Talk:Great Leap Forward

Credits

The original version of this text was derived from the article on the Great Leap Forward in the Encyclopedia of Marxism at www.marxists.org

• Despite the risks to their carreers and their lives, some Communist Party members openly laid blame for the disaster at the feet of the Party leadership and took it as proof that China must rely more on education, acquiring technical expertise and applying borgeouis methods in developing the economy. It was principally to crush this opposition that Mao launched his Cultural Revolution in early 1966.

This paragraph fails to adequately characterize the general foot-dragging and lack of enthusiasum of the party structure which resulted from the failure of the main features of the Great Leap Forward. Open opposition resulted in disgrace which occurred to a few, but there was a more broadbased revulsion to any more nonsense from the center and Mao's pronouncements and initiatives where, if not met with open scepticism, were not implemented with much enthusiam. It was this general party-wide malais which resulted in his extraordinary effort to bypass the party with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Anyt comments? Fred Bauder 03:52 11 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I my opinion, the Great Leap Forward is absurd, mainly because of Mao's economy policy. So far as I know, a field that time could produce 10,000 kg rice! (even impossible today!) :) --YACHT 05:22, Dec 5, 2003 (UTC)

There is actually more than one viewpoint on the justification of the Great Leap Forward. Colipon 22:27, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Death toll?

How can the introduction to this article make no mention of the staggering number of deaths that resulted? The fact that it is impossible to determine exactly how many millions starved to death doesn't mean the issue should be ignored. Revisionism?

Didn't a lot of people die in the process? The article seems to ignore the terrible human toll of the project. My history textbook Mastering Modern World History, by Norman Lowe, suggests that some 20 million people died prematurely because of the Great Leap. Now, I don't know if that number is accurate, and some other sources suggest it might be much too high, but the death toll was nonetheless significant. For example http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/CHINA.TAB8.1.GIF (from http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MEGA.HTM) implies that 17 million people died due to democide during the relevent 9 year period, giving an annual death rate of some 2 million people. Assuming the Great Leap lasted 4 years, it would have cost around 8 million lives; probably more since the Great Leap years were probably more deadly than the average year during that 9 year period.

Be bold! If you think it's missing something, add it. --Jiang 02:07, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There is definitely something missing! The bodies of the multi millions who died in this period.I am not convinced that cannibalism is the answer.

In all of the Western and Eastern sources I've read on this topic, majority agree that between 1959-1962 about 20 million died of starvation and malnutrition. I personally believe anything above 25 million is propaganda. Afterall, China only had 500 million people in the late 50s.

Some actually estimated the toll at nearly 40 million. [[User:Colipon|Colipon+(T)]] 17:17, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Also keep in mind, however, that this was a less than open environment for outside (or inside, for that matter) investigative reporting. There was great incentive for the current -- and even to some extent subsequent -- regimes to allow only the rosiest possible reports to emerge. The fact that such unrosy descriptions and estimates were still forthcoming is quite telling.

I've deleted an paragraph on Jasper Becker - who I know a little - which describes him as a 'travel writer' and says he was in the country during the Great Leap Forward, neither of which is true. The article as a whole still needs expansion, especially on the power struggles within the Party; I'll try to do it sometime soon.

---

There's something you really need to understand before asking for exact figures on the death toll during this time period. Firstly how so many of the masses died in small towns and counties where records of their death couldnt possibly be made. Another is that canabolism was a huge factor during the GLF corpses were being dug up and meat taken from the bodies for the peasants to simply survive. A great historian to find out about the death tolls and Mao in general is Jung Chang. Her estimations of the death toll are as high as 38 million. A reason for her being much more reliable than some other historians is how she has better access to records and archives in China as she is Chinese and as a well known historian the government allows her to see archives that most historians or people never have or will. Simply becuase if they stop her or disallow her to certain places it would reflect very badly on China. Another reason that makes her figures more reliable than other historians is her husband Jon Halliday. A Russian historian who has extensive access to soviet archives which greatly helps Jung Chang create a death toll which seems much higher than most other historians. Read Jung Chang's new book on Mao for more info on the GLF and 100 Flowers campaign, really good especially if your studying China Revolutions for VCE or school.

--Chorgy 11:19, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

One of the problems facing those who produce estimates of millions of deaths during the Great Leap Forward is the lack of bodies. To allege that the bodies were eaten is an interesting suggestion! No doubt derived from the common assertion that Communists eat babies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.158.94.229 (talk) 09:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Jung Chang's book on Mao is unmitigated drivel from the first line of the first page to the very end! No one should rely on this as a source for anything except Jung Chang's prejudices. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.158.74.1 (talk) I agree with this. Jung Changs book is good fun to read but bears little relation to the realities of life in China during this period.

The claim for a death toll ignores how much Mao had raised Chinese life expectency from the norm in the Nationalist era. Chang and Halliday treat 1% death-rate as the norm, but it was not the norm under the Kuomintang. --172.201.10.215 18:26, 16 August 2005 (UTC)Gwydion M. Williams

The reason for wide differences in the deaths is not due to "incorrect data". The reason for the deaths was incorrect data, but the reason for the variance in the counts of said deaths is because of inadequate accounting of human life. I left it as "variations in data" so that it would not be inflammatory. Twocs 14:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

As far as death toll is concerned, you should also include in the page the fact that "the senior Communist Party official Chen Yizi who in 1979 was appointed by Premier Zhao Ziyang to find out what really happened in 1958–61. Chen led a team of 200 officials who visited every province to examine internal Party documents and records. His report put the total at between 43 and 46 million dead." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deadrunner (talk • contribs) 10:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The death toll is irrelevant in a country such as china, which at the time had a population growth rate of 80 million people/year. So one year it only gained 40 million people due to losing 40 million boo hoo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.137.118.110 (talk) 04:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Source please? Everyone can come up with any number, it is the source that matters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.217.162.8 (talk) 01:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Why does the introducion state 200 million deaths whilst the numbers the article are lower? 81.241.147.223 (talk) 21:44, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Dr. Ping-ti Ho

I have deleted the following section:

Chinese expert of demography, Dr Ping-ti Ho, professor of history at the University of Chicago, in a book titled Studies on the Population of China, 1368-1953, Harvard East Asian Studies No 4, 1959, mentions that:

My conclusion is that the claim that in the 1960s a number between 17 [million] and 29 million people was "missing" is worthless if there was never any certainty about the 600 millions of Chinese. Most probably these "missing people" did not starve in the calamity years 1960-61, but in fact have never existed. [4]

How can a book/pamphlet supposedly written in 1959 talk about the early 1960s in the past tense?

"Disaster Center"

"Disaster Center" is not org or edu but only a individiual website.

Also, the number in the article - 30 million deaths resulting from the flood - does not match the 2 million cited as dead during that flood by this so called Disaster Center.

Recent swing towards Maoism?

The contents and the tone of the article have been significantly changed between 26th of July and 2nd of August. See this comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Leap_Forward&diff=69539367&oldid=65880553

It appears that information that portrays chairman Mao in a negative light has been edited out and new information praising Mao has been added. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but this article needs to be protected from edits that swing it too much towards one viewpoint or the other.

In addition to that, sources are not properly quoted; for example, a webpage such as re-evaluationmao.org is not a proper source, even if it may contain proper sources.

