Editing Great Leap Forward (section)

===Agricultural collectives and other social changes===
{{Main|Land Reform Movement (China)}}
[[File:Sending officials to the countryside.jpg|thumb|Government officials being sent to work in the countryside, 1957]]

Before 1949, peasants had farmed their own small pockets of land and observed traditional practices—festivals, banquets, and paying homage to ancestors.<ref name="Mirsky2009" /> It was realized that Mao's policy of using a [[state monopoly]] on agriculture to finance industrialization would be unpopular with the peasants. Therefore, it was proposed that the peasants should be brought under Party control by the establishment of agricultural [[collective]]s which would also facilitate the sharing of tools and draft animals.<ref name="Mirsky2009" />

This policy was gradually pushed through between 1949 and 1958 in response to immediate policy needs, first by establishing "mutual aid teams" of 5–15 households, then in 1953 "elementary agricultural cooperatives" of 20–40 households, then from 1956 in "higher co-operatives" of 100–300 families. From 1954 onward peasants were encouraged to form and join collective-farming associations, which would supposedly increase their efficiency without robbing them of their own land or restricting their livelihoods.<ref name="Mirsky2009" />

By 1958, private ownership was abolished and all households were forced into state-operated communes. Mao demanded that the communes increase grain production to feed the cities and to earn foreign exchange through exports. China must follow a different path to socialism than the Soviet Union, Mao told delegates, by allowing its peasants to participate in economic modernisation and making more use of their labour.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Llewellyn |first1=Jennifer  |last2=Kucha |first2=Glenn |date=2023-09-19 |orig-date=2018-03-18 |title=The Great Leap Forward |url=https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/great-leap-forward/#Collectivsation_and_communes |access-date=2025-02-23 |website=[[Alpha History]] |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="Mirsky2009" />

Apart from progressive taxation on each household's harvest, the state introduced a system of compulsory state purchases of grain at fixed prices to build up stockpiles for famine-relief and meet the terms of its trade agreements with the [[Soviet Union]]. Together, taxation and compulsory purchases accounted for 30% of the harvest by 1957, leaving very little surplus. Rationing was also introduced in the cities to curb 'wasteful consumption' and encourage savings (which were deposited in state-owned banks and thus became available for investment), and although food could be purchased from state-owned retailers the market price was higher than that for which it had been purchased. This too was done in the name of discouraging excessive consumption.{{citation needed|date=July 2024}}

Besides these economic changes, the CCP implemented major social changes in the countryside including the banishing of all religious and mystic institutions and ceremonies, replacing them with political meetings and propaganda sessions. Attempts were made to enhance rural education and the status of women (allowing them to initiate divorce if they desired) and ending [[foot-binding]], [[child marriage]] and [[opium]] addiction.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=McCarthy |first1=Rebecca |last2=Schneider |first2=Sarah |author-link2=Sarah Schneider |title=Yue Xiong's Great Leap |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/yue-xiongs-great-leap/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241210072520/https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/yue-xiongs-great-leap/ |archive-date=2024-12-10 |access-date=2025-02-23 |website=[[Science History Institute]] |language=en-US |quote=After the Communist Revolution of 1949, Mao was determined to eliminate inequality. He paid special attention to the plight of Chinese women, banning the practice of foot binding and establishing women’s right to an education and to vote. He also reformed China’s marriage law, replacing a system in which brides were often bought and sold with one that required both parties’ consent and gave women the right to divorce.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Hagedorn |first1=Linda Serra |last2=Zhang |first2=Yi (Leaf) |date=2010 |title=China's Progress Toward Gender Equity: From Bound Feet to BoundlessPossibilities |url=https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ913061.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250203035955/https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ913061.pdf |archive-date=2025-02-03 |access-date=2025-02-23 |website=The Forum on Public Policy |publisher=[[Education Resources Information Center]]}}</ref> The old system of internal passports (the ''[[Hukou#1949–1978: Maoist era|hukou]]'') was introduced in 1956, preventing inter-county travel without appropriate authorization. Highest priority was given to the urban [[proletariat]] for whom a [[welfare state]] was created.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Young |first=Jason |title=China's hukou system: markets, migrants and institutional change |date=2013 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-27730-5 |location=Basingstoke, Hampshire}}{{page needed|date=February 2025}}</ref>

The first phase of collectivization resulted in modest improvements in output.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brown |first=Clayton D. |date=Winter 2012 |title=China's Great Leap Forward |url=https://www.asianstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/chinas-great-leap-forward-1.pdf |journal=Education About Asia |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=29–34 |quote=The first Five Year Plan yielded impressive results. China’s overall economy had expanded nearly 9 percent per year, with agricultural output rising almost 4 percent annually and industrial output exploding to just shy of 19 percent per year. More important, life expectancy was twenty years longer in 1957 than when the Communists took power in 1949. |archive-date=28 February 2024 |access-date=28 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240228202924/https://www.asianstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/chinas-great-leap-forward-1.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Famine along the mid-Yangzi was averted in 1956 through the timely allocation of food-aid, but in 1957 the Party's response was to increase the proportion of the harvest collected by the state to insure against further disasters. Moderates within the Party, including [[Zhou Enlai]], argued for a reversal of collectivization on the grounds that claiming the bulk of the harvest for the state had made the people's food-security dependent upon the constant, efficient, and transparent functioning of the government.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}