In this book David Bachman examines the origins of the Great Leap Forward (GLF), a program of economic reform that must be considered one of the great tragedies of Communist China, estimated to have caused the death of between 14 and 28 million Chinese. While standard accounts interpret the GLF as chiefly the brainchild of Mao Zedong and as a radical rejection of a set of more moderate reform proposals put forward in the period 1956 to 1957, Bachman proposes a provocative reinterpretation of the origins of the GLF that stresses the role of the bureaucracy. Using a neo-institutionalist approach to analyze economic policy-making leading up to the GLF, he argues that the GLF must be seen as the product of an institutional process of policy-making.

Contents

Preface;

Acknowledgments;

Chronology;

1. Introduction;

Part I. Historical Background and Conceptual Approach:

2. Overview: Chinese politics and economy, 1956–1957;

3. Institutions and policy in China;

Part II. The Institutional Origins of the Great Leap Forward:

4. The financial coalition

5. The planning and heavy industry coalition 6. The Party as agent of social transformation

7. The views of the top leadership

8. The Third Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee and the Great Leap Forward

9. Conclusions;

Appendix: the constraints on Mao;

Bibliography;

Index.

大卫·M·贝奇曼是美国普林斯顿大学政治学副教授。他1975年获斯沃思莫学院学士学位，1977年、1984年分获斯坦福大学硕士、博士学位。他是加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校中国研究中心博士后，并担任斯坦福大学美国与东北亚国际政治论坛研究员、政治学副教授。