Question

5- A women, years ago in a village in China thinking before going to sleep: “Oh, I am so tired… I woke up at dawn, worked in the fields whole day, came back and worked in the village steel furnace at night… Good thing I don’t have to cook and care for the kids, the commune does that. We will catch up with England soon but will I be able to see it, working myself to death like this…” What is she living through?

Answer 1

China is considered as an economic power today and its GDP is 2nd biggest in the world. However, the country was far laggard in the development in the last century. The communist party under the leadership of Mao overthrew the democratic government in the 1950s.
Mao induced nationalist fever in the country and was fascinated by the only objective to achieve economic development to put the country above industrialized nations such as that UK and the USA.
Mao enticed the country and named the program as 'Great Leap Forward'. It was held during 1958 to 1962.

The government has formed a commune which is a collective farming, collective living and collective working environment. The government has taken over everything from factories to farms and houses. At that time, the production and consumption of steel per capita is the measure of development.
Mao ordered to raise the output of steel and almost every village had a steel furnace where people used to work. They also used to work in the fields to raise the agricultural output. However, the production of the steel took a center stage. Meanwhile, the government also ordered to kill sparrows as it suspected that the sparrows are eating too much grain.

These stupid moves were soon proved very costly as sparrows used eat insects also. The agricultural output took a deep plunge as locust swarm destroyed crops and China had a massive famine. The steel output actually achieved its target but 45 million Chinese paid its cost through their lives.