Greetings Tongzhimen,

The Great Leap Forward, led by the visionary Chairman Mao was a daring effort to propel our nation into an era of economic and social advancement. Its primary objective was to enhance productivity and accelerate industrialization aiming to transform China from an agricultural economy into a thriving industrial power. By uniting the strength of the people through the establishment of people’s communes, which aimed to pool resources, foster mutual assistance, and take advantage of economies of scale.

While a potentially necessary step towards modernization and catching up with other industrialized nations, the campaign had negative consequences. People’s communes, though well-intentioned, presented formidable challenges to rural communities. The transition disrupted established agricultural practices, leading to a decrease in agricultural production. These difficulties, expected during such a drastic societal shift, also serve as a testament to the government’s unwavering commitment to modernization and progress.

 An unexpected challenge of people’s communes is the tendency for local cadres to make decisions not aligned with local conditions or the needs of the community along with over-reporting of grain production to meet grain production targets. These exaggerated reports masked the true extent of the food crisis. As a result, food scarcity in provinces across the country worsened into a food shortage. A report by the Jinan Municipal Investigation Team on the outbreak of famine and deaths in Gaoguanzhai township states Cadres would also often hoard rations for themselves. Out of desperation people resorted to consuming substitutes like tree bark, weeds, and corn husks. Millions died of starvation and malnutrition was widespread, particularly affecting the vulnerable, children and the elderly. 

A report from the Wanxian Region Committee recounts how local cadres subjected people to inhumane and brutal measures. They established illegal jails, unauthorized courts, and labor camps. Along with torturing individuals, subjecting them to hanging, physical beatings, forcing them to kneel on scorching coals, inflicting mouth piercings, and other heinous acts. Afterward, they would burn the dead bodies to get rid of the evidence. These actions not only failed to contribute towards meeting grain production targets but also inflicted immense pain and suffering on innocent individuals. 

Counter-revolutionary Wu Xing and his crimes were reported by the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee. He established illegal labor camps and punished people with hard labor if they did not show up to work or showed dissatisfaction. He used his power as a Cadre to threaten those he disliked. While the people in the village were struggling to survive, Wu Xing and his followers had a feast for every meal. Wu Xing and his followers are not comrades, they are greedy, power-hungry rightists who showed their true nature when times became difficult.   

Though the Great Leap Forward carried noble intentions with its grand vision it is crucial not to overlook the complexity of reality. We must learn from the hardships endured during the Great Leap Forward in order to build a prosperous future for our country.

Good day, tongzhimen,

 

I now write to you on the move between towns in rural China, where land reform is well underway. While many at Yenan chose to organize in work groups to carry out this grand revolutionary process, I have been documenting this pivotal moment in our nation’s history. 

 

Although the party members sent to villages seem to have enough zeal to attempt this on their own, they have been instructed by the Communist Party to mobilize the masses to bring about land reform. If it was simply an outwardly-enforced activity, it would not be revolutionary; as Mao always insists, the peasants must be empowered and take down their oppressors by force if fanshen is to truly be achieved. To do this, the peasants must first be assisted by the work teams in understanding their situation and how they must change it. Although peasants have been taken advantage of by landlords and others throughout all of our history, in fact, because of this, they have not had the opportunity of education to learn of the true class dichotomy that they have been living under. Demoralized and brainwashed by the Confucian system to accept this fate, rural peasants are in need of instruction and encouragement from the party; this is the importance of the mass line. Such a radical reordering of society and destruction of the dated hierarchy is also essential in transforming the role of women, as land reform can take down her oppressors while giving her land and thus, agency.

 

However, such an ambitious endeavor as land reform comes with its mistakes. Mao has, many times, brought up his concerns regarding the lapse of understanding between excited young communists and rural peasants, and I have seen issues arise from this in multiple towns. Many on the work teams hail from cities and are commonly educated, in the arts, wealthy, or all three. Their knowledge of the rural peasants’ plight is not based on real experience, but idealized novels from likewise ignorant urban elites such as Zhou Libo. Though their lack of knowledge is through no fault of their own, many enthusiastic party members go into towns with preconceived notions and no nuance. Some towns have a hard time trusting the work teams simply for this lack of understanding and mistrust of outsiders. One woman recounted to me a situation in which 

 

There too are the issues of greed and women’s rights. One peasant woman recounted her tale to me, explaining that all in her village were quite poor already and that the landlord did not bother her or her family. However, when other peasants learned that ‘fruits of struggle’ would be provided to them, they fabricated bitterness against the landlord, who was beaten to death on encouragement of the work team. They tormented his wife as well, which they deemed appropriate as she had remarried after being widowed. The woman speaking of experience said that she and other women in the village who tried speaking bitterness about their abusive husbands were silenced, and received no fruits of struggle as they had not participated in the beatings. In another village, I found that men in the work team had not only pocketed the landlord’s money and jewelry for themselves, but had also been sexually abusing young peasant women. In these towns, nothing was truly achieved for women, and the processes were not truly revolutionary.

