Question

Why do many people consider the Great Leap Forward to have been a failure?

Answer 1

The Great Leap Forward was an economic and social campaign conducted by the Chinese Communist Party between 1958 and 1962. This campaign was led by Mao Zedong with the aim of achieving a quick transformation from the agrarian economy that predomined at the moment to a more modern and industrialized socialist society. Some of the measures implemented were agricultural collectivization, bann on private farming, etc.

Many believe that the result of this campaign were tens of millions of deaths and the Great Chinese Famine. This famine took place between 1959 and 1961, and was caused due to droughts, bad weather and Mao's policies. Moreover, there was economic regression from 1958 until 1962.

Answer 2

Quite a few people thought of the Great Leap forward to be unsuccessful because the Communist government rejected Mao’s idea and the farms were never organized.

The reason being that the Great Leap Forward did not have any solid ground for economic analysis but relied only upon the unrealistic approach towards the target outputs.

These targets were set by Mao Zedong and were established on the ideology of Maoism, which resulted in the lack of central government by the Chinese government.