The Great Leap Forward was one of the most destructive man-made disasters in human history
The Great Leap Forward was one of the most destructive man-made disasters in human history; causing at least 45 million unnecessary deaths. New data became available in the past few years that sheds light on how much worse the damage was than previously believed: “Between 1958 and 1962, China descended into hell. Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and over-take Britain in less than fifteen years. By unleashing China‘s greatest asset, a labour force that was counted in the hundreds of millions, Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors. Instead of following the Soviet model of development, which leaned heavily towards industry alone, China would ‘walk on two legs': the peasant masses were mobilized to transform both agriculture and industry at the same time convening a backward economy into a modern communist society of plenty for all. In the pursuit o...