Inflated Death Toll

The death toll of 20-40 million is flatulent. Data presented in the 1983 Statistical Yearbook of China shows the following death rates. They amount to about 12 to 13 million excess deaths. It should be taken into consideration that these were released while Deng conducted a staunch anti-Mao campaign. Deng had nothing to gain by minimizing these but had everything to gain by maximizing them.

Crude death rates in China:

1955: 12.3

1956: 11.4

1957: 10.8

1958: 12

1959: 14.6

1960: 25.4

1961: 14.2

1962: 10

1963: 10

Jacob Peters

Addition of Category:Communist genocide

I was just wondering, it the Great leap forward widely considered genocide? Because considering it as such seems terribly POV. Triplestop x3 15:35, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

So, basically no-one was hurt by the Communist regime? Peltimikko (talk) 17:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you even know what a genocide is? 'Fred' 163.1.234.221 (talk) 21:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Genocide refers to killing people because of their ethnic identity, so generally speaking the Great Leap Forward was not genocide. Instead the deaths caused intentionally or by willful negligence fall under the broader category of democide, which is murder by government. If groups of people were starved to death because of their ethnic identity, then that portion of the Great Leap Forward democide would be considered genocide. Wikimedes (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Dubious

the chart asserts that the impact on world growth was entirely from the great famine. that's clearly WP:OR.--camr ^nag 12:43, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Title should be in quotes?

This page is being used to exposit an argument about the "Ground Zero Mosque". Some people feel the page on this New York City project, which is currently entitled Park51, should be named Ground Zero Mosque because this is a more common name for the project in news media. I challenged people to find an example of a "most common name" for a page which is nonetheless misleading, and I was referred to the example on this page.

What I am wondering is, since the page makes it pretty clear that the effects of the "Great Leap Forward" were not any great leap forward for China, whether the name for this page might be changed to "Great Leap Forward" (in quotes) to indicate that the term, though commonly used to describe the policies, imply positive benefits which are disputed to say the least. Zachary Klaas (talk) 12:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Great Leap Forward is not a descriptive title; it is a formal (and the common) name of a specific political campaign in history. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Article naming.

Where proper nouns such as names are concerned, disputes may arise over whether a particular name should be used. Wikipedia takes a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach in such cases, by using the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources; proper names for people or events which incorporate non-neutral terms - e.g. Boston massacre, Tea Pot Dome scandal, Edward the Confessor, Jack the Ripper - are legitimate article titles when they are used by a consensus of the sources.

The name should not be changed. Quigley (talk) 20:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It apparently takes actually doing a change to get someone to respond to you in here.  :) The policy says nothing about the use of quotes for starters. Also, in each of those examples, there isn't a misrepresentation of facts. In Boston there was a massacre. Teapot Dome was a scandal. Edward was a confessor. Jack was a ripper. (Okay, in that last example, we don't know the real name of "Jack", but still, there's no misrepresentation of the subject, who was a mass murderer.) The Great Leap Forward, however, was not a great leap forward. Also, the name itself was retained, it was just put in quotes to indicate it is not accepted as true. Why is that not consistent with the intent of the WP rules? Zachary Klaas (talk) 20:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The policy implies that quotes are not necessary. If you'll read the article on the Boston Massacre, you'll find that the facts of the case were controversial, and that "massacre" was a revolutionist spin. It is the job of the title to reflect the common name (as indicated by the reliable sources used in this article), and it is the job of the article text to describe the event. This article is not about the claim that the Great Leap Forward was actually a great leap forward (notice the use of capital letters indicating a name); but about the attempt. The German Revolution was a failed revolution, so should we then call it the "German Revolution"? The title is not making a value judgment on the event. It is just reflecting a name that historians adopted from the official one. Quigley (talk) 20:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the policy implies respect for reality as well. We can talk all day about what policies "imply" without actually stating.  :) Historians don't largely challenge the terms "Boston Massacre" or "German Revolution", that's why no one is fighting to get them renamed on here. They do clarify points about those events, but they generally accept that because the people who died were all on one side in the Boston Massacre that the name is not worth challenging, and accept that the German Revolution being subdued doesn't make it any less a revolutionary activity wide-scale enough to be called a revolution. The Great Leap Forward was, by most accounts, a great leap backward. That's a little bit different. Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually by using quotes you'd promote your POV and Wikipedia doesn't take sides. Another example Salem witch trial it's not Salem "witch" trial. Again, the article will describe the events without the need of using quotes to show what you considered to be incorrect. As mentioned by another editor this is the name of the campaign, while Ground Zero mosque is not the name of the cultural center (which is not at Ground Zero and is not a mosque per se), but we should let the editors involved in that discussion to reach a conclusion, here we talk about this particular article. man with one red shoe 22:05, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that's not a good argument. The women were put on trial because they were believed to be witches. It's not an inaccuracy to say there were witch trials. There were. As for the comment about it being the "name of the campaign", I would accept that argument (and drop all of this) in a heartbeat if the claim can be supported. Apparently there was an editorial in the People's Daily on New Year's Day, 1958 which did in fact attach this name to the campaign. I'd take that as proof that it's just a name and not a statement that China did in fact leap forward somehow. Though in that case, I'd prefer the title be Great Leap Forward (campaign), or something along those lines to indicate it's the name of the campaign. Any chance of a compromise here, or are people just going hew unquestioningly to the letter of the WP: standards and not respect their spirit? Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The capital letters already do what your parentheses would. And I just don't see a violation of the spirit of the policy here. Quigley (talk) 23:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

We already have on this page, though, a request to document a citation for what the GLF actually is. I've seen accounts that say it's the same thing as the Second Five-Year Plan, whereas other accounts say it was a CCP campaign which changed the substance of the Second Five-Year Plan. From what I've seen so far (still working on this), it seems the second description is correct, as the term doesn't seem to be part of the title of the Second Five-Year Plan, but there was apparently this editorial in the People's Daily inaugurating the beginning of a "Great Leap Forward" campaign. That needs to be clarified, whether in the title or elsewhere in the article. Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Then that is a content issue. The title can accommodate either the text saying "The Great Leap Forward refers to two things, the ... and ..." or "The Great Leap forward was ...". There is no need for a title change. Quigley (talk) 23:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

There are numerous entries on this page that have the word campaign in the title. Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:36, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

And there are a great many that do not. Quigley (talk) 23:56, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

But they're all on a page devoted to "campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party". Do you see a relevant difference between the ones that don't have the term in the title and the ones that do? Zachary Klaas (talk) 00:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Not one that could be generalized so broadly. Most of them use the common name in the English language literature, which sometimes includes 'campaign' and sometimes doesn't. Do you see such a pattern? What are you implying? Quigley (talk) 00:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Not implying anything. I think if they're all on a page that says they're CCP campaigns, they're probably all CCP campaigns and should be represented as such. I did manage to find an entry in William Safire's Political Dictionary with some clarifications about the GLF:

Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward" began to be mentioned in the Chinese media in 1957, not as part of any five-year plan, but as a special effort to dramatically advance the Chinese economy. It was officially adopted at the second session of the Eighth Party Congress between May and July of 1958, and is generally considered to have ended in mid-1960.

