Mao's Economic Experiments
How the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution shaped — and devastated — China's economy before reform.
Revolution and Reconstruction
When the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, China was one of the poorest countries on earth. Per capita income was roughly comparable to medieval England. Life expectancy was 36 years. Literacy was below 20%. The new government initially achieved real gains: land reform redistributed holdings to 300 million peasants, inflation was tamed after years of hyperinflation under the Nationalists, and the First Five-Year Plan (1953-1957) achieved respectable industrial growth by following the Soviet model of centralized planning and heavy industry investment.
But Mao grew impatient with gradual progress and suspicious of Soviet influence. He believed China could leapfrog decades of development through revolutionary mass mobilization, bypassing the conventional stages of economic growth that both capitalist and Soviet models assumed were necessary.
