Key Idea
Mao's economic plan called for a collective economy, a system in which the government made all economic decisions. Under this system political leaders identify the countries economic needs and determine how to fulfill them. As always economic reforms start with agriculture. So Mao created large government owned Collective Farms.
Mao's economic plan called for a collective economy, a system in which the government made all economic decisions. Under this system political leaders identify the countries economic needs and determine how to fulfill them. As always economic reforms start with agriculture. So Mao created large government owned Collective Farms.
Collectivization of Agriculture
Life in a CommuneThe Chinese Revolution led to the formation of large collective farms or communes. The Communists took land from the Chinese nobility and wealthy landowners and "redistributed" it to the poor.
Basically communes are large government owned farms with a small government run villages at the center. Peasants worked the land together, ate in communal dining rooms, slept in communal dormitories, raised their children in communal nurseries and communal schools. All services were provided by and controlled by the government. |
Failure of CollectivizationWhile propaganda like the images above depicted the collectivization of agriculture into large state farms positively, In actuality it was a disaster.
All agricultural surplus produced by farmers was taken by the state. This caused a lack of incentive amongst farmers. Why should they work harder to grow more food if the government would simply take it and they would not profit from their labor? As a result, farmers produced less on collective farms. This decline in agricultural production led to famine. Around 20 million Chinese peasants died as a result of the collectivization of farms. The Great Leap Forward also had a role in these deaths. Peasants were distracted by steel production and did not produce enough food. |
THE FOUR PESTS CAMPAIGN
Instead of changing his agricultural policies, Mao blamed "the Four Pests" for the bad harvests and famines. The most serious offender of the four pests, according to Mao, were the sparrows, whom he claimed were eating the rice and other grains. To fix this problem, Mao ordered the Chinese population to kill as many sparrows as possible.
Unfortunatley, Mao did not consult any environmental experts or scientists when making this decision. The problem is that sparrows do not eat grain, they eat bugs. Bugs eat grain. So as the Chinese population killed more and more sparrows, the bug populations exploded. This larger bug population ate more and more grain, decreasing China's agricultural productivity and contributing to the deaths of around 10 million more Chinese. |