The Great Leap Forward These pictures were taken from La Chine, issues No 12 and No 16, 1959 and China Reconstructs, October 1961. In these years the consequences of the "Great Leap Forward" were already apparent - around thirty million people had starved to death between 1958 and 1960 - but media didn't stop protecting the Party's economical policy. From China Reconstructs: "The achievements to date under the Eight-Point Charter [for Agricultural Production, 1958] helped us lessen the losses from natural calamities which severely hit the country in the past three years." The truth is, and writer Jong Chang (Wild swans) describes the mechanism from the inside, that thank to a lack of communication between the different areas of the Country, millions of people were convinced that some natural disaster occurred in other provinces was the cause of famine in their own area. The Party decided to stop the disaster only after 1960, when moderates like Zhou Enlai launched a stealthy policy of liberalization and reorganized agricultural production on a more rational basis. "This year, in many areas and in every province, productivity has been extraordinarily high. These are the results of the commune-based system, of the coordination of efforts under the lead of the Party... and of the intelligent application to local conditions of the eight points of the Agricultural Charter..." "How wonderful is the wheat this year! An old peasant describes to Xiang Chengze, of the department for agriculture of the Party's Committee in Yingzhan, Sichuan, the qualities of the wheat grown in the fields of his Commune, the People's Commune of Chengfu." "Wild mountains have been transformed with neatly groomed terraces - Gansu province."     "Closely planted wheat fields - Jiangsu province."