 

Furthermore, I have some concerns about class distinctions. Although the oppression of the peasantry has been endemic in China, prosperity does not always result from exploitation. My father’s ancestors were poor peasants until he began selling farming equipment, not only helping others who didn’t have it but making profit without exploitation. I am worried that, as he was recently able to purchase more land, he will be lumped in with the rich peasants and attacked. Though I have seen more moderate land reform in the North, our village is in the South.

Dear Reader, I know it has been a few years since my last dispatch. So much has changed since I last gave my report on Mao Zedong’s Land Reform movement. I have decided to make my way back into the countryside from Beijing to give you, the reader, a first-hand account of the rumblings of food shortages happening here. I had heard in a letter correspondence with the Jinan Municipal Investigation Team that a famine had occurred in Gaoguanzhai, in West Shandong Province. [Zhou Xun, 9] This was not the first time I had heard an inkling of such events occurring however it made me curious to head for the countryside.

I arrived in the countryside villages looking for people who might be able to offer me some sort of clue. I spoke to a man by the name of Dr. Li Zhisui, formerly Chairman Mao’s physician [China A Century of Revolution – The Mao Years 39:59] He agreed to speak with me after a little bit of pressure. He told me that Mao had gone to his hometown of Zhoushan to look at what had gone wrong. Zhisui said, “I think that when he was in Zhaoshan, he found that there really were problems in the Great Leap Forward” [China A Century of Revolution – The Mao Years 50:04] It was clear that Chairman Mao and his party were aware of the situation that was unfolding. 

I made my way back to Beijing following my short trip. Once in Beijing, I accessed some reports that had been published about 4 years ago. I located a document coming from the General Office of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Province by province, village by village, the reports became more and more shocking. One from Guangdong in the south stated, “According to information from fifty-five counties, the famine in the spring caused 963,231 people to go without food, and seven people have died of starvation. There are also sixty-nine people suffering from edema. In these areas, 547 families have lost their homes and been forced to move elsewhere. Twenty-seven people from among them ran away, ten families sold their children, and sixty-six people became beggars” [Zhou Xun, Document 2, Page 12]. It is becoming clearer to me that the famine is causing more than just death, but serious struggle in terms of quality of life.   

Though it is becoming ever clearer that the famine has caused immense deaths across the country, I want to bring to your attention the issues regarding women during these terrible times. It seems to be that the party is expecting women to fill two roles at once. They want them to work and care for their kids [Zhou Xun, Document 23, Page 53]. This double expectation is highly problematic during the famine. It was clear in a document I was able to read that women were not receiving any of the proper resources they needed to maintain this double expectation. Local cadres used their power to humiliate working women. Following many instances of women being pressured into working with their tops off as was to the enjoyment of local cadres, a few women shared their thoughts in the document. “Female workers such as Du Laojiu and Zhouchun from Number 3 regiment said, “Since the day we came out of mothers’ wombs, we had never felt so humiliated [What happened was more humiliating than being caught having an affair.] According to our investigations, more than thirty women became and vomited as a result of working topless” [Zhou Xun, Document 11, Page 42]. This kind of humiliation and abuse of power is symbolic of the ignorance that caused the Great Leap to be such a failure. 

I can only wonder who will claim responsibility for the devastating past few years. I worry that the Chairman will need to transform the party once again to bring China back to full-strength but I believe in his leadership capabilities. I hope that the Chairman can harness the power of the many people who still believe in him.

Dear Readers,

Chaos has erupted, blood has spilled, and China’s predicament is perilous. Since my last dispatch reporting on Land Reform, the Communist Party has successfully rooted out dissenters and intellectuals through the anti-rightest campaign. I am writing to you with a pen name with the hope of not being caught for the ‘rightest’ leanings. Chairman Mao jumpstarted the largest, most disastrous campaign yet, The Great Leap Forward, to fully realize the Party’s ambitions to industrialize and create a communist utopia within China. The Chairman’s efforts have failed miserably, resulting in one of the largest famines in history, and with more deaths than the combined total in the war against Japan and the Guomindang.