At the very least, we'll need to put this kind of a clarification in. I'm continuing to look for information about what was said at the Eighth Party Congress. Ideally, to substantiate my point, I'd find something voted on at that congress with "Great Leap Forward" as an actual title, but thus far I haven't found any information about the congress I could check online. Zachary Klaas (talk) 00:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Bad idea. Nothing more needs to be said. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Changing the title

Just so everyone understands, I am no longer pitching the quote idea. That being said, coming in and taking one millisecond to consider the question demonstrates bad faith, in my opinion. The title should be changed. Other pages about CCP campaigns have the word "campaign" in them. It's not an unreasonable suggestion to say that maybe this page should follow their lead. Zachary Klaas (talk) 16:01, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that "Great Leap Forward" is the common language used everywhere in books and newspapers, if you come with references that show that "Great Leap Forward campaign" is more prevalent we'll consider changing the title. man with one red shoe 17:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Quick look via categories shows that most articles with campaign in the title do so as part of a proper noun. Campaign would not be a proper noun here. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Check this out. If I understand your argument, then you should now be willing to support the change of the title to Great Leap Forward movement. Zachary Klaas (talk) 20:55, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Just a quick look: http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Great+Leap+Forward&word2=Great+Leap+Forward+movement The Great Leap Forward Movement doesn't seem to be as popular as Great Leap Forward, but I'm not totally opposed to this change (mildly opposed), let's see what others say though. man with one red shoe 22:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

If you do it in Chinese, it's a bit closer: http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=da+yue+jin&word2=da+yue+jin+yun+dong ... da yue jin is Great Leap Forward and da yue jin yun dong is Great Leap Forward movement. Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

As funny as it sounds the Chinese name doesn't matter, this is an English Wikipedia, we use names how are they used in English (even if they are a translation from another language). man with one red shoe 23:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

On the other pages about CCP campaigns, the Chinese translation is shown. Why is this one so different? Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Hiya. You must be new here. I did change the page. It was immediately reverted, and this discussion ensued. Thus, I wanted it to be clear that I had WP:CONSENSUS before proceeding with any changes. It is not yet clear that I have consensus, and indeed most input I have received before your comment indicated that I had not yet proved my point with the three people who indicated they had problems with the last change. (Okay, I know you're not "new here", but the way your comment came off was a little condescending, don't you think? I'm not "learning the ropes", been editing for a while now.) Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed move discussion

I'll go ahead and make the change. My prediction is that, the minute I do, people will be in here to reverse it, despite the fact that I was asking for their input before proceeding and no one deigned to give any. Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

You asked for input on your various other schemes, and you got it. "Great Leap Forward" is the common name (in English, but also on the Chinese Wikipedia), and that is the longstanding title. For such a change you knew was going to be controversial, you should have used {{Requested move}} to start a discussion which would have also prompted outside input, gauged consensus, and then an administrator would close the discussion properly. But you didn't; and you didn't even clearly propose a move to GLF "movement" here. It's already no surprise to you what I am going to do here, but now you should not be surprised about what you should do next. Quigley (talk) 15:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I didn't. I asked people to tell me what they thought. One person said make the change. Everyone else clammed up, including you. It takes actually making the change to wake everyone up, apparently. Anyway, I'll go ahead and make the request, as I do think it's justified. Zachary Klaas (talk) 15:55, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

You asked a question about whether you could "show" the "Chinese translation" of this campaign. You did not ask if you could complete a move to "movement". Quigley (talk) 16:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The title over the entire exchange reads "Changing the title". If we didn't completely understand one another, fine, now we do. But suggesting that I deliberately misconstrued what Schmucky said isn't reasonable, given that it was clear from the entirety of the exchange that I was trying to get the page title changed. Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:17, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It was not clear that you hadn't abandoned your quest to change the title at the time of your question to Schmucky, which was quite unrelated to the move. Quigley (talk) 18:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you misunderstood me, fine, now we understand one another. If I misunderstood Schmucky, it may have more to do with the fact that he comes in, says one sentence, then leaves. Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. This request, as noted by others below, attempts to substitute our own judgment of what the title should be for what the common title listed in English language reliable sources is, which is not in keeping with our naming conventions. In addition to our common naming policy, relevant here is Wikipedia:Article titles#Neutrality and article titles and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Article naming.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Great Leap Forward → Great Leap Forward movement — The "Great Leap Forward" was, by pretty much all accounts in retrospect, not a positive development in the history of China, and reputable sources in both English and Chinese often use the term "Great Leap Forward movement" to capture that it was a CCP campaign and not literally a "great leap forward". Zachary Klaas (talk) 16:19, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose: The Great Leap Forward is a proper noun, which was a slogan and a name that historians in retrospect used to describe the various campaigns and movements connected to it. The "movement" is but one characterization of some elements of the Great Leap Forward, and the Wikipedia article has been for a long time broader than that, including for example the Great Leap Forward policy. The current title, as the common name for this period, policy points out, can incorporate non-neutral terms like "Great": as the policy examples, Boston massacre, Tea Pot Dome scandal, Edward the Confessor. Quigley (talk) 16:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support: One of the arguments put forward to oppose the change is that the term is the most common. Google is often cited to support this point of view. However, many of those hits involve use of the term in quotation marks, because people realize the term carries loaded content. So I contest that this is the most used term for starters, and also note that "Great Leap Forward movement" has a large number of hits in its own right, both in English and in Chinese. I also used to support my case a source called "A glossary of political terms of the People's Republic of China" which presents the phrase as "Great Leap Forward Movement", suggesting that this is the preferred nomenclature for people who study politics in the PRC. This is not "cherry-picking" a source, this is presenting a source which goes to the heart of the question of what the term is supposed to be, according to people who study Chinese politics for a living. Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Actually, none of the hits in the first few pages of the Google results used quotation marks. That is to be expected; Great Leap Forward is not a neologism, while "Great Leap Forward movement" is. To take the habits of a Hong Kong dictionary and conflate it into "the preferred nomenclature for people who study politics in the PRC" is quite a stretch, especially considering all of the other reliable sources in the article which do not use "movement". Quigley (talk) 17:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

There are more hits for "Jenin massacre" than there are for "Battle of Jenin", but the Wikipedia article is entitled "Battle of Jenin" because numerous people contest the claim that it constitutes a massacre. If we slavishly followed WP:COMMONNAME, that wouldn't be allowed. Obviously there are limits to WP:COMMONNAME, and there should be. Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Numerous people outside of Wikipedia contested the Jenin's naming as a massacre. This is not the case for the GLF. Besides, as a recent event, the name has not so definitively and decisively been settled as in a historical topic such as this. Quigley (talk) 18:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

So you're telling me that people putting the term in quotes are not challenging the term? With respect, that's nonsense. Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

"So-called Great Leap Forward" gets 32,300 hits on Google. Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Not necessarily; it could be a stylistic choice, but it is not common practice here to put such names in quotes. Is «so-called "Great Leap Forward"» your new move proposal now? Quigley (talk) 18:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, seeing how much fun it's been to change the title of this page, I'm going to say no. Is there any possibility of getting stronger such language in the body of the article, though? Or have people just decided they know everything there is to know about how to represent the matter? Incidentally, one of the "so-called Great Leap Forward" hits is a peer-reviewed article from the journal Modern China called "A Tragedy of Good Intentions: Post-Mao Views of the Great Leap Forward". Interestingly, though the subtitle uses the term, the text of the article says "the so-called Great Leap Forward". So the term can be used by a source and yet be specifically identified as inaccurate by the same source. Am I really just tilting at windmills here, or is there something reasonable people should be discussing abou the use of this term? Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The article, not to mention every mention of the article that links to this article, makes it abundantly clear that the GLF ended in famine and failure. Slanted language is not needed, and it is certainly not encyclopedic tone. Quigley (talk) 18:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

