What were the goals of the Great Leap Forward? What were its results?
The Great Leap Forward was launched in the late-fifties, precisely early 1958. The background was that China was one of the major socialist countries. It was on a road to become a “communist society.” But China, by the late-fifties, the economy’s still very much an agrarian society, very much of an agrarian economy, very poor. And politically, China had just one campaign called the One Hundred Flowers Campaign during which many intellectuals, liberal intellectuals spoke freely, criticized the party even. So the party led by Mao felt that they were the party being attacked by the intellectuals. Mao especially felt that the old elements in society including that of intellectuals were not quite reformed yet. Then theres another background and that is internationally. The Chinese socialist camp is being attacked or weakened by the rebellion in Hungary and, there were already signs of this socialist camp to appear to be quite weakened. Mao also became very concern about that too internation
