You might want to read back into the thread. Poverty and hunger were reduced. The OCED estimation for China's economic growth under Mao is 5.7%, which dwarfs all growth prior to the Communist revolution. Industrial production increased by over 5 folds. Just about all estimates for the economic change of China during the early PRC, made either domestically or by foreign economists, was one of growth. The GLP and the CR combined was of pinprick damage, hardly the cause of 15-20 years of comparative decline regarding to the west. PRior to the Communist revolution China was even more behind.
Poverty and hunger were reduced...after the GLF period is halted and a very severe famine had run its course. The period of the GLF is one of famine on a very disasterous scale. No doubt really.
Mao's opponents were strengthened by the errors of policy and hence he later came back to prominence with the Cultural Revoltion and the establishment of his personality cult in response.
Gov.CN
The "cultural revolution, " which lasted from May 1966 to October 1976, was responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the state and the people since the founding of the People's Republic. It was initiated and led by Comrade Mao Zedong....
........The history of the "cultural revolution" has proved that Comrade Mao Zedong's principal theses for initiating this revolution conformed neither to Marxism-Leninism nor to Chinese reality. They represent an entirely erroneous appraisal of the prevailing class relations and political situation in the Party and state....
The Cultural Revoltion or the Great Leap Forward are questionable since the direct & ''unique'' benefit of each is hard to produce. The by-product of the first was shortcoming and shortfall (see projections and figures on agricultural yields) and of the second it was only insanity, but which benefited Mao.
Benefits would come in spite of these periods rather than because of them.
If the % output in factories was increased during the height of the Cultural revolution then it means some people didnt catch the trains to go and see Mao and instead must have learnt to keep their heads on straight after the earlier debacle of the GLF. The CR in itself was more disruption and hysteria.
Since the CR was political instead of economic in basis (where Mao's real genius lay) the performance of industry should not exhonerate the resulting spectacle.
The end result was closing of universities & schools (....the crucial "
knowledge economy" in modern parlance....) and destruction of heritage (or even mass starvation in the case of the GLF). This means there was a lot of damage, i.e 5% of the massive population was thought to be class enemies during the CR, while untold numbers died during the GLF. Only after 'Leftist Errors" of economy were attended to (i.e Mao's errors) did the nation recover post-1962 and this would be quietly happening in the background of the Mao hysteria and mass rallies. Some people just got on with the job thankfully. Rather than a pinprick it was more like a kick in the face for some people...but not for everyone. If 5% of the population was marked as class enemies that is still millions of people, i.e the schoolteacher having his teeth kicked in by red gaurds. Perhaps it could be compared to an injured limb (or maybe a brain injury since Mao opposed intellectuals). Mao in a 1967 speech gave this % figure...and people were expected to produce these class enemies of course from their neighbourhood...{quote}"...Among the masses, they constitute at most 5 percent..."
http://www.marxists....-9/mswv9_74.htmBy late period CR dead bodies could be seen floating past Hong Kong as the Red Gaurds fought each other over how to best serve Mao. When the movement was broken up and halted it is suggested that millions of young people had to be forcibly deported to rural locations.
....& In the GLF even if ''only'' 16.5 million died as per the lower CCP released stats it would be quite signifigant.
(Marxist J.Ball says of the offical realised PRC figures "The current rulers of China are demonising Mao to hide their crimes"...i.e they are lies). On an individual level the peasant woman who buries her child who has died for want of food may care little about % of GDP..... or whether 30 million or only 16 million others share her sorrow with her.
These contestable figures, even on the lowest estimations, are quite signifigant IMO and not made good because of a tick from an accountant.
The study of humanities requires some humanity. These were not bacteria in a petri dish.
This is tens of millions being brutalised when it needn't have been so.
Certainly after the Communist revolution things got consistently better on a spreadsheet, but this is hardly in itself surprising since it was a general rule the world over with the end of WW2, and for China an end to the civil war also shortly after. My own feelings are that it could have been better still if the rebuilding was done with moderation and forethought as well as the sincere mass movements (....or as PRC historians said, "a little prior experimentation").
I would of course take for granted the economic situation in China improved after 1949. The nationalist economy was a complete shambles. Unifying China is a credit to Mao's abilty and having a functional goverment is a great achievment.
Just how much credit, to tie this back to the thread topic again, can be given to Mao in particular for all following PRC industrial growth and economic improvements is the issue and also how much is from the ''GLF'' period initiative in particular. .........& How much is instead from the fact that lessons were learnt from the awful situation is more important. It took tweaking and a belated revision on Mao's policy to create benefits.
http://english.gov.c...ntent_20912.htmIn the winter of 1960, the Central Committee of the Party and Comrade Mao Zedong set about rectifying the "Left" errors in rural work and decided on the principle of "readjustment, consolidation, filling out and raising standards" for the economy as a whole. A number of correct policies and resolute measures were worked out and put into effect with Comrades Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping in charge.