Chairman Mao and the high leadership have directed the Party to get back on the horse. Aggressive policies have revolutionized the countryside by establishing work communes, and by devoting resources towards large industrial projects to grow China’s economy larger than Britain’s in less than fifteen years. Consequently, a rat race has ensued throughout the countryside attempting to accomplish everything all at once. Zhang Langlang said “Each commune promised a higher amount until the last school gave their highest figure. Then we dug a hole the size of a swimming pool and put all the fertilizer and seeds in it.” Since the Party squashed decent through the anti-rightest campaign no one has spoken out against these farcical farming practices that have robbed so many of their food. In a speech to high-level party members, the great Peng Duhai, one of the great generals of our revolution, was removed from power for suggesting the Party was moving too quickly. Now, farmers have stopped working their fields building backyard furnaces to forge homemade steel. Subsequently, rural people have given up essential and scarce consumer products that they needed to survive including their pots and pans, tools, and bedframes. Li Maoxiu told me in an interview that “their steel-making methods were primitive, and that people were unhappy and didn’t dare say anything against the party. The result was that everything made of iron and steel was taken from every family and was made useless.”  The party has continued to pressure communes for higher production numbers from the fields and from new industrial projects. Through unrealistic goals, they cultivated a culture of increased competition, and they stripped workers of the vital tools necessary to accomplish the collective task ahead. It was under this backdrop, where dissent was crushed, where unrealistic agriculture and industrial practices were implemented, and where a culture of violence in the countryside that festered finally exploded.

Irrational agriculture practices have led our great China into one of the worst manmade famines in history. Lacking the necessary tools and implementing close planting has completely ruined the harvest over the past few years. Rural folk now find themselves searching for food substitutes and wandering throughout the countryside, desperate to find sustenance for survival. One report from Jingian indicates that some have wandered ten miles away from their villages in search of food. Additionally, Party officials are suspicious that food is being concealed by the peasants during this despot time. One notable example is the report of Wu Xing who led a raid of peasant homes in his quest to find hidden grain and his establishment of extrajudicial prisons that tortured the suspected farmers. We should not blame Wu or others who have raided and pillaged, we should blame the high leadership for cultivating a culture where discussion is silenced. We must ask ourselves how can the peasants be hiding food when they are eating dirt?

Women and children have been brutally affected by the Great Leap. Malnourished women have stopped menstruating, producing breastmilk for their children, and have been exploited sexually to keep morale high. A report from Wugang County explains women were forced to take their tops off in the fields to boost male morale among agricultural workers. Du Laojiu and Zhao Laochun felt that “what happened was more humiliating than having an affair.” China’s future, our children, are now burdened with rickets, a developmental disorder of the bones. How can peasants expect future prosperity when children cannot walk straight, and women can no longer have babies? Additionally, they are suffering the fate of being broken up from their families as they have watched their parents die or they have been sold off into an uncertain future. Orphaned children can be found digging roots and eating dirt. Wang Jiarong was unable to feed the children in her orphanage, and after they left to “rummage for food,” she physically beat the children as a form of punishment. This Great Leap has certainly landed China in a pit of misery and death and what remains to be answered is how the Party will remain credible moving forward in the face of this misery.

It becomes clear as we delve more into this terrible time in China’s history that a number of things have come together to cause this great catastrophe. Why have some areas been plagued with so much bloodshed, death, and misery my editor asked me to respond to this, asking, why and what went wrong? 

The Great Leap Forward’s errors were caused by irrational ideology, bad policy decisions, and unavoidable catastrophes.

The philosophy of collectivization, in which peasants were grouped into communes and extensive farming was practiced, was at the heart of the Great Leap Forward. Theoretically, this would result in a surplus of goods and higher agricultural output. The reality of this utopian approach, however, quickly became a breakdown in the social structure of rural communities resulting from this, in addition to food shortages.

A leadership system that suppressed dissent and discouraged critical thinking made the problem worse. It was challenging to evaluate and fix the mistakes under Chairman Mao’s administration because officials who dared to voice their opposition to the programs were frequently branded as enemies of the state.

The issues were significantly made worse by the tense political climate of the day. Local officials overstated production numbers to their superiors in an effort to demonstrate their allegiance to the Communist Party. Making judgments based on facts was impossible due to the misleading information at all levels of government. Because of this, the central leadership frequently operated in the dark and was ignorant of the grim situation on the ground.

Adding to the calamity we­re natural disasters, such as droughts and floods. These­ events further straine­d China’s already fragile food production, exace­rbating the dire situation. The subse­quent Great Famine inflicte­d immense suffering on millions of pe­ople, particularly in the countryside whe­re its impact was most devastating.

