"... in the early 1950s under the First Five Year Plan, the Party leadership headed by Mao Zedong considered the conditions ripe for a Great Leap Forward in early 1958."
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Great Leap Forward Gallery
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"Mao announced a second Five Year Plan to last from 1958 to 1963. This plan was called the Great Leap Forward. The Great Leap Forward planned to develop agriculture and industry. Mao believed that both had to grow to allow the other to grow. Industry could only prosper if the work force was well fed, while the agricultural workers needed industry to produce the modern tools needed for modernization."
-The Great Leap Forward
"Chairman Mao has said, 'You young people are in the bloom of life like the sun at eight or nine in the morning.' You must set new records!"
-China: A Century of Revolution: Part II
"Mao had introduced the Great Leap Forward with the phrase 'it is possible to accomplish any task whatsoever.' By the end of 1958, it seemed as if his claim was true."
-The Great Leap Forward
"9 million people are thought to have starved to death in 1960 alone; many millions were left desperately ill as a result of a lack of food. The government had to introduce rationing. This put people on the most minimal of food and between 1959 and 1962, it is thought that 20 million people died of starvation or diseases related to starvation."
-The Great Leap Forward