The restoration of private farming by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping

Mao’s way of shifting blames

• As more reports of high provincial death toll filtered up to the leadership, even Mao became more receptive to alternation

• rather then admitting any personal responsibility, a campaign was launched to overthrow the management of communes and root out corrupt elements.

• This was followed by an emergency directive, in November 1960, that allowed villagers to keep their private plots of land and to engage in side occupations as well as farming, and restored local markets

• This marked a turning point in the famine, it depended how far local leaders were prepared to go, but the commune system could now be dismantled if they chose to do so

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Liu Fuchun

• Li Fuchun managed to present grim facts to Mao without incurring his wrath

• Li told the party that Mao's directives were entirely correct, but they, the leaders, had collectively made mistakes in carrying them out. In 1962

• Mao called on President Liu Shaoqi and CCP general secretary Deng Xiaoping to take responsibility for restoring food production levels and ending the chaos in the countryside

• They encouraged local officials to make full use of the 1960 directive

Impact on communes

many communes broke up into smaller collectives of about 30 households, where villagers were rewarded according to their individual input, as in the earlier days of the co-operatives, while some reverted entirely to private farming.

The movement of urban workers to the countryside

To reduce the pressure on urban food supplies, 25 million city-dwellers were forced to move to the countryside, a feat that Mao likened to deporting the population of a country the size of Belgium.

The imports of grain

In 1961, massive grain imports were arranged from Canada, Australia and even the USA, until, by 1965, the yield of the Chinese grain harvest was back up to its level of 1957, before the Great Leap had been launched. Imports, however, remained at a high level until the 1970s

Dengs comment

‘whether white or black, a cat is a good cat so long as it catches a rat.’ to the Communist Youth League in July 1962,

Mao against Liu and Deng

Although Deng and Liu had supervised a recovery from the disaster of the Great Leap Forward, Mao was unhappy people had rejected communes and was wary of Liu and Deng were using their popularitythat the recovery was earning them to prepare a postagainst him.