Political Movement
The Great Leap Forward was initiated in 1958, after the First Five Year Plan had been declared successfully completed. One point of the Great Leap was starting to set up People's Communes in the countryside. However, the Party had optimistically over-estimated the country's productivity during the First Five Year Plan. In reality, farming activity had gone down due to the All-Canteen.
Some activists went against the Great Leap Forward movement, but they were seen as the opponents of Mao and were silenced in the purges of the following "Anti-Rightist Movement".
After the Famine, then-Chairman of the People's Republic of China Liu Shaoqi concluded that the reason for the calamity was "30% natural disaster, 70% policy". In the later Cultural Revolution, Liu was denounced as a traitor and an enemy agent going against the Three Red Banners.
Read more about this topic: Great Chinese Famine
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or movement:
“What are all political and social institutions, but always a religion, which in realizing itself, becomes incarnate in the world?”
—Edgar Quinet (1803–1875)
“No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)