Part 6/10:
Mao's ambition reached a fever pitch during the Great Leap Forward, which was characterized by massive mobilization of labor — farmers and peasants were conscripted into pointless steel production campaigns and vast infrastructural projects. Mao’s misguided initiatives not only dismantled traditional farming practices but compelled participants to abandon their harvests in favor of producing steel in makeshift furnaces.
The result was tragic. As agricultural productivity plummeted, expectations for crop yields remained unrealistically high, coupled with the pressure on local cadres to inflate production numbers — a practice which masked the burgeoning food shortages that were becoming dire.