AP World History: Modern

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain why Mao Zedong launched the **Great Leap Forward** in **1958**
- Identify how a **command economy** operated in Maoist China
- Understand how **people's communes**, **backyard furnaces**, and grain quotas increased state economic control
- Trace the main causes of the Great Leap Forward famine from **1959 to 1962**
- Compare the Great Leap Forward with Soviet-style central planning
- Use this topic in AP World History causation, comparison, and continuity/change answers

## AP World History: Modern Syllabus

For the AP World History: Modern, you are expected to understand communist economic control in Maoist China, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that the **Great Leap Forward** was launched in **1958** under **Mao Zedong**
- Identify the Great Leap Forward as an example of a **command economy** and state-led development in communist China
- Explain how **people's communes** increased state control over land, labor, and daily life
- Understand the purpose and failure of **backyard furnaces** as a rapid industrialization policy
- Analyze how inflated harvest reports and **state grain procurement** contributed to famine
- Distinguish the Great Leap Forward from the **Cultural Revolution**
- Compare Maoist economic policy with Soviet **Five-Year Plans**
- Recognise that later recovery involved more pragmatic leadership, including **Liu Shaoqi** and **Deng Xiaoping**

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. Why did Mao launch the Great Leap Forward in 1958?
2. What was a **people's commune**, and how did it increase state control?
3. How did false harvest reports help produce famine in China?
4. In what ways was the Great Leap Forward similar to, and different from, Soviet Five-Year Plans?
5. Why is it inaccurate to blame the famine on weather alone?

## Introduction

The **Great Leap Forward** is one of the clearest AP World examples of how the spread of communism after 1900 produced strong state control over the economy. In **Cold War** context, the **People's Republic of China (PRC)** tried to modernize quickly without following a capitalist path. Mao believed that central planning, collectivized agriculture, and revolutionary enthusiasm could turn China from a largely rural society into a socialist industrial power.

For the exam, this topic matters because it connects several AP themes at once: **GOV** through state power, **ECN** through command economics, and **SIO** through the impact on ordinary people. It is also ideal for causation questions because the Great Leap Forward shows a clear chain from policy decisions to disaster.

> **Key Term: Great Leap Forward**
> A Maoist campaign launched in **1958** to rapidly industrialize and collectivize China through communes, mass mobilization, and state planning.

### Why Mao launched the Great Leap Forward

To understand the policy, start with the situation in China after **1949**. Mao and the Chinese Communist Party had won the civil war and established the PRC. Early reforms, especially land reform and the first Soviet-inspired **Five-Year Plan** from **1953 to 1958**, gave the regime confidence. Industry grew, and the communist state appeared strong enough to attempt something even more ambitious.

Mao wanted more than steady development. He wanted a rapid leap into socialism. That meant two linked goals:

- faster **industrialization**
- tighter **collectivization** of agriculture

Mao believed China did not need to wait for the slow growth path followed by Western industrial states. He thought ideological commitment could replace some of the need for capital, machinery, and technical expertise. This is a key point students often miss. The Great Leap Forward was not just an economic plan. It was also a political statement that revolutionary will could overcome material limits.

> **Key Term: command economy**
> An economic system in which the state directs production, sets targets, controls labor, and manages distribution rather than leaving decisions to markets.

This helps explain why Mao was drawn to such extreme measures. In a command economy, state leaders can order resources to move quickly. That creates the possibility of rapid transformation. But it also creates danger. If leaders make bad decisions, the whole economy follows them.

The Cold War mattered too. Communist China wanted to prove that a socialist state could modernize successfully. At first Mao borrowed from Soviet models, but China was not simply copying the USSR. Mao put much greater emphasis on the revolutionary energy of peasants, not just on urban workers and experts.

> **Test Tip:** If an SAQ or LEQ asks why the Great Leap Forward began, do not stop at “Mao wanted industrialization.” Add the ideological point: Mao believed mass mobilization and socialism could accelerate development beyond normal economic limits.

### How economic control worked: communes, quotas, and mass mobilization

The Great Leap Forward increased state control by pushing economic decision-making downward in appearance but upward in reality. Local areas were told to organize huge collective units, but all major goals still came from the party-state.

> **Key Term: people's communes**
> Large rural collective units created during the Great Leap Forward that pooled land, labor, and administration while sharply reducing private household control.

Communes were much larger than earlier collective farms. They often included thousands of households. Their purpose was not only to organize farming. They were meant to reorganize almost all of rural life:

- agriculture
- local industry
- education
- food distribution
- political supervision

This mattered because it reduced family autonomy. Private plots were cut back or absorbed. Communal kitchens replaced some household cooking. Labor could be reassigned by officials to whatever project the state wanted most.

That labor reassignment is central to understanding the failure. Under commune organization, peasants were not simply told to farm more efficiently. Many were diverted into giant irrigation works, infrastructure schemes, and steel production. That meant fewer people were doing careful agricultural work at the right time.

One famous policy was the **backyard furnace** campaign.

> **Key Term: backyard furnaces**
> Small local steel-making operations promoted during the Great Leap Forward to raise industrial output quickly, though much of the metal produced was poor quality.

The logic sounded simple: if every village made steel, national output would soar. In practice, peasants melted tools, scrap, and household metal in small furnaces that often produced useless material. The campaign wasted fuel, ruined tools, and pulled labor away from farming.

At the same time, officials faced intense pressure to show success. In an authoritarian system, local cadres had strong reasons to exaggerate production rather than report failure honestly. If a commune claimed huge harvests, higher authorities treated those figures as real.

That led directly to the grain crisis.

