The state launched the Four Pests Campaign as an early Great Leap Forward mass-mobilization drive, targeting rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows; the anti-sparrow component contributed to ecological disruption in later crop seasons.
An experimental commune at Chayashan (Henan) helped pioneer the commune model (including abolition of private plots and communal dining), which became a template for nationwide expansion later in 1958.
At the CCP’s Eighth Party Congress (second session), the leadership announced the general line and the Great Leap Forward approach, signaling a major push for rapid socialist transformation through mass mobilization.
Party leaders adopted a resolution to establish people’s communes across rural China, accelerating collectivization and reorganizing production and local governance into very large units.
With ambitious steel targets, local cadres mobilized households and villages to run backyard furnaces, diverting labor and melting tools and metal goods—often producing low-quality output while disrupting agriculture.
By late 1958, commune formation was pushed at speed; in many areas, households were organized into large communes and communal kitchens, with incentives and reporting structures that encouraged inflated output claims.
At the Lushan Conference, Peng Dehuai criticized problems such as exaggerated reporting and commune practices; the confrontation became a pivotal political turning point in how criticism of the Great Leap was treated.
Peng Dehuai sent Mao a private letter warning about “winds of exaggeration” and losses under the Great Leap Forward, which Mao and allies treated as an attack on the political line.
After Lushan, the leadership initiated an Anti-Right Deviation Struggle that punished those seen as insufficiently supportive of Great Leap policies, further narrowing space for policy correction during worsening food shortages.
By early 1960, central leaders became aware that the celebrated Henan model area around Xinyang was experiencing extreme famine and coercive enforcement, prompting investigation and intervention in the region.
Amid recognition of ecological harm, Mao ordered an end to the anti-sparrow campaign (sparrows were replaced by bedbugs in the pest list), acknowledging policy error within the broader Four Pests effort.
The USSR withdrew Soviet specialists and curtailed assistance in 1960, compounding industrial and planning difficulties as China confronted the Great Leap’s economic disarray and growing food crisis.
The CCP’s 9th Plenum of the 8th Central Committee adopted the principle of “adjustment, consolidation, filling in gaps, and raising standards,” marking a shift toward retrenchment and repair after Great Leap excesses.
A central work conference adopted draft regulations for rural people’s communes (often called the “Sixty Articles”), institutionalizing policy adjustments meant to reduce disruptions in agriculture and commune management.
In Beijing, the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference (over 7,000 officials) openly reviewed the Great Leap’s failures; Liu Shaoqi attributed the famine largely to human error, and Mao offered self-criticism, signaling reduced political momentum for Great Leap methods.
The conference ended after nearly a month of debate and criticism/self-criticism, consolidating a post-famine policy direction that prioritized recovery measures and strengthened the position of leaders managing the economic readjustment.
By 1962, the Great Leap Forward is generally treated in major references as concluded, after which policy emphasis shifted toward stabilization and recovery from the famine and economic disruptions of 1958–1962.
Great Leap Forward and the Famine (1958–1962)
