avoid the risk of privilege economic inteligencia

People are not educates so they are not technically educated in the wrong way

You can teach people how to make iron,... Because they do not know anything -> they start from scratch

"In history it is always people with a low level of culture who triumph over people with a high level of culture." (207 on pdf - pg 199)

"[It] because of China's backwardness that its people possessed
special revolutionary capacities and were uniquely amenable to the appropriate spiritual transformation" (page 207 on pdf - pg 199)

It gave greater autonomy to the local provinces and allowed them to work independently to greater there own production

Comunes were places that organised the peasants as well as set goals for them to reach and give a sense of community

Ranged from less than 5,00 people to 100,000 people in one commune

Future of communes and the Great Leap / Mao's political future / control of People's Liberation Army

Resulted in a confrontation between Mao and Peng Dehuai (Peng Dehuai was a veteran revolutionary playing a major role in the Red Army since joining Mao in 1928, who also commanded Chinese forces in the Korean war)

in Peng Dehuai's view (a common one amongst military leaders) China's domestic policies were intimately related to its military policies and USSR relations

China's military security depended on economic development for the weapons provided by the USSR

Peng returned to China that June and launched an attack on the GLF making a Letter of Opinion (key event) addressed to Mao condemning communisation, collapse of national planning, party alienation, etc

Peng was unlikely to be involved in a Soviet scheme in anti-Mao efforts, but it was promoted that he was

in 1959 he claimed "bourgeois elements infiltrated [the] communist party”

in 1960 Mao no longer commanded fully the party or their policies

the remainder of his Lushan victory was control of his armies through Lin Biao

the difficulties associated with the communes were now attributed to 'right opportunists' who underestimated achievements and overestimated defects

communal mess halls and private peasant plots were to be restored and destroyed respectively

Mao forced the party to choose between him and Peng Dehuai => he tied party leadership to his identity (cult of the individual parallel?)

since party leaders did not want the drama of trying to remove Mao, they went along with his policies

the 8th CC Plenum also convened where Peng was isolated and his criticisms were discredited as well

Mao insisted Peng should be politically disgraced and was obliged

most communists were just as committed to national independence as Mao himself

Peng was dismissed as minister of defence and his supporters were removed from key army positions

the Plenum was used to propagandised The Great Leap & reaffirmed benefits for people's communes

“The Great Leap Forward campaign, which began with such great expectations in 1958, thus ended in 1960 with an economic and human disaster for China and a political debacle for Mao Zedong. It created a legacy of bitterness and distrust between the peasantry and the Communist Party. The Great Leap further contributed to the collapse of the Sino-Soviet alliance, an increasingly precarious external situation to a grave internal economic crisis.”