> **Key Term: state grain procurement**
> The collection or requisitioning of grain by the government according to official targets, often leaving producers with too little for local use.

Because harvests were overstated, the state set grain procurement quotas too high. Grain was taken from the countryside to feed cities, support the state, and maintain the appearance of success. Villages then had far less food than the official numbers suggested they should.

The cause-and-effect chain is one of the most important in this topic:

command economy -> communes -> labor diversion and poor incentives -> inflated reports -> excessive grain procurement -> food shortages and famine

Some other bad policies made things worse. Communal dining halls sometimes encouraged waste early on because shortages were hidden. Unscientific farming methods hurt yields. The **Four Pests Campaign**, especially the killing of sparrows, disrupted ecological balances and could worsen insect damage to crops.

Students often make the mistake of treating these as separate facts. On the exam, show how they connected. The problem was not one isolated mistake. It was a whole system where political pressure, coercion, and unrealistic targets overruled local reality.

### Why the Great Leap Forward became a disaster

The Great Leap Forward is remembered mainly for the famine of **1959 to 1962**, one of the deadliest in modern history. Historians vary on exact numbers, but **tens of millions** died.

Why did this happen? The strongest AP answer is multi-causal.

First, **collectivization** weakened incentives and disrupted ordinary farming routines. When work was organized through massive communes, household responsibility for output became less direct.

Second, labor was pulled away from agriculture. Fields need timing, skill, and steady attention. Large numbers of peasants were instead sent into non-farming work, including steelmaking and public works.

Third, local officials **inflated production figures**. This is vital. In a command system, higher officials depend on local reports. If those reports are false, policy is built on fantasy.

Fourth, the government kept up **grain requisitioning** based on those false numbers. So even when harvests were poor, grain continued to be taken as though harvests were abundant.

Fifth, coercion made correction difficult. Peasants could not easily resist, and local officials were often afraid to admit bad news.

Sixth, there were environmental problems in some places, including bad weather. But AP students should be careful here: weather may have worsened the crisis, but it does not explain the scale of the famine by itself.

> **Test Tip:** If a multiple-choice option says the famine was caused mainly by bad weather, be cautious. Stronger answers usually emphasise policy failure, forced collectivization, false reporting, and grain procurement.

A major political moment came at the **Lushan Conference** in **1959**, when **Peng Dehuai** criticized the Leap. Instead of treating the criticism as useful warning, Mao attacked Peng. That mattered because it discouraged open debate and delayed policy correction.

By **1960**, the crisis was too severe to hide. Soviet advisers were also withdrawing during the **Sino-Soviet split**, which left China with less outside support. Mao stepped back somewhat from day-to-day control, and more pragmatic figures gained influence.

Recovery began in **1961–1962**. Procurement was reduced in some places. Private plots and local markets were partly restored. Leaders such as **Liu Shaoqi** and **Deng Xiaoping** played major roles in stabilizing the economy.

This recovery is important for AP comparison. It shows that even within one-party communist rule, economic methods could shift. China did not abandon communism, but it partially retreated from the most radical forms of Maoist control.

### Comparison and historical significance

For AP World, comparison is often where top answers separate themselves.

A useful comparison is between the Great Leap Forward and **Stalin's Five-Year Plans**.

Similarities:

- both relied on **state-directed planning**
- both aimed at rapid industrialization
- both involved **collectivization**
- both used coercion
- both caused severe human suffering and famine

Differences:

- Stalin focused more on heavy industry through centralized state bureaucracy
- Mao relied more on **peasant mass mobilization**
- Mao's commune system tried to transform daily rural life more completely
- backyard furnaces reflected Mao's belief that revolutionary enthusiasm could substitute for expertise

This difference matters because it shows that communist states were not identical. The spread of communism after 1900 produced several related but distinct models.

The Great Leap Forward is also significant because it reveals the risks of **authoritarian modernization**. The state had the power to move labor, seize grain, and enforce quotas on a huge scale. That same power, when guided by ideology rather than accurate feedback, produced catastrophe on a huge scale.

Another important comparison is with **Deng Xiaoping's reforms** after **1978**. Deng kept one-party communist political control but allowed greater market incentives, family farming responsibility, and special economic zones. That contrast helps explain why China's later growth path was very different from Mao's Great Leap.

For AP essays, this topic works especially well in prompts about:

- communist economic systems
- state-building after 1900
- causes of famine
- continuity and change in China
- comparison of communist states
  > **Key Term: Maoism**
  > The form of communism associated with Mao Zedong, marked by peasant mobilization, revolutionary activism, and strong political control over economic life.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- The **Great Leap Forward** began in **1958** under **Mao Zedong**
- It aimed to rapidly industrialize China and deepen socialism through state control
- The policy is a major AP example of a **command economy**
- **People's communes** pooled land, labor, and rural administration on a massive scale
- **Backyard furnaces** were meant to raise steel output but often wasted labor and resources
- Labor diversion away from farming reduced agricultural effectiveness
- Local officials often exaggerated harvest figures under political pressure
- **State grain procurement** took too much food from the countryside
- The famine of **1959–1962** killed **tens of millions**
- Policy failure, coercion, inflated reporting, and requisitioning were more important causes than weather alone
- The Great Leap Forward was similar to Soviet planning but relied more heavily on peasant mass mobilization
- Recovery after **1961** involved more pragmatic leaders such as **Liu Shaoqi** and **Deng Xiaoping**

## Key Terms and Concepts

- Great Leap Forward
- command economy
- people's communes
- backyard furnaces
- state grain procurement
- Maoism


Spread of Communism After 1900 - Great Leap Forward and economic control