The Great Leap Forward In 1958, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward to industrialize China and create a socialist paradise. However, it led to economic chaos and an unprecedented famine that caused around 45 million deaths.
Mao's Vision for China Mao aimed to break with the past by overcoming traditions, mindsets, and famines. He sought economic help from Stalin in Moscow but ended up signing a treaty of friendship that made China dependent on the USSR.
Agricultural Reforms and Collectivization Communist reforms affected half of all cultivated land benefiting poor peasants who were encouraged by the party. The Landry distributions led to class violence which prompted collective farming under pressure from Mao despite Khrushchev's denouncement of Stalinist collectivization campaigns.
'Cultural Revolution' Movement and Tragic Consequences To regain power during internal party problems, Mao initiated 'Hundred Flowers Campaign' followed by violent repression against critics. The radical methods continued with mass mobilizations for building projects leading to disastrous consequences including widespread famine killing millions before being officially acknowledged as a tragedy years later.