Mao Zedong: Difference between revisions

Li Zhisui, Mao's physician, suggested that Mao had initially seen the policy as a way of weakening those within his party who opposed him and was surprised by the extent of criticism and the fact that it began to be directed at his own leadership. It was only then that he used it as a method of identifying and subsequently persecuting those critical of his government. The Hundred Flowers movement led to the condemnation, silencing, and death of many citizens, also linked to Mao's Anti-Rightist Movement, with death tolls possibly in the millions.

===Great Leap Forward===

In January 1958, Mao Zedong launched the second [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China Five-Year Plan], known as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward Great Leap Forward], a plan intended as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives which had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_commune people's communes], and many of the peasants were ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and on the production of iron and steel. Some private food production was banned; livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.