material incentives to the production brigades and teams,
partly to decentralize control, and partly to house families that
had been reunited as household units.
Political consequences were not inconsiderable. In April 1959
Mao, who bore the chief responsibility for the Great Leap Forward
fiasco, stepped down from his position as chairman of the People's
Republic. The National People's Congress elected Liu Shaoqi as
Mao's successor, though Mao remained chairman of the CCP. Moreover,
Mao's Great Leap Forward policy came under open criticism at a
party conference at Lushan, Jiangxi Province. The attack was led by
Minister of National Defense Peng Dehuai, who had become troubled
by the potentially adverse effect Mao's policies would have on the
modernization of the armed forces. Peng argued that "putting
politics in command" was no substitute for economic laws and
realistic economic policy; unnamed party leaders were also
admonished for trying to "jump into communism in one step." After
the Lushan showdown, Peng Dehuai, who allegedly had been encouraged
by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to oppose Mao, was deposed. Peng
was replaced by Lin Biao, a radical and opportunist Maoist. The new
defense minister initiated a systematic purge of Peng's supporters
from the military.
Militancy on the domestic front was echoed in external policies
(see Evolution of Foreign Policy
, ch. 12). The "soft" foreign
policy based on the
Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (see Glossary)
to which China had subscribed in the mid-1950s gave way
to a "hard" line in 1958. From August through October of that year,
the Chinese resumed a massive artillery bombardment of the
Nationalist-held offshore islands of Jinmen (Chin-men in Wade Giles
but often referred to as Kinmen or Quemoy) and Mazu (Ma-tsu in
Wade-Giles). This was accompanied by an aggressive propaganda
assault on the United States and a declaration of intent to
"liberate" Taiwan.
Chinese control over Xizang had been reasserted in 1950. The
socialist revolution that took place thereafter increasingly became
a process of sinicization for the Tibetans. Tension culminated in
a revolt in 1958-59 and the flight to India by the Dalai Lama, the
Tibetans' spiritual and de facto temporal leader. Relations with
India--where sympathy for the rebels was aroused--deteriorated as
thousands of Tibetan refugees crossed the Indian border. There were
several border incidents in 1959, and a brief Sino-Indian border
war erupted in October 1962 as China laid claim to Aksai Chin,
nearly 103,600 square kilometers of territory that India regarded
as its own
(see Physical Environment
, ch. 2). The Soviet Union gave
India its moral support in the dispute, thus contributing to the
growing tension between Beijing and Moscow.
The Sino-Soviet dispute of the late 1950s was the most
important development in Chinese foreign relations. The Soviet
Union had been China's principal benefactor and ally, but relations
between the two were cooling. The Soviet agreement in late 1957 to
help China produce its own nuclear weapons and missiles was
terminated by mid-1959
(see Defense Industry and the Economic Role of the People's Liberation Army
, ch. 14). From that point until the
mid-1960s, the Soviets recalled all of their technicians and
advisers from China and reduced or canceled economic and technical
aid to China. The discord was occasioned by several factors. The
two countries differed in their interpretation of the nature of
"peaceful coexistence." The Chinese took a more militant and
unyielding position on the issue of anti-imperialist struggle, but
the Soviets were unwilling, for example, to give their support on
the Taiwan question. In addition, the two communist powers
disagreed on doctrinal matters. The Chinese accused the Soviets of
"revisionism"; the latter countered with charges of "dogmatism."
Rivalry within the international communist movement also
exacerbated Sino-Soviet relations. An additional complication was
the history of suspicion each side had toward the other, especially
the Chinese, who had lost a substantial part of territory to
tsarist Russia in the mid-nineteenth century. Whatever the causes
of the dispute, the Soviet suspension of aid was a blow to the
Chinese scheme for developing industrial and high-level (including
nuclear) technology.
Data as of July 1987
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