By that logic, we should be referring to "phlogiston" on Wikipedia. We shouldn't have a page called "phlogiston theory" because all the people back in the day used to exclusively refer to a substance called "phlogiston" and not to some "theory", and all the links to the "phlogiston page" make it clear that oxygen explains everything that phlogiston was supposed to. Zachary Klaas (talk) 19:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

People in retrospect speak of a phlogiston theory, but people in retrospect still speak of the Great Leap Forward. Quigley (talk) 19:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, except for the ones who say "so-called". But have it your way. Seriously, I'm dropping this now.  :) Zachary Klaas (talk) 19:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Such a move would be as odd as using the titles Freddy Got Fingered film, Great Depression economic downturn or Slim Goodbody character. Powers ^T 17:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I ain't convinced that 'movement' (note, that the proposal has this in lower case, not part of an actual Proper Noun title) has much merit being tacked onto the end of this title. Great Leap Forward is a simple proper noun that works as an article title and there is no reason to complicate it with words that aren't part of the title. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
• Oppose. We should use the name that entered the English (the most common variant). It's as mentioned by others a common name, I see this explained in the text as "The Great Leap Forward was an economic and social campaign..." instead of "The Great Leap Forward movement was an economic and social campaign..." man with one red shoe 17:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, now I'm just fed up with all of you. Powers, all three of your examples are of things no one contests. Freddy Got Fingered is a film. The Great Depression was an economic downturn. Slim Goodbody was a character. The "Great Leap Forward", however, is generally conceded to have been the polar opposite of a great leap forward. It's a misnomer. Schmucky, you were the one that told me to make the change. Was that just to screw around with me? Man with one red shoe, this line that you're pointing to that illustrates enough for your purposes that the "Leap" was a campaign is language I put in. None of you have done anything to forge a real consensus on this issue...you seem to take some perverse delight in screwing with me, though. Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:34, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Did you not read the policy that Wikipedia article titles are not prescriptive (making judgments; deciding how events should be described) but descriptive (reflecting the common name used in reliable sources)? Quigley (talk) 17:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not making anything but a descriptive claim to say it was a movement. And you know (because I've already pointed out this page), that other such CCP policies are indeed described as "campaigns" or "movements". Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Those CPC campaigns or movements have those in their names because that is the common name for them. This is not the case for GLF. Quigley (talk) 18:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

And Quigley, where can I start with you? The lack of good faith you credit my intentions for changing the page title is simply breathtaking. It's like anyone who changes the name of a Wikipedia page is supposed to flagellate himself for not abiding by tradition. Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

You said there was no Chinese translation shown. I said fix it. You said nothing about a page move. I don't see at all how my response could be perceived as supporting a page move. Also, you seem to be assigning a POV that because this wasn't a great leap forward it should contain an extra word to implicate it's (perceived/actual/claimed) failure. Don't be silly. Common names, proper nouns, simple titles. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

It's not only well-established policy, but common sense that controversial changes should be discussed and consensus reached. I would say that you're the one assuming bad faith for interpreting the consensus against your proposal as everyone trying to "screw with you". Quigley (talk) 17:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Schmucky, go back and read the exchange. What I was saying immediately before your "sofixit" was that the page name needed to be changed. The title shown at the top of the exchange is "Changing the title". If you're honest with yourself, you'll see that what you said could have been taken as encouragement to change the title of the page. Quigley, I didn't say everyone was trying to screw with me. Read what I said. I said I thought Schmucky specifically was. If this is his defense, I'll accept that, but I think a reasonable person might have seen that as a provocative thing to say. Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I was surprised by the move because I didn't so broadly interpret Schmucky's comment, and I don't think "a reasonable person" would have, either. He was specifically replying to your proposal to include "the Chinese translation" (this became your preferred Chinese translation) on the page: this is clear by the number of colons; see threaded discussion. As for the "screwing with me" comment, quoted, "None of you have done anything to forge a real consensus on this issue...you seem to take some perverse delight in screwing with me, though." You is the pronoun, none of you is the antecedent. Plural. Quigley (talk) 18:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, then. My mistake. What do you propose to do to forge consensus on this issue? And, pray tell, will this consensus in any way involve me, or can I expect to be relegated to tinfoil-hat territory? Probably not, I'm guessing, because of course you concede my good faith... Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Consensus is not unanimity, nor is it false compromise. Quigley (talk) 18:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Understood, but neither is it what you're doing. I have to keep coming back to how my own edit was used in this argument - we shouldn't change the page title because my edit makes it clear that the GLF was a movement, so we don't need to say so in the title. Did any of you thank me for making this edit? Nope. But you'll use it to sock me with. That's not a consensus-building environment. That creates a purely adversarial relationship. It suggests not only that you won't happen to come to any consensus with me, but that you've already decided it's not worth the bother. Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

To which edit are you referring? I don't think that specific argument was ever used. And it's not about coming to a consensus with you, because you do not own this article, but about coming to a consensus of editors in line with policy. Whatever you think, I do not see you as an adversary, and I suggest you drop this inflammatory language. Quigley (talk) 18:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, you don't see me as an adversary, and if only I would stop being such an adversary, then I'd see that. Interesting.  :) Zachary Klaas (talk) 19:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't put words in my mouth. Quigley (talk) 19:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you're satisfied they aren't your words, then so am I. I'm going to go ahead and drop this now - you win on the name change, but I will see if there is anything I can add to this page that satisfies my concerns and doesn't cause people to go ballistic. I would appreciate it if everyone could be on their best behavior and try to take any future changes in the spirit in which they are offered. I don't think my concerns are marginal or silly, and I'd appreciate it if they were treated as if it's possible for something I say to have merit. You don't have to agree with everything, but I'm a person and deserve respect. Zachary Klaas (talk) 19:12, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Each point of yours was refuted on its merits. And a suggestion: since you don't want to "cause people to go ballistic", discuss potentially controversial changes on the talk page in the future. It's not required, but creates more civility. Quigley (talk) 19:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

• (ec)Oppose. Current title is the most appropriate.--Michig (talk) 19:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose 'Great Leap Forward' is the most common name in the English language. Flamarande (talk) 19:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not POV, not original research

Quigley - 1) The page already used the word "catastrophe" to describe how the Great Leap Forward ended. 2) A "catastrophe" is the opposite of a "Great Leap Forward" (okay, literally a "Great Leap Backward" would be the opposite, but that's pretty much a synonym for a catastrophe.) 3) The existing explanation for what constitutes a misnomer says that it's "a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue". 4) If the Great Leap Forward involves no great leap forward, but indeed the opposite of a great leap forward, then it is a misnomer.

