The Anti-Rightist campaign reverses the opening to criticism

The Party called for a faster expansion of agricultural producer cooperatives. The move came as leaders sought to mobilize rural resources for industrial growth and to reduce the risks of individual...

Mao’s speech considered the balance between heavy and light industry, coastal and inland investment, central and local authority, and state, collective and individual initiative. It acknowledged the...

The Congress declared that socialist transformation of ownership was largely complete and made the development of productive forces a central task. It recognized the tension between an advanced...

By year’s end, private industry and commerce had largely been reorganized into state-private or collective forms. The rapid transition expanded state influence over investment, employment and...

Mao’s speech on contradictions among the people invited criticism and debate, partly in response to concerns about bureaucratism and the relationship between party and society. Intellectuals,...

The second session of the Eighth Party Congress endorsed a drive to achieve rapid industrial and agricultural growth through mass mobilization. The campaign sought to close the gap with advanced...

A resolution promoted large communes combining administration, production and social services. Communes could coordinate irrigation, infrastructure and rural industry, but they also enabled the...

A follow-up resolution addressed problems emerging from the rapid formation of communes and clarified their economic organization. The need for correction reflected the gap between the Great Leap’s...

Senior leaders met to discuss economic conditions and the Great Leap. Peng Dehuai’s criticism of exaggerated claims and rural hardship was treated as a political challenge, and he was purged. The...

The Great Leap famine began amid collapsing harvests, labor dislocation, exaggerated reports and state procurement that left many rural communities without adequate food. Estimates of excess deaths...