Great Leap Forward

Also called: GLF · Topic: Comparative Development: India, China and Pakistan · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 8 "Comparative Development Experiences of India and its Neighbours"

Meaning

The Great Leap Forward (GLF) was Mao Zedong's 1958-62 campaign to make China an industrial country very fast and catch up with Western economies. It relied on backyard furnaces (small steel furnaces in homes and villages) and people's communes (large rural units where villagers farmed together) [2][4].

It matters because it caused a famine (1959-61) that killed tens of millions of people. That famine was mostly caused by policy, not by nature [2][3]. The GLF is the standard example of how central planning with false reports and no free press can turn a drought into mass death.

Explanation

How the campaign worked

• The goal: industrialise very fast. This followed China's First Five-Year Plan (1953), which copied the Soviet (USSR) model. That model had two parts:
• heavy industry first: steel, machines and power came before consumer goods and farming;

• central planning: planners at the top, not markets, decided what to produce, how much, and at what price.

• Backyard furnaces: the state got ordinary people to run small-scale industries ("backyard steel furnaces") all over China [2].

• Much of this steel was poor quality and could not be used.
• People melted down useful pots and farm tools just to meet steel targets.

The people's communes

• Commune: a large rural unit for collective cultivation. Villagers farmed the land together and shared the output. Nobody farmed their own separate plot.
• The people's commune was set up in August 1958. Each one pooled the labour of tens of thousands of peasants from different villages [4].
• There were 26,000 communes in 1958, covering almost the whole farm population (NCERT).
• A commune did more than farming. It also ran local industry, rural schools and a local militia (a part-time armed force of ordinary people) [4].
• In 1958-60, private plots were given up to common ownership and wages were made equal [4].
• What went wrong [4]:
• Communes were too large to manage well.
• They ignored how villages had always bought and sold goods (rural marketing patterns).

• Equal wages removed almost all incentive to work, because hard workers and lazy workers got the same pay.

• The one lasting gain: communes made foodgrain distribution more equitable (fairer and more even) before the 1978 reforms.

The famine: why it happened

• Grain was taken on false claims:
• local officials reported inflated (exaggerated) harvests;
• the state collected grain based on these claims;

• villages were left with too little to eat.

• Labour was pulled away from farms:

• farm workers were sent to the backyard furnaces;

• crops were not harvested properly.

• Communes were badly managed.

• Drought made all of this worse. It added to the damage, but it was not the main cause.
• Death toll:
• Britannica says waste, confusion and poor management, together with natural calamities, caused a famine (1959-61) that killed 15 to 30 million people [2].
• More recent estimates put the toll at about 45 million [3].
• NCERT says about 30 million and blames mainly a "severe drought". This is an NCERT error.

The Sino-Soviet split and the final result

• Sino-Soviet split: the break in relations between China ("Sino") and the USSR ("Soviet") over ideology and leadership.
• The USSR withdrew its experts in 1960. These experts had been helping China build its industries.
• Many factory projects stopped halfway.

• The blow came during the famine years, so the economy suffered even more.

• Per capita output = Total output ÷ Population

• Result: China's per capita grain output in 1978 was the same as in the mid-1950s, even after land reforms, collectivisation and the GLF.
• Worked example (made-up numbers): grain output rises from 200 million tonnes to 300 million tonnes. Population rises from 600 million to 900 million.
• Before: 200 ÷ 600 = 0.33 tonne per person. After: 300 ÷ 900 = 0.33 tonne per person.
• Total output grew by 50%, but each person got no more grain.

In India

• The same heavy-industry idea, but a different system:
• India started its First Five-Year Plan in 1951. Its Second Plan (1956, the Mahalanobis model) also put heavy industry first.

• India ran a mixed economy with a private sector. China had state ownership of almost everything and forced collective farming through communes.

• Democracy and famine: India has had no major famine since 1947.

• Amartya Sen argues that famines do not happen in functioning democracies.

• A free press and elections make it hard to hide food shortages or fake harvest numbers, and that is exactly what went wrong in the GLF.

• Lesson for Indian land reform: equal wages in communes killed the incentive to work. Land reform works best when farmers keep the gains from their own effort.

Don't confuse with

• Cultural Revolution (1966-76): a political campaign against "bourgeois" and traditional elements, run with the student Red Guards [5]. The GLF (1958-62) was an economic campaign of furnaces and communes. Trap: NCERT says the Cultural Revolution began in 1965, but the correct year is 1966.
• China's First Five-Year Plan (1953): a planned, Soviet-style push for heavy industry. The GLF was the later mass campaign that tried to jump ahead using backyard furnaces and communes.
• Household responsibility system (1978 reforms): farm families could keep and sell any output above the state quota. This is the opposite of the commune's equal wages and common ownership.
• Mahalanobis model (India, 1956): heavy industry first, but inside a mixed economy with no forced collectivisation.

Prelims Hooks

• Great Leap Forward: 1958-62. Its key features were backyard furnaces and people's communes [2].
• Communes were set up in August 1958 [4]. There were 26,000 communes in 1958, covering almost the whole farm population (NCERT).
• GLF famine: 1959-61. Britannica gives 15-30 million deaths [2]. Recent estimates put it at about 45 million [3]. NCERT says about 30 million. Trap: NCERT blames mainly drought, but the famine was largely caused by policy.
• The USSR withdrew its experts from China in 1960 (the Sino-Soviet split).
• Trap: China's per capita grain output in 1978 was the same as in the mid-1950s, so collectivisation did not raise food output per person.
• Trap: the commune's positive legacy was equitable grain distribution, not higher productivity.

Mains Points

• Policy-made famine vs "natural" disaster: in the GLF, officials falsely reported output, there was no free press, and targets came from the top down. Together these turned a drought into a mass-death event. This links to Amartya Sen's point that famines do not happen in functioning democracies, and to India having had no major famine since 1947. It is useful for GS-II/GS-III answers on food security and accountable governance.
• Equity vs incentive: communes made grain distribution fair, but equal wages removed the incentive to work [4]. China's fix in 1978 was the household responsibility system. The lesson for India's land and farm policy is that fairness has to be designed so that effort is still rewarded.
• Limits of top-down, self-reliant planning: the Maoist model rested on decentralisation, self-sufficiency and refusing foreign technology and capital, and it was judged a failure. The Soviet withdrawal in 1960 shows the risk of depending on one outside partner. Both points link to India's pre-1991 import substitution and today's Atmanirbhar Bharat debate about building domestic capacity without closing the economy.

Related concepts

• Commune system
• Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Read more

• China before 1978: Great Leap Forward, communes and the Cultural Revolution