Are you just bound and determined that no pointing out of anything related to the obvious falsehood that this term packs into it will be discussed on the page? Or is there anything you can do to help craft a version of this that you can accept? Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:19, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a perfectly ironic name :) The main reason that I see you are hung up on this and you don't accept what other editors say is that "Great Leap Forward involves no great leap forward", however you have to understand that names don't need to be true to exist Hundred Years' War comes to mind. It's a name, the fact that it didn't last 100 years is explained in the article, the same with this Great Leap Sideways.... misnomer or not that's the name in English. man with one red shoe 23:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The facts speak for themselves. Wikipedia doesn't need to pass on judgment; it would violate WP:NPOV. Quigley (talk) 00:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

If you want to convince me, Quigley, talk to me more as the Red Shoe Man is doing at the moment. I appreciate that, Red Shoe Man. It's like my arguments actually matter to you, even if you disagree. Zachary Klaas (talk) 00:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

To respond...if someone did add the statement that "Hundred Years War" is a misnomer, I don't think people would go as ballistic. People would probably say "well, yeah, I guess it is" and leave the statement. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe people would think I was taking a point of view on the Hundred Years War or something, or challenge me to document that a reputable source made this claim. Maybe someone would say I'm defending the view of either the English or the French.  :) But I think not. It's manifestly a misnomer and I think people would accept that. My point is that the same is true here, only to say it out loud, I guess, suggests that I'm stridently anti-communist, and we have to be fair to the communists, after all...but I don't think even the most determined Maoist would make the claim that there actually was any kind of a great leap forward from 1958-1961, so I'm not sure what the big show to have the appearance of neutrality is even for. It strikes me as a true-or-false statement. Zachary Klaas (talk) 00:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Editors don't maintain a neutral tone to satisfy English, French, or Maoist constituencies; they do it to uphold the quality and reputation of the encyclopedia. Whether such a pompous note would survive on the Hundred Years War article or not, it is clearly unnecessary, as the lead says that it lasted 116 years, as this lead says that the GLF ended in famine; such a note would only serve to editorialize. And of course your arguments matter to me, Zachary. Haven't I replied to every single one? Quigley (talk) 00:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Not nicely, no. But yes, you have replied. To respond to what you've said - there's no constituencies to be satisfied on either question. I'd have to look long and hard for people who think either "Hundred Years War" or "Great Leap Forward" factually represents what happened (if they know history). For me, the difference is that millions of people died as a result of these policies that were supposed to represent a "great leap forward", and it somewhat profanes their memory not to challenge the language being used. (Okay, maybe obliquely, we could say the same about people who died in the last 16 years of a war that in fact took 116 years to fight...but I think you get my point.) Zachary Klaas (talk) 00:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

But don't you see that because the title is in all capital letters, that is a signal to English language readers that it means it is a proper name for something and not a choice description of it? That when it is mentioned in all the other articles, that it is as a terrible setback? That the lead makes the history obviously clear already? That often the translations from Chinese campaigns of the time use such over-the-top Soviet-style language that cynical English language readers don't even need to read to have a negative impression? There is simply no confusion, and if there is, it is resolved in seconds. Quigley (talk) 01:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm tempted to ask "Then why the fuss about a sentence that says so directly?" but I know that argument wouldn't get anywhere. I think it's more that the suggestion is being made not only that "that's what they called it", but "that's what we and the rest of the world call it" as well. For myself, I'll never say that phrase without a quote around it or some kind of a qualification. I wonder, if they had a campaign to convince people rain is dry, would the page be entitled Rain Is Dry, rather than Rain Is Dry movement, or Rain Is Dry campaign or "Rain Is Dry"? How far does the statement have to be at variance with known facts before a reasonable editor has to do something to qualify it? Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I would argue that the further the statement is from the facts, the less qualification is needed, because the reader will obviously detect the falsehood; whereas subtle manipulations are more dangerous. Quigley (talk) 01:35, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

This discounts the possibility of people floating "Big Lie" kinds of statements (for example, like "Barack Obama is a Muslim", which 1 in every 5 people in the US believe despite this being a gigantic and easily proved falsehood), but I do understand your point of view on the subject. Anyway, where it stands now is that I'm very little convinced by most of what was said, but I can also see I'm not convincing anyone either. Suffice it to say I don't think Wikipedia is doing its job when it doesn't do its part to debunk things that are this clearly false. I know there are competing schools of perceived "truth" on many issues - but there's also real truth, and we owe it some respect. Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

But this is not a "big lie" repeated in earnest. Even modern historians inside China condemn this (and the Cultural Revolution; don't take it as an invitation to try to change the title of that too). As I outlined above, with this specific topic, it is extremely unlikely that someone reading this article or about this article would get the impression that the subject was indeed a "great leap forward". Quigley (talk) 03:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, just reading the Hundred Years War page...there were two periods of peace lasting 9 and 6 years...so I guess it might be the 101 Years War... :D Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:00, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikiworld sure is strange

So, according to Red Shoe Man's last edit, calling the Great Leap Forward a "Great Leap Backward" is an editorialization, but calling it a humanitarian crisis and economic disaster isn't. That's kind of a weird double standard. Saying the truth is saying the truth, but admitting that it's the truth is horribly slanted.

When are people going to admit this isn't about neutrality but a kind of phony appearance of neutrality. The fact is, it is generally conceded to be a "Great Leap Backward" and something should say so. Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:04, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there a reliable source that says it was a "Great Leap Backwards"? Is there a reliable source that calls it a humanitarian crisis and economic disaster? If there are reliable sources for either of them then the descriptions belong. If no sources exist that call it those things then the descriptions do not belong. ~~ GB fan ~~ 14:11, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure you're really asking me to find those, GB...I found a reliable source (a peer-reviewed article in the journal Modern China) which refers to it as the "so-called Great Leap Forward" and that wasn't considered good enough. But I'll look. There might be. Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:20, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't asking you to do anything. I was just trying to explain how the strange wikiworld works. It looks like you have found something to help. Information, especially on a contentious article like this, does not belong unless a reliable source makes those statements. I am not even sure how this got to be on my watchlist because the subject does not interest me. ~~ GB fan ~~ 15:07, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

After two minutes of searching I found this... http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827739,00.html - is that enough, or does "Great Leap Backward" have to outnumber "Great Leap Forward" in Google hits before any acknowledgment the term is a misnomer appears in the lead? Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I removed that Great Lean Backward because I thought it was your interpretation, but if you have a reference please put it next to it. man with one red shoe 14:31, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

You'll accept that with the reference? Then I'll put it in. Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant, as long as it's clearly referenced and not something twe coined it's acceptable. Thanks. man with one red shoe 14:59, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Surely the words "Great Leap Backwards" would only appear as attributed to a source, not as a serious description of the political movement in question, right? The Sound and the Fury (talk) 18:08, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

If you think the source needs to be identified, go ahead and identify it. I'm content to let it remain as a description of the political movement because (and I know this annoys people) in truth it was a Great Leap Backward. At the risk of quoting Sarah Palin, calling it the "Great Leap Forward" is putting the lipstick on the pig. But I won't contest any change you propose to make in terms of making the source more apparent. Zachary Klaas (talk) 21:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I made a small change along those lines. Update: I also removed the phrase later in the article, to stop a simple repetition of the same point. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 17:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Is the term still in the article? I don't think it is notable enough to be included and it doesn't really help understand the movement either. It's a term that a journalist came up with, that's fine, but we are not improving the article by mentioning it. Laurent (talk) 04:02, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Not since the time of this writing. I replaced that paragraph of angry polemics with a paragraph about the PRC government's assessment of the GLF after it happened, and how it lead up to the next item in the accompanying history sidebar, the Cultural Revolution. Quigley (talk) 04:42, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

