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The Great Leap Forward. What is it?. Radical program instituted by Mao in 1958 Targets: Industry Agriculture 700,000 collective farms became 26,000 communes 30,000+ people lived and worked together. What is it?. Backyard furnaces created homemade steel
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What is it? • Radical program instituted by Mao in 1958 • Targets: • Industry • Agriculture • 700,000 collective farms became 26,000 communes • 30,000+ people lived and worked together
What is it? • Backyard furnaces created homemade steel • Too weak to be used for quality construction • Took people away from farms—not enough food!
Goals • Reach the final stage of communism: classless society • “Hard work for a few years, happiness for a thousand”
Results • Droughts and floods limited productivity • Peasants hated the new system • 15 million died of starvation • 1960s: communes broken up and collective farms restored
Goals • Create a great proletarian class
Features of Cultural Revolution • Little Red Book • Most important source of knowledge • Permeated society (schools, homes, workplaces, etc.) • Conversation piece
Red Guard • Militant, revolutionary group • Goal: to eliminate the ‘Four Olds’ • Old Ideas • Old Customs • Old Culture • Old Habits
Red Guard • Anti-foreigner • Music • Art • Architecture • Attacked those who “went against Mao’s plan” • Intellectuals and artists • Became too intense for many