The suffe­ring experience­d by many people was worsene­d due to certain policies, like­ the backyard steel furnace­ campaign. This initiative diverted labor away from agriculture­ and towards producing low-quality steel. Unfortunately, this misguide­d focus resulted in a deple­tion of the workforce nee­ded for farming, ultimately contributing to the crisis at hand.  

This e­ra has been marred by violence and de­ath, which can be traced back to the ruthle­ss methods employed in e­nforcing the policies. Local officials, burdene­d with meeting unattainable production goals, re­sorted to seizing grains and eve­n food from households, plunging countless individuals into misery. Tragically, these actions sometimes sparke­d violent clashes betwe­en the state and de­sperate citizens.

 

As always, stay safe…

Zeng Yongzheng

From the countryside, where the majority of peasants live, I pen down this report with a heavy heart and a sense of responsibility. The People’s Republic of China, under the visionary leadership of the Communist Party and Chairman Mao, embarked on the ambitious journey of the Great Leap Forward in 1958. This initiative was conceived with the noblest of intentions – to propel our nation into an era of rapid industrialization and agricultural modernization. However, as 1962 dawns, it is evident that the path we charted has been fraught with challenges.

Central to the Great Leap Forward was the transformation of our agricultural sector. The establishment of the People’s Communes aimed to consolidate smaller farms into collective units, thereby harnessing the power of communal labor. Traditional farming practices, honed over centuries, were abruptly replaced with new methods. The push for deep plowing and close planting, though theoretically sound, did not yield the expected results on the ground. Local cadres, eager to demonstrate their commitment to the Party’s vision, often set and reported inflated grain production targets. This over-reporting, while showcasing short-term success, had long-term implications. The state, believing in these inflated figures, procured grain based on them. This left the actual grain production, which was much lower, insufficient to feed the local populace, leading to food shortages.

The Four Pests Campaign, an integral part of the Great Leap Forward, sought to improve hygiene and reduce disease by eliminating sparrows, rats, flies, and mosquitoes. However, the large-scale extermination of sparrows led to an unforeseen ecological imbalance. With their natural predator gone, locust populations surged, leading to widespread crop devastation.

The root of the violence and suffering can be traced back to a combination of overzealous policies, unrealistic targets, and a lack of understanding of agricultural practices. The commune system, which was introduced to consolidate land and labor, ended up disrupting traditional farming methods. Farmers were forced to implement deep plowing and close planting, techniques that were believed to increase yields but instead led to reduced production.

The pressure to meet grain quotas led local officials to over-report their yields. This over-reporting had catastrophic consequences. The central government, believing that grain production was high, collected more grain than was actually produced. This left little for the local population, leading to widespread famine.

The consequences of these policies have been devastating. Reports of malnutrition, starvation, and death are rampant. In some regions, the desperation has led to unthinkable acts of violence and even cannibalism. The exact number of deaths remains uncertain, but it is believed to be in the tens of millions.

The atmosphere in the countryside is tense. There are reports of violent clashes between desperate villagers and local officials. The mistrust and fear between the people and the local authorities have grown, with many believing that the officials are hoarding grain for themselves.

Dear Comrades,

I report to you, that Mao and the CCP have officially ditched their Great Leap Forward program. It is about time! Violence, death, destruction, famine etc. have all become the norm. Many of these catastrophes have clouded peoples memories to even why the program was initiated, and what it intended to do. For a refresher, It was Mao’s attempt to turn our country into an industrialized nation and away from an agrarian society. Further we had to owe the Soviet Union a large amount of grain, as a payback unit (debt), so we were tasked with producing an immense and unrealistic amount. So, what went wrong??

We thought we knew better than science. We were so desperate to increase grain production, and generally produce more, that we resorted to arrogantly thinking we can’t go wrong. Military leader, Peng Dehaui commented on this disaster in his paper: “Critique of the Great Leap Forward”. He wrote: “Because they were raised at every level, some quotas, which could only be met after…dozen years, became targets to be fulfilled in one year or even a few months. By so doing, we divorced ourselves from reality and lost the support of the masses.” These desperate measures, were specifically planting crops too close to each other, and digging 6 feet plus into the ground which essentially destroyed the crops; and was a foolish attempt by us ignoring what we have known about the basic laws of science and nature. Specifically, Mao thought this concept of planting crops very close to one another and digging deep in the soil, was the answer!  He instructed us that this concept, called (deep ploughing ) will kill off the insects, and help promote growth of crops faster. He said: Deep ploughing helps weeding. Digging up roots in turn helps elimane insects…once we can go down to the grass roots, we can increase production.” Instead, as we have seen play out, the crops needed room to grow, and digging too far down destroyed all the soil.

