Small metallurgy ( Chinese ит 煉鋼 earth smelting furnaces) is a campaign to organize the widespread production of steel in China with the goal of rapid industrialization of the country. [1] [2] The campaign was a key component of the five-year period of the Great Leap 1958 - 1963 . The campaign led to the opposite result - the destruction of the industrial base and the need to curtail the inefficient production of low-quality metal [3] .
Content
- 1 Background
- 2 Social transformations
- 3 Campaign progress
- 4 Literature
- 5 notes
Background
By 1958, China remained an agricultural country, with 90% of the population employed in agriculture. There was no industrial base. Management understood the need for large-scale industrialization .
However, for various political reasons, the experience of the Soviet Union was unacceptable, Soviet specialists were almost not involved in industrialization, and after some time ( 1960 - 1961 ) they left China altogether.
Mao Zedong and the Chinese leadership hoped to boost the economy only on labor enthusiasm. Plans were made to “catch up and overtake” developed countries, while steel production was considered a key indicator. Great Britain was chosen as a guideline, which was to catch up in record time.
The plan was supported by the President of the Academy of Sciences of the PRC, academician Guo Mozhuo , who set the task for scientists.
Social Transformation
Based on the experience of collectivization in the USSR, Mao Zedong prepared the transformation of the social structure. Small peasant farms were not suitable for small metallurgy, because they did not have enough resources to create a blast furnace . Since 1958, "people's communes" began to be created - large self-sufficient groups living and working together, eating in a common dining room, where workdays were used instead of money. By the end of 1958, 25 thousand communes were created, the average size of which was 5,000 families.
Campaign Progress
The main decisions were taken at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee in August 1958. It was decided that steel production should double every year, and in 15 years it would be possible to catch up with Britain. For this, it was considered necessary to build furnaces in all yards. Mao Zedong has already been shown samples of such stoves in Hefei City, Anhui Province, which the first secretary of the provincial party committee Zeng Xisheng was proud of. During the demonstration, it was explained that the result of such processing was high-quality steel (but, in all likelihood, the final stages of metal processing were done elsewhere). Mao was delighted: it became clear that such stoves were quite within the power of the people's communes in the suburbs.
When the problem of collectivization was solved in a short time, workshops for the production of steel from ore began to be built everywhere. In accordance with the directives of the Party, the people's communes were instructed to build small blast furnaces from clay and to heat wood. Workers were recruited from nearby villages.
At that time, especially at the beginning of the campaign, there was a lack of proper infrastructure and fundamental knowledge about steel and open-hearth furnaces . Back in 1959, after studying the problem and the first experiments, it became clear that good quality steel can only be produced in large furnaces in large factories using coal as a fuel. However, the project continued, the directives were adjusted, and the population organized local searches and mining of coal and tried to modernize the furnaces.
The first experiments were very encouraging - indeed, the melting of the metal, it turns out, could be organized by improvised means. Plans were made. Often, in order to fulfill plans or report, small agricultural implements, as well as home kettles, basins, pans, irons, which also re-melted and increased production, went into business.
The result of the smelting was, however, low-quality cast iron, obtained in industry only in the first stages of processing, unsuitable for widespread use. It could be used mainly for the manufacture of plows and hoes and was spent within the commune.
The leadership, however, was delighted with the general upsurge, and experts were afraid to criticize after the campaign. Let a hundred flowers bloom .
In 1958, the production of "steel" increased by 45%, and in 1959 - by another 30%. However, in 1961, the inefficiency of small metallurgy became apparent, the campaign was quietly curtailed and forgotten, steel production fell sharply and returned to the 1958 level only in 1964 .
Literature
- GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND THE GREAT FAMINE (unavailable link from 01/26/2016 [1338 days])
- Video about Backyard Furnaces in China, 1958 (by PSB on Communism) - a documentary about small metallurgy
Notes
- ↑ Tyner, James A. Genocide and the Geographical Imagination. - Rowman & Littlefield , 2012 .-- P. 98–99. - ISBN 9781442208995 .
- ↑ Cook, Ian G. China's Third Revolution: Tensions in the Transition Towards a Post-Communist China. - Routledge , 2001. - P. 53–55. - ISBN 9780700713073 .
- ↑ The Great Leap Forward