GKE_Task_2.docx GKE Task 2 Task 2: A: âMao (Zedong) was a Chinese communist leader

GKE_Task_2.docx    GKE Task 2  Task 2: A:  “Mao (Zedong) was a Chinese communist leader and founder of the People's Republic of China. He was responsible for the disastrous policies of the 'Great Leap Forward' and the 'Cultural Revolution” (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2012).  Under his reign in China, Chinese culture was restructured.  Under this restructuring, the government now owned all of the industries and controlled the farmers as cooperatives.  The government had complete control of everyone and everything.  Anyone who opposed Maos ideas was brutally stopped. “The crackdown led to the deaths of 550,000 people by 1958” (Harms, 1996).  In 1958, Mao began the 'Great Leap Forward'. With this plan, he hoped China would be out producing Britain and the United States within a certain number of years in agriculture and the steel industry.  The original plan called for a time line of 15 years.  Mao got greedy and upped the plan to less than two years.  He had placed different steel plants throughout the country and the leaders of the steel plants were taking workers from the fields to meet their quotas.  As a result, the harvests were left to rot in the fields and the surplus of food was non-existent.  Not too long after, there was not enough food to feed the people and the greatest famine in all of history ensued in China.    “By comparing the number of deaths that could be expected under normal conditions with the number that occurred during the period of the Great Leap famine