Changes

===Three years of disasters===

===Three years of disasters===

[[Image:FrankCoegroup.jpg|thumb|right|300px

[[Image:FrankCoegroup.jpg|thumb|right|300px

|'''CCP Chairman Mao Zedong (third left) with [[Israel Epstein]] (first left), [[Anna Louise Strong]] (center), [[Frank Coe]] (second right), and [[Solomon Adler]] (first right). ]]  

|CCP Chairman Mao Zedong (third left) with [[Israel Epstein]] (first left), Unknown (second left), [[Anna Louise Strong]] (center), [[Frank Coe]] (second right), and [[Solomon Adler]] (first right). ]]  

:{{Main article|Great Leap Forward}}

:{{Main article|Great Leap Forward}}

In the early 1950s, China chose to model its socialist economy after that of the Soviet Union. The Soviet model called for capital-intensive development of heavy industry, with the capital to be generated from the agricultural sector of the economy. The state would purchase grain from the farmers at low prices and sell it, both at home and on the export market, at high prices. In practice, agricultural production did not increase fast enough to generate the amount of capital required to build up China’s industry according to plan. Mao Zedong (1893-1976) decided that the answer was to reorganize Chinese agriculture by pushing through a program of cooperativization (or collectivization) that would bring China’s small farmers, their small plots of land, and their limited draught animals, tools, and machinery together into larger and, presumably, more efficient cooperatives.<ref>http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/cup/mao_zedong_agricultural_cooperation.pdf</ref>  The Great Leap Forward was a program to nationalize industry and agriculture.

In the early 1950s, China chose to model its socialist economy after that of the Soviet Union. The Soviet model called for capital-intensive development of heavy industry, with the capital to be generated from the agricultural sector of the economy. The state would purchase grain from the farmers at low prices and sell it, both at home and on the export market, at high prices. In practice, agricultural production did not increase fast enough to generate the amount of capital required to build up China’s industry according to plan. Mao Zedong (1893-1976) decided that the answer was to reorganize Chinese agriculture by pushing through a program of cooperativization (or collectivization) that would bring China’s small farmers, their small plots of land, and their limited draught animals, tools, and machinery together into larger and, presumably, more efficient cooperatives.<ref>http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/cup/mao_zedong_agricultural_cooperation.pdf</ref>  The Great Leap Forward was a program to nationalize industry and agriculture.