11 janv. 1958 - Great Leap Forward

Description:

Mao Zedong commissioned the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1960 as a way to increase agricultural and industrial production similarly to the USSR’s Five Year Plans. By creating quotas for grain outputs and urging peasants to use backyard forges to make steel, the idea was that the concentrated efforts would be highly successful. However, due to poor farming techniques and lack of ability to make good steel, the program was a massive failure. What little grain was produced was taken by the government to repay Soviet loans, which led to the starvation of millions.
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/greatleap.htm