English Explanatory Dictionary

Great Leap Forward

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. A vast economic and social plan lasting from 1958 to 1961 which aimed to use the Chinese population to rapidly transform the Communist China from a primarily agrarian economy by peasant farmers into a modern communist society through agriculturalization and industrialization, but failed disastrously (resulting in massive famine and the deaths of many millions of people).
  2. A theoretical point in human evolution at which point complex tools, weapons, sculptures, etc. began to appear, supplanting previous primitive behaviour.

Word forms

Great Leap Forward the Great Leap Forward

Etymology

Calque from Chinese 大躍進／大跃进 (Dàyuèjìn). Coined by a People's Daily commentator in 1957.

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