If you're going to replace the paragraph, could it be with something that doesn't sound like a rationalization for the Great Leap? The paragraph you added made it sound like a slight mistake for which Mao was rapped on the fingers, and a pretext for evil "capitalist roaders" (*cue melodramatic music here*) to take power from Mao and lead China. Zachary Klaas (talk) 12:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest not changing the paragraph, however. Numerous sources now document the use of the term "Great Leap Backward" to describe what the GLF was. It's clearly a widespread characterization, used by scholars and laypersons alike, as well as by contemporary Chinese officials. Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, anger about the effects of the "Great Leap Forward" doesn't make one non-neutral, it makes one human. Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, "Great Leap Backward" sounds like a joke and I doubt it's used by so many scholars. I've never seen it in any recent book about China anyway. The GLF was a disaster and I think the article makes that very clear. I just don't see how adding joke terms is going to improve the article or help readers understand the movement. Laurent (talk) 16:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that's an ill-informed opinion if you're not basing it on the sources that are linked, none of which present this term as a joke. But addressing your wider point, this article, outside of this specific edit, continues to refrain from pointing out in any direct way that the Great Leap Forward was the opposite of what it claimed to be. These articles I've cited all do so directly. The people who wrote these articles are making what they think is a necessary point, that referring to a "Great Leap Forward" without directly noting that it wasn't one is like referring to the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984 without directly noting that it isn't one. Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, specifically with regard to your "I've never seen it in any recent book" comment: Huaiyin Li, Village China Under Socialism and Reform: A Micro-History, 1948-2008, Stanford University Press, 2009, p. 81. That's last year. Recent enough? Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:38, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I also disagree with the need to use "Great Leap Backward," especially in the lead. It's a kind of pun. Why is that important? Cut it. Anyway, Zachary Klaas appears quite determined on the matter, so I say no more.The Sound and the Fury (talk) 19:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the only allowable edits are done by people who don't care about what they're editing? Your own user page (User:TheSoundAndTheFury) says that you are interested in Chinese politics. Does that mean we should be saying "no more" to you? Just looking for a little consistency here. Zachary Klaas (talk) 20:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand how what you said is connected with what I said. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 20:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You said you "say no more" because I was "determined" to edit the page a certain way. I am enquiring whether being determined is itself considered evidence that the edit is not to be allowed. I am enquiring whether caring about what I edit is enough to get it deleted. You evidently care about Chinese politics, so I am also enquiring whether the fact that you care about what you edit is enough to get it deleted. Zachary Klaas (talk) 20:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

He was conceding that since you appear to be unmoved by most of the other editors' strong arguments against inclusion, that he'll just let you push these silly puns and wantonly remove the information (such as the paragraph about the post-GLF CPC assessment) that you disagree with. Of course, this makes a mockery of Wikipedia, and if this persists, it might have to be brought out of this talk page. Quigley (talk) 21:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Put the post-GLF CPC assessment back in if you're that attached to it. I'll expect, since you're not being disingenuous here, that you'll not just use that as an excuse to delete the element I have added (with five supporting sources). Zachary Klaas (talk) 21:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Rest assured, independently good reasons to delete your element are all over this page, five cherry-picked sources or ten. Quigley (talk) 21:49, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Splendid. I'll just wait while you tell me what they are. By the way, when you replace your "post-GLF CPC assessment", please leave the part out about capitalist roaders, as according to that page, that is hardly a neutral term - the term is defined in Maoist thought and are not necessarily considered as anything else but jargon by non-Maoists. This is why the first words of the Capitalist roader page say "In Maoist thought, a capitalist roader is..."

Just another small concern here. Neither Liu Shaoqi nor Deng Xiaoping is on record as being either capitalist or "sympathetic to capitalism". Could you make it clearer to what you are referring by claiming they were "sympathetic to capitalism"? Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The pipe to capitalist roaders was intended to give background information to the reader about a specific faction of the CPC. Of course I did not use the jargon in the main text. If that confuses you, I have removed the pipe until I can think of a better way to present the material. I have also made more technically correct the characterizations of Liu and Deng, although I am sure you know what I meant in the original wording. Quigley (talk) 22:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I did know, yes, but the average reader coming across this page would not know. The term "capitalist roader" is a term Mao used to denigrate his enemies, somewhat along the lines of "counterrevolutionary", and it's certainly imprecise to describe Liu and Deng in any event. Indeed, though Deng did open China up somewhat to some market processes, he never represented what he was doing in terms of being anything less than Socialism with Chinese characteristics. The precision is important here. Anyway, you responded appropriately to my concerns and the article is better now that this is clarified. Thanks. Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

(Outdent) Why so much focus on the introduction? I think the term might be fine in the section or subsection on consequences. The intro already states, quite plainly, that it was a monumental failure so I don't understand the devotion to increasing the level of criticism and pushing the use of this term. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

As a general comment on Wikipedia and not a speculation of Zachary's motives, many casual readers will come to a Wikipedia article and read only the introduction. Also, what people read first (in the lead) affects their interpretation of what comes next (in the text). So the lead is often a battleground of opinion where the article text may not be. Quigley (talk) 21:11, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed what people read does influence interpretation, and this is why people unacquainted with this period in Chinese history will want to know in what way China leapt forward and be somewhat confused by what they're reading. The title makes it appear as if this were a period characterised by some kind of movement forward. We've already decided (for narrow WP:COMMONNAME reasons that seem to me to apply the letter but not the spirit of the rule) to do nothing to alert the reader that this was a movement calling itself "Great Leap Forward" rather than an objectively real forward leap of some kind. Barring any direct statement that there was no leap forward (and quite the opposite), yes, smart readers might conclude by the end of the lead that the term is at best ironic and at worst a misnomer, but readers a bit more slow on the uptake might continue reading down the page for something that might explain to them why it was a leap forward.

I thought it was very interesting, in particular, that a guide to the AP test in world history specifically called the GLF a "great leap backward" because they thought this was the salient point about what happened that the would-be test-takers needed to know in order to "get" this period in history. Why doesn't Wikipedia realise it has a similar responsibility to educate people about the salient point here? Zachary Klaas (talk) 21:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't have a viewpoint. It's crystal clear already. From the lead, "The Great Leap ended in catastrophe, triggering a widespread famine that resulted in possibly more than 20 million deaths." Much more useful to the reader than punny pejoratives. Quigley (talk) 21:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

First of all, it's not a pun. See that link to tell the difference. It's not even a play on words, it's a straight-out statement that the "Great Leap Forward" is the opposite of what it says. Zachary Klaas (talk) 21:47, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

