In order to change the face of poverty and backwardness in China as soon as possible, the party strives to open up a brand-new situation in exploring the road of socialist construction. At the beginning of 1956, China's economic construction was already prone to impatience and aggressiveness. With the emergence of a new atmosphere of rapid growth in production in some factories and rural areas in 1957, the enthusiasm of the masses of the people in building socialism has been greatly enhanced, and the party believes that economic construction should be carried out more quickly.
Internationally, the high reputation gained by the Chinese Communist Party at the November 1957 congress of representatives of the Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow, coupled with the successful launch of the first artificial earth satellite by the Soviet Union and the proposal to catch up with and surpass the United States in 15 years, gave great encouragement to socialists all over the world, including China.
The idea of "speeding up" economic construction has been gradually transformed into the practical action of the "Great Leap Forward" under the impetus of a strong idea of catching up with and surpassing the economy.
In the winter of 1957, the whole country set off a climax of agricultural production centered on the construction of water conservancy, pig manure and soil improvement, kicking off the prelude to the "Great Leap Forward". In May 1958, the Second Session of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China adopted the general line of "building socialism with full vigor, striving for the upper reaches, and building socialism as quickly and efficiently as possible", which reflected the general desire of the party and the broad masses of the people to urgently demand to change the backward economic and cultural situation in our country, but violated the objective law that must be followed in economic construction.
After the meeting, the "Great Leap Forward" movement was launched nationwide in all aspects. The agricultural side put forward the slogan of "taking grain as the guideline" and demanded that the prescribed grain production targets be met in 5, 3 or even 1 or 2 years, which caused a serious exaggeration. The industrial side put forward the slogan of "taking steel as the guideline", requiring that the goal of catching up with Britain in 15 years in advance of steel production be achieved in a few years, and a mass movement of large-scale steelmaking be set off.
The implementation of the "Great Leap Forward" shows that the Party is trying to open up a new situation in the exploration of China's own road to building socialism. It can be mobilized, reflecting the strong desire of the Chinese people, who have long been bullied by imperialism and feudalism, to seek prosperity and strength after getting rid of oppression. From the founding of New China to the basic completion of socialist transformation, a series of successive victories in just a few years have made people believe that China's goal of becoming rich and strong may be realized in a relatively short period of time.
At the same time as the "Great Leap Forward" developed rapidly, the rural areas set off a climax of the people's communization movement. In August 1958, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the Resolution on the Question of Establishing People's Communes in Rural Areas. Subsequently, it took only more than a month for the rural areas of the country to basically realize communalization. The people's communes established in the early days of the "Great Leap Forward" engaged in egalitarianism and allocated property and labor power of the production teams, including individual members, free of charge, which undermined the peasants' enthusiasm for production.
Doing our utmost to speed up construction in order to gain more initiative was the urgent desire of the whole Party and the people of the whole country at that time. However, due to the Party's lack of experience in large-scale socialist construction, because it deviated from the principle of seeking truth from facts that the Party has always advocated, and acted according to subjective wishes and wills, the result was the opposite of what was desired.
In the autumn and winter of 1958, the Party Central Committee began to discover that there were many chaos in the "Great Leap Forward" and the people's communization movement. From the first Zhengzhou Conference in November 1958 to the early days of the Lushan Conference in July 1959, the leadership of the Party Central Committee straightened out the people's communes, adjusted the high targets, and made initial efforts to correct the mistakes of the "Left." The "communist style," the exaggerated style, the high targets, and the blind command were initially curbed, and the situation began to improve somewhat.
Chief planner: Zhou Hongjun
Producer: Zhu Yonglei An Chuanxiang
Planner: Zhai Zihe Wang Ying
Copywriter: Wang Ying, Shen Rui (Intern)
Design: Shanshan Fan
bibliography:
A Brief History of the Communist Party of China
A Century of Party History in literature
A Survey of the History of the Communist Party of China
Image source: Xinhua News Agency
Produced by Xinhua News Center
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