Mao Tse-Tung was born into a poor family of farmers in Shaoshan China on …show more content…
The purpose of this policy was to further implement the communist belief that agriculture should be given top priority. In an attempt to ensure the success of this initiative, Mao Tse-Tung instructed all citizens to over plant on their land, effectively rendering the soil infertile. This lack of understanding of agriculture led to a vast shortage of food. Professor Peng-Khuan Chong touches upon this throughout his writings “China produced only 150 million tons of grain in 1960… the lack of food was remedied with harsh rationing. This would cause malnutrition and illnesses that eventually killed more than thirty million people, mostly peasants between 1959 and 1961” (Chong) This exemplifies that even Mao’s harsh insistence that every inch of land be toiled did not prevent the inevitability of widespread starvation throughout china. This also shows that despite all the suffering the Chinese peasantry went through, Mao still took almost three years to discontinue the policy. Under Mao's direction china suffered