The
Great Leap Forward was an idiotic plan advocated by
Mao Zedong to
leapfrog the Chinese economy (actually, just the
heavy industry sector) into global standards. It actually began right after the
Korean War.
Mao's reasoning was that since
heavy industry was responsible for the development of
superpowers such as
Great Britain and
Germany in the pre-
World War I days,
China should focus on it. Specifically,
steel production.
Stalin and his stupid
lectures.
The single-minded focus on steel was disastrous. People had their cooking implements melted to make steel. Agriculture dropped to absurdly low levels. People who now looked at the communal dining halls for food came up empty. The thing about the five year plans used in socialist countries is that it has a quota to fill. People who failed to fulfill the quota were punished. So, people dropped their farming tools to make steel, fearing that the quota would not be met. In reality, the quota was impossible to meet anyways. People were beaten, sometimes to death, for not making enough steel. Now the terrified peasants worked even harder to make steel, while their crops were left out to rot in the fields.
The famine that hit claimed over 30 million lives. Mao Zedong and his cronies had plenty to eat, having stored food in the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. The hardest hit areas were in Central China. Not that it mattered to Mao, numbers meant nothing to him. He failed math in grade school.