If things couldn’t get worse, we also interfered with nature. Mao banked on eliminating the four pests, which were rats, sparrows, flies, and mosquitos. He wrote: “The less we have of these four pests, the better for us; because these four pests harm the people and directly affect the health of the people.” We now have figured out that killing all the sparrows, enabled all the locusts to directly eat our crops. We have confirmed that our attempt to disrupt nature, directly caused this great famine.

As a result, tens of millions of people became starved, overworked, and physically ill. Because of these policies, crops could not grow properly and the forced quotas called for desperate measures taken by the people; which in turn caused chaos. It was this mass famine that created mass suffering, which created mass desperation, which then created mass violence, which coupled with everything else, created mass death. Unrealistic forced quotas for grain and crop production, the failure of the deep ploughing method, and arrogantly disrupting the flow of nature, and negligently ignoring basic laws of economics and science, allowed this disaster to happen.

Hello Tongzhimen,

The past few years have been far from paradise for our beloved country. Our valiant effort to industrialize China and begin a future of prosperity has included many challenges, which will of course pay off through the wise guidance of Chairman Mao and the Communist Party, but I am worried about the lasting effects of the struggles we have all become so familiar with. It seems as though the general consensus among the Chinese people is that common problems like famine and flooding are only being experienced by one’s own village, but, in the continued spirit of spreading truth, I am here to tell you all that these issues are much more pervasive, and devastating, than one may think. 

One cannot deny that the mass mobilization of peasants in the countryside was a genius idea of Mao’s, for China would be able to feed all of its people while financing industrial growth and paying off our debts to the Soviet Union. However, the actual mobilization that was carried out has proven to be a little less than perfect. It makes sense that Mao is calling for an increase in China’s population as we simply do not have enough people to sustain both our industrialized and agricultural economies; even with women entering the workforce and going out into the fields, there is not enough people to effectively sustain both our backyard steel furnaces and our farms. Especially with the relocations of farmers to build dams and irrigation canals, there are even fewer hands cultivating the fields. If we had more loyal comrades willing to work hard to produce wheat and steel, maybe we would be better off. We would also be able to finish the many architectural projects that now lay abandoned or are nowhere near the quality they should be. Of course there are more obstacles though, like the natural disasters and shifty cadres who have been taking our hard-earned resources for themselves and lying to the Party about what we’ve produced, as if our best effort isn’t already enough.

Yes, that’s right, you heard me, the local cadres have been lying about our crop production to the Party, completely abusing the trust that has been put in them, which is why so much of our grain is being taken away from us. The famines are not isolated incidents only felt by individual villages, it is a widespread problem that is debilitating our country. I have traveled through multiple villages in the countryside, coming across true horrors in the hopes of discovering the truth about our country’s plight. The lack of food has forced people to turn to food substitutes like leaves, weeds, and even mud; those who are able to sustain themselves off of these end up with destroyed intestines anyway and are still malnourished. During my time in the Gaoguanzhai township, I passed by countless people dragging their swollen bodies to the fields to try and continue working as well as exhausted, extremely skinny peasants who collapsed in front of their homes, probably on the way to work to scrounge up more work points for food. It would be a disservice to not also mention the corpses just left on the sides of roads as well, right where their bodies finally gave out. Peasants do not even have the strength left to bury their own dead! Some bodies do disappear but no new graves are added, I have heard terrible rumors of people having to make use of these bodies for the nourishment of their crops and, sometimes, even themselves. 

Birth rates drop lower and lower as the number of deaths in the countryside rises. Women are barely able to get pregnant, let alone carry the pregnancy to term or take care of their child once it is born. The orphanages are absolutely bursting with small, malnourished children with bowed knees and sallow skin. The hospitals in Guangyuan are completely run down, with patients being left alone to suffer amongst each other while doctors steal food and medicine to keep their own families alive. I have no doubt that Chairman Mao and the Party will be able to save our country, but my heart aches for the people who will die before they can be helped as well as the children and families forever traumatized by the losses they have endured already. These damages may be irrevocable and I’m not sure if the Party understands the extent to which its people are suffering, due to the false reports by the cadres. Even the land seems permanently changed, what with our forests being cleared to fuel the steel furnaces and some soil being rendered infertile by the unlucky floods sweeping China.

I implore all of you to hang on as long as you can, the new China will need strong people to lead it into prosperity. Just as the Long March proved to us, suffering can turn into immense success and simply brings out our perseverance. Put your faith in Chairman Mao, whose guidance will bring us out of this slump. Surely the Cause we revolted for, that countless people have died for, is not the problem. We have built our new society on the foundation of Mao Zedong Thought, so it must be that the problems wracking China have been caused by what we built and not our socialist basis… right?