In China, Mao Zedong started Great Leap Forward, an economic and social plan used from 1958 to 1960 which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform mainland China from a primarily agrarian economy dominated by peasant farmers into a modern, industrialized communist society.
Following is 18 min video about process and result of Great Leap Forward. It's very interesing. ENJOY~ :)
3 comments:
It is really interesting to hear about how it has affected peasant famers due to the Great LEap Forward. When I was watching this video, I kept comparing the situation to what happedn in Korea. Korea is not a socialist country, but something simlar has happened in the early 1970s. President Park, Junghee has started a movement called New Community Movement, and this was initially done to motivate famers to improve the regional comunity. This was soly done by mental reform and motivation by people and it has sucessfully resulted reform of the economy as it helped the underdevelped agriculture and over come poverty in the rural area. The positive outcome of the movement further influenced other industries. Unlike the China's Great Leap Forward, there wasn't negative consiquences resulted in Korea's movment, but I do think that they are somewhat similar in a way since they both helped the agriculture with its production.
Rukawa, good job! I like the video you brought to our forum a lot. "The corn will grow higher the more you desire" :). The video brings me a few thoughts.
- Firstly, Great leaders are ones that can motivate people, make them enthusiastic and believe in a common goal. True! The whole China believed in Mao Zedong. It might be hard for us now in a capitalist, market-driven environment to understand how all people can work hard, not for profit or individual gains, but just for a belief.
- Secondly, censorship will almost always involve, in one form or another. The teacher started to question the thickness of the grain field was put into jail and accused for going against the Party. Later on, public found out that everything was Mao Zedong's plan to false people and persuade them that miracle can happen. No matter how much we criticize the past, I can still see censorship in today's world as well.
Again, good job Rukawa :)
This video raises a lesson of candidness. I feel that part of the problem was that people were too afraid to speak up against Mao or to reveal the problems of "The Great Leap Forward" policy. The elevation of any leader to Godlike status is dangerous as it could potentially blind people into believing everything the leader says. I think success of a society also depends largely on the people's education development, whereby the people are critical enough to evaluate the polities options presented by the leaders. However, the timidity of the people might have been the result of Mao's iron-fist leadership style. In fact, Mao did urge people to openly criticize the Party in his document "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People", just to changed his mind later and purged all those who actually spoke up.
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