The Great Leap Forward * 1958-1962 *Mao's new economic plan * Organized into 28,000 communes * Trying to create great industrial and scientific activity * muscle power used to build infrastructure * small communal factories * Became a famine with 30 million deaths Summary: The Great leap Forward forced the Chinese people to quit their ordinary jobs and work in small communal factories to produce steel which later proved completely useless to the society. This resulted in 30 million deaths of Chinese people.