Ca essays

Ca essays Why was the Great Leap Forward a failure and how was the Cultural Revolution concept of equality different from the U.S.s concept of equality as reflected by the self-evident truth that all people are created equal? For decades China had been either at war with or occupied Japan. Mao and the Communists moved rapidly to strengthen their rule over Chinas 550million people. The Communists claimed to have a new Mandate of Heaven. And they aimed to restore China as a powerful nation. The Great Leap Forward would soon prove to be a great leap backward for China. The Cultural Revolution of China equality would also differentiate between the United States equality concepts. In 1957, after China's first Five-Year Plan, Mao Zedong called for an increase in the speed of growth of "actual socialism" in China (as opposed to "dictatorial socialism"). To accomplish this goal, Mao began the Great Leap Forward, establishing special communes in the countryside through the usage of collective labor and mass mobilization. The Great Leap Forward was intended to increase the production of steel and to raise agricultural production to twice 1957 levels. The Great Leap turned into an utter disaster. Industries went into turmoil since peasants were producing nothing, but steel. Furthermore, the peasants, as farmers, were ill-equipped and ill-trained to produce steel, relying on such mechanisms as backyard furnaces. Meanwhile, farming implements like rakes were melted down for steel, making agricultural production impossible. This led to declines in production of everything, but steel. To make things worse, in order to avoid punishment, local authorities continually reported grossly unrealistic production numbers, which hid the problem for years and made it worse. The Chinese economy, which had just barely recovered from decades of war, was headed into disaster.The government officially discontinued the program in 196 ...