All this constituted a crucial turning point in that historical phase. In January 1962, the enlarged Central Work Conference attended by 7, 000 people made a preliminary summing-up of the positive and negative experience of the great leap forward and unfolded criticism and self-criticism. A majority of the comrades who had been unjustifiably criticized during the campaign against "Right opportunism" were rehabilitated before or after the conference. In addition. most of the "Rightists" had their label removed. Thanks to these economic and political measures, the national economy recovered and developed fairly smoothly between 1962 and 1966.
The actual recovery is only after the GLF period is finished and opponents were (briefly) empowered before being totally crushed.
Earlier to this at the onset of the GLF;
Gov.CN
.....it was due to the fact that Comrade Mao Zedong and many leading comrades, both at the centre and in the localities, had become smug about their successes, were impatient for quick results and overestimated the role of man's subjective will and efforts. After the general line was formulated, the great leap forward and the movement for rural people's communes were initiated without careful investigation and study and without prior experimentation.
.....[/b]It was mainly due to the errors of the great leap forward and of the struggle against "Right opportunism" together with a succession of natural calamities and the perfidious scrapping of contracts by the Soviet Government that our economy encountered serious difficulties between 1959 and 1961, which caused serious losses to our country and people.
As the official PRC history states the period this thread is discussing was at the very best a difficult time and much had to be changed. It hardly sounds like the period of 1959-1961 (Mao's personal baby, and hence a blow to his pretige) was a success. This is when the famine occured.
Standards of living in the late 60's & 70's occur long after everything has settled down.
Mao's economics initially resulted in wasted labour, appropriation and ultimately importing grain to feed a famine struck nation.
This was after it was initially claimed China would be ahead of Britian at the end of the GLF period...instead they had to buy grain from Western nations to feed the nation. Targets were never realistic.
The huge growth in China from 1949-1979 could equally (or quite centrally) be attributed to the end of the ravages of the civil war, the first real effective government since the fall of the Qing, and of course the ejection of Japanese occupiers who held much of the eastern coast of China and bombed urban centres as they pleased.
....The main & very real credit that China and the CCP gets IMO for this regrowth after decades of disaster is that it was achieved without any 'Marshal Plan' or cash injection from the USA.
http://en.wikipedia....ll_Plan#EffectsThe years 1948 to 1952 saw the fastest period of growth in European history. Industrial production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war levels.[19]The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and Western Europe embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth that saw standards of living increase dramatically. There is some debate among historians over how much this should be credited to the Marshall Plan {funding to rebuild from the USA}. Most reject the idea that it alone miraculously revived Europe, as evidence shows that a general recovery was already underway. Most believe that the Marshall Plan sped this recovery, but did not initiate it.
...economic growth in Japan for example was much higher as a percentage than in the contemporary PRC since it was not isolated & was engaging with the outside world.
IMO modern China, is and will, increasingly reflect this sort of growth as it turns away from Mao's era and instead develops industry for international markets..
http://en.wikipedia....conomic_miracleThe period of rapid economic growth between 1955 and 1961 paved the way for the "Golden Sixties". The second decade that is generally associated with the Japanese economic miracle. In 1965, Japan's nominal GDP was estimated at just over $91 billion. Fifteen years later, the nominal GDP had soared to a record $1,065 billion by 1980
.
http://en.wikipedia....ente_GlorieusesDuring the thirty-year period, the French economy, then run in a dirigiste manner by the Gaullist government, grew at very high rates. The French standard of living, which had been ruined by both World Wars, then became one of the world's highest.
http://en.wikipedia...._Market_EconomyEconomic revival was stock standard stuff after WW2.
The problem with talking about economic growth in the context of a thread on the GLF is that is could have always been better & greater if wiser and cooler heads had prevailed. Likely famine and death need not be taken for granted everytime crops fail since central appropriation and wasting of labour complicates the situation.
Since 1979 and overturning Mao's economy the growth in China is much more remarkable than previously.
If Mao died 10 years earlier where would China be now?
10 years futher ahead vis-a-vis the West IMO.
The question would be also, in 1959-1961 how much better would things have been if there had been a little more expertise and moderation instead of leaping without looking...and chanting of slogans.
After the dire situation in early 20th century China there would be some merit in gathering real expertise to rebuilding China rather than applying a political philosphy and thinking everything else would fall into place....the idea that revolutionary spirit was not as important as expertise or knowledge.
In this way it seems that discussing the economy of China the point must be made that the GLF was modified and then halted, and much later reversed during the period leading to the present in which this growth occured.
There is no reason to assume the specific GLF period was in itself the correct path (certainly not in application), or that it nessecary or realistic (not IMO), or delivered on promises (certainly not), or somehow was the basis for all the successes that followed years later (no reason to assume so, and less and less so as time goes on).
Edited by Kenneth, 30 January 2007 - 07:07 PM.
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