The Great Chinese Famine

Though there were some success regarding social equality, there was little to no economic growth and the lack of direction of the nation caused widespread starvation, which took the lives of millions. The Great Leap Forward was severely mismanaged and was the leading cause of The Great Chinese Famine. Mao created new standards for farming methods in an attempt to make it a more efficient process and bountiful. He called for the implementation of new and “improved” techniques such as crowding seeds in plots to grow more and planting seeds very deep under the ground to reach the more nutrient dense soil. These methods caused many failed harvests and a dire lack of food for the people living in the communes. The culmination of natural disasters

In 1956, in a speech to Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita S. Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, denounced Joseph Stalin, his predecessor, for his abuse of power and the harm he inflicted onto his people. Very publically the Chinese government had lavishly praised Stalin, with Mao even calling him “the saviour of all the oppressed” and “a teacher and friend of mankind and of the Chinese people”. This forced the Chinese to reevaluate the moral and social path they have taken by emulating Soviet communism. This also caused outrage in within the intellectuals of China who saw that their government was founded upon the ideas of a leader villainized by his own successor. To appease the intellectuals, Mao commenced the Hundred Flowers

This is a direct departure from the Soviet socialist political concept of “general line” where the ideas of the people in power are what define the political party. The Hundred Flowers Campaign, was meant to allow the intellectual class of China feel like they had a say in their government and that the Communist government was implementing a democratic aspect to how it functioned. A leader of the communist party, Chou En-Lai, explained that in actuality the campaign took the divergent ideas of the masses to pinpoint the opposition and “go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own.” The idea of mass line showed that Mao was searching to customize socialism in a way that would work best for China, but the true intentions of the campaign reveal his plan to use propaganda to create devout believers in his unique socialist path. In this way, Mao’s socialist policies were not necessarily serving the public as they promised to do, causing his influence to falter amongst the