A semantic argument with you would be even less productive than a content argument. However, I did improve your "element" by noting that "Great Leap Backward" is a coinage by select publications, replacing your vague and unsupported assertion that this was a "widespread" name. It still is a POV statement to make in the lead, no matter how it is presented, and it should be removed. Quigley (talk) 21:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Terrific. I'm glad we could come to a consensus on the sentence.  :) Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Quite the contrary, there is a consensus for removing the sentence, which you are filibustering. That I modified the wording of your sentence does not mean that I agree with its inclusion; I have been very clear in that regard. Quigley (talk) 22:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I see. Then you're going to remove it? And all five of the sources? Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:17, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You would probably revert it if I did. I would like to see a more permanent solution, the best scenario being that you graciously accede to consensus. Quigley (talk) 22:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't. Go ahead. Delete away. Five sources confirming.  :) Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I just did; I sure hope this wasn't a trap! :) Quigley (talk) 22:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Note the following language from WP:COMMONNAME, which was ignored in our previous debates about renaming the page as it is being ignored now in this current debate: "The ideal title for an article will also satisfy the other criteria outlined above; ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more common. For example, tsunami is preferred over the arguably more common, but less accurate tidal wave." It is not inaccurate to call the subject of this page the Great Leap Forward movement, for that was what that movement called itself. It is inaccurate to say there was a Great Leap Forward in China from 1958-1961. Everything I have tried to do on this page is an attempt to get the page to reflect that. I regret nothing I have done in that regard, and in retrospect, I should have found this part of WP:COMMONNAME earlier than I did, because it completely supports what I have been trying to do. Whoever surveys this talk page should take this particular part of the WP:COMMONNAME rule into consideration when making decisions about how content should be handled on this page. Zachary Klaas (talk) 04:54, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I think you are cherry picking the criteria from WP:COMMONNAME to make them fit your point of view. "Great Leap Forwards" certainly satisfies the Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness and perhaps even Consistency criteria. The particular example you've picked is a very subtle case that doesn't apply to the change you're trying to make. Tsunami - unlike "Great Leap Backward - IS a common name, it's just perhaps a bit less common than "tidal wave". What you're trying to do is different - you want to replace a common name with a non-common one. Laurent (talk) 11:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

When we discussed this originally (look at the preserved discussion) I showed that "Great Leap Forward movement" is also quite common, in both English and Chinese. Also, I'm not cherry picking from the policy, this was buried so far down in the policy that I didn't even know it was there. However, it is, in my opinion, the only part of that policy which avoids the problem we've otherwise been having here. My question to you: are you contesting that "Great Leap Forward" is inaccurate? If so, where was this great leap forward - in what part of Chinese history was there such a leap? Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:09, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

When GLF "movement" appeared, it did so not as a whole structure, such as "Great Leap Forward Movement", but as a description of the Great Leap Forward (small m). In other words, "the movement called the Great Leap Forward" says the same thing. People sometimes also say "Solidarity movement", but of course the name is just Solidarity. Zachary, you must realize that the argument has never been raised here that "Great Leap Forward", translated literally, is a good description of the events. However, it is the common and proper name for the event, used as such by historians. According to Wikipedia:Article titles#Neutrality and article titles, a single common name for a subject can be non-neutral, like the Boston Massacre. "Tsunami" is a different case because the term has long fallen out of favor with the geologists and other professionals, who actively discourage it, and that is reflected in the literature. What you're trying to do on Wikipedia is to pre-empt the vast majority of secondary sources on which we rely, and introduce a new term (and later scrounge up sources that support your favorite neologisms). This kind of activism is a no-go. Quigley (talk) 19:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Look at what you've just typed. The link for Solidarity you've just included links to "Solidarity (Polish trade union)". That's exactly the kind of title I think would clarify things here. I would gladly accept "Great Leap Forward (CCP campaign)" or something along those lines as a rename for this page. By the example you've just directed us to, the name of this page should have been changed. Zachary Klaas (talk) 19:34, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Just a note: Solidarity has that parenthetical explanation to disambiguate it from other Wikipedia pages.--Carwil (talk) 19:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Note noted. There is also a Great Leap Forward disambiguation page. The main page for Solidarity is a page describing what the word means (i.e., what sociologists would describe as a solidaristic relationship). This page is the main page for Great Leap Forward despite the fact that it refers to a period in Chinese history during which no great leap forward took place. Zachary Klaas (talk) 19:54, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad that silly Great Leap Backward catchphrase is now gone. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 23:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course you mean that you're glad that catchphrase is gone. If you meant that "silly" catchphrase is gone, this is a pretty obvious example of WP:UNCIVIL - baiting another editor and belittling his contributions. Zachary Klaas (talk) 00:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the irony is intended, but right now you are doing precisely the wikilawyering about which you complain. The Sound and the Fury did not "belittle your contributions"; he was referencing the content; the phrase. Unless by this you let slip that the phrase you said was your own original contribution, and not the phrase that "historians and journalists have gone out of their way to use". Ruh-roh. Quigley (talk) 00:22, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Then I presume he will call Harvard political scientist Roderick MacFarquhar and University of Texas historian Huaiyin Li "silly", as their works both use the phrase, and as a serious and professional characterisation of the outcomes the "Great Leap Forward" led to, not as a "joke", a "pun" or even as a pejorative really. They meant that, in their professional opinion, the "Great Leap Forward" was literally the opposite of what those words mean. I think anyone who takes a serious look at this exchange will know that it was an uncivil comment and that I am owed an apology. Zachary Klaas (talk) 00:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Even those lofty academics could not use the term seriously. The only reason it appears in MacFarquhar's work is because he quoted a senior Chinese politician who used it, in the context of post-GLF assessments by the government (which by the way I expanded, but you removed because you thought it was "a Maoist edit"—who owes whom an apology?). Li also uses it in quotes, treatment that distances the author from the term unlike Great Leap Forward, which appears repeatedly unquoted. They were obviously aware of the fact that this term is not part of the academic or common lexicon, and so made no comment about the naming of the GLF at all; only mentioning your phrase in passing. Quigley (talk) 01:14, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Your edit used the phrase "capitalist roader" in the article. Capitalist roader is a Maoist jargon term (as is made clear on the Wikipedia page of that name). I stand by that characterisation of your edit. We did work out that particular issue, and now the article appropriately identifies Liu and Deng as people not on the same part of the political spectrum as Mao, but not "capitalists" (Deng self-identified as being in favour of a "socialism with Chinese characteristics"). Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:37, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

"Capitalist roader" was only a wikilink—article titles can be non-neutral as I pointed out before—and was entirely appropriate, because after all, I was chronicling the heated debates and purges of the CPC in the aftermath of the GLF. Demanding fidelity to self-identification with the jargon "socialism with Chinese characteristics" in the same edit shows a lack of consistency.

Perhaps more dangerous than being "Maoist", before that edit, the article misleadingly implied that the GLF is seen as disastrous only "outside of China", thereby perpetuating an ugly stereotype about an insular China. You repeat this canard in a watered-down form, pretending that you are fighting a tiny contingent of "Maoists" that have a positive view of this event. The Chinese government's assessment must have been an embarrassing revelation. Quigley (talk) 01:51, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Referred to Content Noticeboard

On WP:Content noticeboard, it says I'm supposed to let people know that I've posted about something to that noticeboard. I have done so, and I am letting you know this here. Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

A possibly useful source

Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:14, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I have incorporated it into the "consequences" section in this edit. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:11, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I do not know when I will get a chance to look at it, but I have heard that Dikotter's research in that book is new and reveals many untold aspects of the famine. It may be grounds for recasting several parts of this page. I invite the diligent students of communist China to get to work. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 02:48, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The book is probably more appropriate to the Great Chinese Famine article. The articles about the book undoubtedly give more of what this article doesn't need—sensational death figures and moral outrage—and less of what we do need: the history that isn't so often repeated, but is essential to understanding. Quigley (talk) 04:48, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I guess you are not familiar with Professor Dikotter's work.... The Sound and the Fury (talk) 02:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Will you pleasantly surprise me? Quigley (talk) 03:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Would that I could. Check out The Age of Openness. He Rocks. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 19:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Transcript of the discussion from the Content noticeboard

This edit history documents what I am complaining about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Leap_Forward&diff=385999654&oldid=385996585

Five reputable sources identify that "Great Leap Backward" is a phrase used to describe China's "Great Leap Forward", including the Harvard scholar Roderick MacFarquhar (acknowledged as a major Chinese history expert and author of a well-regarded book on this period in China's history), historian Huaiyin Li of the University of Texas, two popular media sources (Time and the New York Times) and a guide to the AP World History exam, edited by historian Deborah Vess at Georgia College and State University, explaining the "Great Leap Forward" to would-be takers of the AP test. All five of the sources specifically use this phrase to contradict the assumption built into the term that China experienced some sort of leap forward during this period in history.

