Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyzes the dramatic shifts in Chinese economic policy during the mid and late 1950s. In 1956 and for most of 1957 the economic policies of the People's Republic of China (PRC) were modest and realistic. The leadership politics interpretation can be traced to the Cultural Revolution and its polemical interpretation of pre-1966 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politics, an interpretation used by the authorities to justify the contemporaneous purge of Mao Zedong. The crucial 'coalitions' for David Bachman are bureaucratic. Changing political circumstances notwithstanding, the basic approach remained in place until the fall 1957 Third Plenum where Chairman Mao Zedong criticized fanmaojin and set in motion a process which, by May 1958 at the latest, resulted in the Great Leap Forward.