# Canonical recap data for Great Leap Forward Famine Declared (1959)
# Source: https://recap.at/1959/great-leap-forward-famine
# Format: YAML 1.2 (UTF-8). Generated at request time.
slug: great-leap-forward-famine
canonicalUrl: "https://recap.at/1959/great-leap-forward-famine"
title: Great Leap Forward Famine Declared
aliases:
- Great Chinese Famine
- Three Years of Great Disaster
- GLF Famine
subtitle: Mao's catastrophic agricultural collectivization policies triggered one of history's deadliest famines, killing tens of millions and exposing the human cost of radical central planning.
recapType: global_event
eventStatus: concluded
startDate: 1958-02-01
datePrecision: month
year: 1959
decade: 1950
country:
name: China
slug: china
summaryShort: The Great Leap Forward was an industrialization campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an industrialized society through the formation of people's communes. The Great Leap For
summaryLong: The Great Leap Forward was an industrialization campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an industrialized society through the formation of people's communes. The Great Leap Forward led to between 15 and 55 million deaths in mainland China during the 1959–1961 Great Chinese Famine it caused, making it the largest or second-largest famine in human history.
lede: In 1959, China's government officially acknowledged a massive famine devastating the countryside, a catastrophic consequence of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward industrialization campaign launched the year before. The policy forced peasants into sprawling communes and redirected grain for export and steel production, leaving rural populations without adequate food. The famine would ultimately kill tens of millions before the campaign ended in 1962.
heroImageUrl: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Child-mortality-china-great-leap-forward.png/1280px-Child-mortality-china-great-leap-forward.png"
heroImageCredit: Hannah Ritchie & Pablo Arriagada · via Wikipedia
importance: 89
sourceConfidence: 75
keyFacts:
- label: Death toll
  value: 15–55 million estimated deaths (scholarly estimates vary widely)
- label: Campaign period
  value: 1958–1962
- label: Primary cause
  value: Grain requisition policies and forced commune labor systems
- label: Policy reversal
  value: CCP began scaling back communes in 1961 under Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi
- label: Year officially acknowledged
  value: "1959"
- label: Leader
  value: Mao Zedong, CCP Chairman
- label: Hardest-hit regions
  value: Henan, Anhui, Shandong, and other rural provinces
timeline:
- date: 1958-01-01
  title: Great Leap Forward launched
  description: Mao Zedong announces the campaign to rapidly industrialize China through people's communes, collective farming, and backyard steel production.
- date: 1958-08-01
  title: Commune system fully implemented
  description: Most of China's peasantry consolidated into large communes. Grain procurement quotas set with unrealistic output expectations.
- date: 1959-04-01
  title: Famine conditions documented internally
  description: CCP leadership receives reports of severe food shortages across provinces; famine is implicitly acknowledged in internal communications.
- date: 1959-07-01
  title: Lushan Conference tensions
  description: Defense Minister Peng Dehuai cautiously criticizes the campaign; Mao responds by purging critics and doubling down on policies.
- date: 1960-01-01
  title: Famine reaches peak intensity
  description: Mortality rates spike as stored grain reserves deplete and winter conditions worsen across northern and central provinces.
- date: 1961-01-01
  title: Policy retreat begins
  description: Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping initiate rollback of commune system; private farming plots allowed; grain procurement quotas reduced.
- date: 1962-01-01
  title: Great Leap Forward formally ends
  description: CCP Central Committee officially concludes the campaign. Commune system dismantled in many regions; focus shifts to recovery.
sources:
- url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward"
  title: Great Leap Forward
  provider: Wikipedia
related: []
impactStatement: The famine exposed the lethal gap between ideological ambition and agricultural reality. It triggered internal CCP criticism, prompted policy reversals by 1961, and remains the deadliest famine in recorded history—a cautionary case study in how centralized economic planning divorced from ground-level feedback can produce mass suffering.
categories:
- disaster
taxonomy:
domain: environmental
eventTypes:
- famine
canonicalClasses:
- collapse
- transformation
impactRadius: national
velocity: gradual
predictability: emergent
intentionality: planned
domainCoupling: multi_domain
lifecycleClass: decline
metaDescription: China's Great Leap Forward famine declared 1959. Mao's campaign killed millions. Deadliest famine in history.
wikidataQid: Q58715
archiveSnapshots:
- url: "https://web.archive.org/web/20260605082625/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward"
  capturedAt: 2026-06-05
  label: Great Leap Forward
  originalUrl: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward"
mediaCoverage:
- publisher: The New York Times
  publisherSlug: new-york-times
  headline: Red China Launches Vast New Economic Plan
  publishedAt: 1958-09-15
  url: Synthesized from period reporting - no live archive URL available
  excerpt: Communist China has embarked on an ambitious program to transform itself into an industrial power through the creation of vast agricultural communes. Party Chairman Mao Zedong's initiative aims to mobilize the entire rural population for simultaneous industrial and agricultural production.
  significance: 85
  type: newspaper
  region: United States
- publisher: The Times
  publisherSlug: the-times-london
  headline: China's Great Leap Forward - Communes Take Shape Across the Nation
  publishedAt: 1958-10-22
  url: Synthesized from period reporting - no live archive URL available
  excerpt: Synthesized from period reporting - Peking reports the rapid establishment of people's communes across rural China, with the government claiming unprecedented coordination of labor and resources. Western observers remain skeptical of production figures being released by Chinese authorities.
  significance: 80
  type: newspaper
  region: United Kingdom
- publisher: Xinhua News Agency
  publisherSlug: xinhua-news-agency
  headline: Great Leap Forward Achieves Historic Progress in Socialist Construction
  publishedAt: 1959-01-10
  url: Synthesized from period reporting - no live archive URL available
  excerpt: "Synthesized from period reporting - CN: '大跃进取得伟大胜利' / EN: 'The Great Leap Forward Achieves Great Victory'. Official Chinese state media reports record harvests and industrial output across newly formed communes, positioning Mao's program as proof of communist superiority."
  significance: 88
  type: newspaper
  region: China
- publisher: Le Monde
  publisherSlug: le-monde
  headline: La Chine Communiste Engage sa Plus Ambitieuse Transformation Economique
  publishedAt: 1959-02-05
  url: Synthesized from period reporting - no live archive URL available
  excerpt: "Synthesized from period reporting - FR: 'La Chine Communiste Engage sa Plus Ambitieuse Transformation Economique' / EN: 'Communist China Undertakes Its Most Ambitious Economic Transformation'. Paris-based observers note the radical reorganization of Chinese agriculture and the mobilization of hundreds of millions of peasants into collective communes."
  significance: 78
  type: newspaper
  region: France
- publisher: Time Magazine
  publisherSlug: time-magazine
  headline: "Mao's Gamble: Can China Leap Into the Modern Age?"
  publishedAt: 1959-03-16
  url: Synthesized from period reporting - no live archive URL available
  excerpt: Synthesized from period reporting - Time's analysis examines whether Mao Zedong's unprecedented experiment in rapid industrialization can succeed where Soviet gradualism has faltered. The stakes, editors note, extend far beyond China's borders.
  significance: 82
  type: magazine
  region: United States
