Famine conditions spread as grain procurement exceeds rural availability

A People’s Daily editorial signaled the start of a campaign that labeled many critics as rightists. People were dismissed, demoted, sent to labor or silenced. The campaign narrowed the space for...

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...

Moscow notified Beijing that Soviet specialists would be recalled, disrupting projects, industrial schedules and technical cooperation. The split compounded an already severe economic crisis after the...

The Ninth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee adopted a policy to rebalance the national economy after the Great Leap. It prioritized agriculture and essential consumer goods, cut excessive...

From 15 to 23 March, a central work conference discussed and adopted draft commune regulations, later known as the “Sixty Articles for Agriculture.” The revisions strengthened the production team as...

A set of nine measures sought to reduce the urban population and cut grain sales in cities. Millions of people were transferred or returned to rural areas as the state struggled to match food supply...

The large national conference assessed the economic catastrophe and called for practical correction. Liu Shaoqi’s frank acknowledgment of the crisis represented a rare moment of high-level openness....