The Great Leap Forward and the Chinese Famine Between 1958-1961: The Dystopian Side of a Utopian Development Plan

The aim of this essay is to analyse a crucial period in Chinese state-building between 1958 and 1962, through the conceptual categories of utopia and dystopia. Using the tools of political economy, the main factors that caused the terrible famine and its economic, political and social consequences will be highlighted. On the one hand, the new leadership under Mao sought to modernise China by introducing a series of economic reforms significantly named the “Great Leap Forward”. Accompanying these transformations was a relentless propaganda campaign by the central government to extinguish the last counter-revolutionary sparks and strengthen faith in the Chinese Communist Party. It is in the combination of these two elements that Mao’s utopian project can be identified: a planned economy and, simultaneously, a state capable of competing with the major world powers. On the other hand, however, this series of reforms quickly turned into a dystopia, giving rise to one of the worst famines in contemporary history, which forced Mao to withdraw the policies introduced with the Great Leap Forward.