Melody Wu free essay sample

Melody WuAsian HistoryBrian Dougherty May 2018Why did the Great Leap Forward turn out to be such a failure?The Great Leap Forward was a project Mao created and planned for in order to push China into becoming one of the leading industrial nations. It began during the summer of 1958. The communes, back-yard steel campaigns and the lack of economic growth are all examples that happened during the Great Leap Forward. Bad plans, the pressure to please Mao and the lack of government responsibility were just a few of the reasons why the Great Leap Forward movement was not successful. Communes- starving The back-yard steel campaign was set up in goals of pushing forward Chinas industrial program. In the communes that were set up, the people were mobilized to gather all the scrap iron they could find. Large backyard furnaces were set up in the communes. The furnace was used to melt down the scraps and purify the iron. We will write a custom essay sample on Melody Wu or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The steel produced were low-quality and unusable. Although most of the steel were taken to dumps, the officials still encouraged the production of it. [(citation)] This is an example of the lack of government responsibility during the Great Leap Forward. Once the officials realize that the steel produced is useless and that the harms on the people and the environment in the communes is not worth producing all that low-quality unusable steel, they should have stopped the production. Although they would not want to be on Maos bad side, the damage to the people and the overall development of the country is too great. The furnaces would require a lot of wood to keep the flames continuously burning at all times, trees all around the communes were all cut down and used as firewood. Once the trees were all cut down and used, the people had burn everything they could find that was flammable. [(citation)] In the communes, there was a Four Pests campaign that happened, the four pests included sparrows, rats, flies and mosquitoes. Although Mao did not really know anything about animals, he refused to discuss and get advice from experts, he felt like he knew it all. The extermination of sparrows and the disruptions within the ecosystem caused large collateral damage; once all the sparrows were gone, there was suddenly large amounts of insects swarming the country sides. [(citation)] *The wide spread effects of misusage of poisons and pesticides caused about 30 million pe ople to die of starvation  In the communes, majority labor was diverted to the steel production as well as construction projects. Which left much of the crops that should be harvest to rot. The actual amounts of collected harvested crops were reduced. However, local officers had immense pressure from the authorities in the central government that wanted to see progress resulting from the innovations. The innovations were ideas experimented on the crops with goals of increasing grain productions, policies included deep plowing and close cropping. The local officers were falsely reporting the grain production figures to the officers, raising the figure much higher than the actual amount. [(citation)] The local officers wanted to please Mao and their superior authorities. (tie back to thesis) Impact on economy Resistance Work CitedBecker, Jasper.   Hungry Ghosts- Maos Secret Famine. Holt Paperbacks, 1998.  Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. Great Leap Forward.  Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Inc., 26 Apr. 2018, www. britannica.com/event/Great-Leap-Forward.  Brooman, Josh.  China since 1900. Longman, 1996.China: A Century of Revolution 1949 1976.  Youtube, Richard Hogan, 31 Jan. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJyoX_vrlns;t=5852s.  Great Leap Forward.  Jama Masjid, Delhi New World Encyclopedia, www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Great_Leap_Forward. Opinion | Maos Great Leap to Famine.  The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/opinion/16iht-eddikotter16.html.  Szczepanski, Kallie. Maos Catastrophic Great Leap Forward in China.  ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, www.thoughtco.com/the-great-leap-forward-195154.  The Great Leap Forward.  History Learning Site, www.historylearningsite. co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/china-1900-to-1976/the-great-leap-forward/.  The Great Leap Forward: The Great Failure of Mao Zedong in China.  The Great Courses Daily, 23 Mar. 2018, www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/great-leap-forward-mao-zedong/.