JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.Population Council is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Population and Development Review. In November 1957, at a meeting of representatives of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow, the late Chairman Mao Zedong proposed the goal for China of overtaking Great Britain in industrial production within 15 years. The Chinese Communist Party convened several important conferences in the early months of 1958.' A transformation of society was projected in which the masses were to be the driving force. The general line of the Party that guided the Great Leap Forward was "Going all out, aiming high and achieving greater, faster, better, and more economical results in building socialism. "2 Labor-intensive development was viewed as a solution to the problem of capital shortage; partial imbalances were to be taken in stride. Development processes were explained in political terms, and the impact of ideology on economic development was emphasized.Launched in the spring of 1958, the Great Leap Forward was China's alternative to Soviet-style development, an attempt to leap ahead in production by reorganizing the peasantry into large-scale communes and mobilizing society to bring about technological revolution in agriculture.As the Great Leap progressed, production targets were revised upward several times, reaching unrealistic levels. Heavy industry, especially steel production, was accorded high priority at the expense of agriculture and light industry. Residents in both urban and rural areas, young and old, were mobilized to increase iron and steel production. Millions of peasant laborers moved into cities to work in factories. In the countryside the formation of people's communes was praised as a "golden bridge" toward communist society.Unfortunately, nothing worked as expected. The practice of claiming nonexistent achievements became a "wind of exaggeration" that blew through the country. The "communist wind," which referred to impracticable attempts to establish a "communist society" by means of equal distribution, emerged POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW 13, NO. 4 (DECEMBER 1987) 639 640 Consequences of the Great Leap as a striking feature of the Leap.3 Much of the iron and steel that was made by backyard blast furnaces was useless. Foodgrain production declined considerably in three successive years, 1959-61, and industrial output fell subsequently. The standard of living also deteriorated sharply. The years 1959-61 are remembered as three bitter years in modern Chinese history. Faced with the collapse of the commune system, the leaders made extensive organizational changes, and in 1962 they decentralized the unit of labor management and income sh...