Great Leap Forward 

 

"The failure of the Great Leap Forward on bureaucratic elements who they felt had been

overzealous in implementing its policies. Another faction in the party took the failure of the

Great Leap Forward as proof that China must rely more on expertise and material incentives

in developing the economy. It was against the latter faction that Mao Zedong launched his

Cultural Revolution in early 1966" (Britannica.com).

Indeed, the failure of the Great Leap Forward brought into overzealous actions by Mao 

Zedong caused the death of approximately 20 million people from hunger in China between

1958 and 1962. Short-sightedness on the leaders' part and the lacked of help from the 

soviet: the sudden pull out of aids from Russian and many other factors contributed to the 

failure of converting China from an agricultural-based nation into an industrialized nation. 

The aim is to achieve the status of being industrialized at an incredible short period of time

in an effort to overtake the developed nations. Hence, there was an attempt to bypass the

normal process of gradual industrialization via gradual purchase of heavy machineries and 

instead depends solely on manpower to attaining its goal.