The main reason given for the deletion of this segment of the lead is that referring to the period as a "Great Leap Backward" constitutes taking a side and establishing a point of view (WP:POV). The phrase "Great Leap Forward" itself, however, involves a point of view. That is why these historians and journalists have gone out of their way to use this phrase to directly contradict this built-in premise.

Because WP:COMMONNAME specifically allows non-neutral terminology to be used in titles of articles, my previous efforts to find a more neutral title for the article have been rejected. This being the case, I have made an effort instead to ensure that the lead reflects that there do exist persons who reject this term's accuracy. My concern is that people will be confused by the title and end up searching somewhere on the page for clarity about whether the "Great Leap Forward" actually involved some kind of a great leap forward for China. The AP World History exam prep book I cited as a source specifically contradicts this because of the pretty clear concern that those first learning about this period in Chinese history would get the wrong idea because this term "Great Leap Forward" is used to describe the period. Wikipedia never contradicts this assumption that would otherwise likely be made.

It has also been suggested that my additions violate WP:CHERRY. If this were true, then there would be some collection of sources that establish that the "Great Leap Forward" really involved a great leap forward, which I am ignoring, and instead substituting a small number of sources more conducive to my viewpoint. To my knowledge, there are a tiny number of sources, mostly from committed Maoists, that argue that the "Great Leap Forward" was not uniformly horrible, but I am unaware of any large number of reputable sources making the claim that the "Great Leap Forward" involved a great leap forward. There are, on the other hand, numerous sources suggesting the contrary. So that argument doesn't seem plausible.

Comments also suggest my additions violate WP:EDITORIAL. This seems to be based on the idea that it is in-bounds to say that the Great Leap Forward movement "ended in catastrophe" (the actual language currently on the page) but observing that numerous historians and journalists therefore call it a "Great Leap Backward" is out-of-bounds. These are both objective statements. It did end in catastrophe, and notable historians and journalists have termed it the "Great Leap Backward" as a result.

It seems to me that any edit which expunges from the record five sources derived from the analysis of China/world history experts and world affairs journalists demonstrates a pretty clear lack of respect for WP:RS sourcing. Wikipedia is in a scary situation when people delete a statement with five proper and reputable sources because they contradict the assumption built into the article's misleading title. Wikipedia is supposed to reveal facts, not conceal them.

Can editors please look in on the debate at Talk:Great Leap Forward? Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:36, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

It is utterly false that "historians and journalists have gone out of their way to use this phrase"—that is, Zachary's favorite new phrase he is using to advance his "truth", "Great Leap Backwards"—when referring to the Great Leap Forward. An instant search on Google web, Google books, and Google Scholar will tell you that much. No one is arguing (not even the Chinese government) that the Great Leap Forward was actually a great leap forward, but the neutral description of the famine and deaths already gives the requisite clarity, as the description of the Hundred Years War (which really wasn't a hundred years) does for its subject. This argument for the inclusion of Zachary's contentious statement, with reference to sources, is relatively new; the bulk of the argument for his changes is that Wikipedia should promote "truth": sources were fished out to support them later, as the article and talk history shows. Quigley (talk) 00:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

May I request to know whether, by using the word truth in quotes in the above comment, Quigley is accusing me of lying? If he is suggesting that I believe certain things are true and capable of being verified, then of course I do. But if he is suggesting that my "truth" is not the real one, then he's saying I'm lying. I think that would, in that case, properly count as a WP:UNCIVIL remark. May I ask which implication he is making? Zachary Klaas (talk) 23:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

No; I was directly quoting you from this edit, in which to people who said that neutrally stating the facts of the deaths and not editorializing was adequate, you replied, "Saying the truth is saying the truth, but admitting that it's the truth is horribly slanted." You have made it clear that the name you are pushing is The Truth, in contrast to the sources' name, which is The Lies. This advocacy is antithetical to Wikipedia. Quigley (talk) 00:07, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Could I ask whomever is ultimately to be responding to this dispute to read that edit Quigley just posted. It's quite clear from the context that's not what I was saying. I have no more access to The Truth in capital letters than anyone else. I was saying that it seemed odd to me that numerous examples of how bad the Great Leap Forward was could not be followed with an acknowledgment that, indeed, historians and journalists have drawn that obvious inference. The analysis of WP:RS sources is from where we should be drawing our conclusions, and I provided five examples of how historians and journalists, in fact, did draw that inference. That not every article or book that's ever been written uses the phrase "Great Leap Backward" is not the point; the point is that several did, and indeed some are written by reknowned China experts. I must say that I'm the most upset that the reference to Roderick MacFarquhar, who is listed at the end of the article as the author of a well-received book our readers are suggested to consult for further information, was deleted. Dr. MacFarquhar is a Harvard political scientist who has written extensively about Chinese politics. Note his Google Scholar citation list, with numerous highly-regarded works on Chinese politics and history. Here's what MacFarquhar said in the reference I added:

Looking back on those grim days, Chinese economists are harsh in their condemnation. Hsueh Mu-ch'iao, now the doyen of his profession, has talked about the "colossal waste and disproportion". Sun Yeh-fang described the leap as a "disruption of socialism". Lo Keng-mo, once a Vice Chairman of the State Planning Commission, has said "the great leap forward became a great leap backward". The figures confirm that judgment.

As you can see, an acknowledged Chinese politics expert - as clear of a WP:RS source as there ever was - is quoting a senior Chinese official using this characterisation. And then he, in his professional opinion as a political scientist, confirms that the term is a reasonable characterisation. There is no part of this that indicates that anyone is making a "joke" or a "pun", or even that this is meant as a "pejorative". It's a serious and professional characterisation of how the "Great Leap Forward" was, in fact, the opposite of what those words mean. Zachary Klaas (talk) 00:26, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

You are stretching it too far. Mr. MacFarquhar did not make any comment about the appropriateness of the term "Great Leap Forward", nor did Lo Keng-mo, who actually even used Great Leap Forward literally in the "characterization" to describe the initial years (the GDP did grow for a time). Mr. MacFarquhar did not endorse the term; he simply did not disparage it. Its use, as exemplified by the the AP test guide, is as an easy-to-remember catchphrase to quickly categorize the event as "bad". It helps none in understanding the event, which as with all events, had good elements and bad elements. Luckily, unlike politicians (whom Mr. MacFaquhar ultimately quoted), or exam pamphlet makers, Wikipedia can explore the nuances of the Great Leap Forward and neutrally describe the consequences, without making any judgments about whether they were progress or regress, attributed or not. Quigley (talk) 00:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not stretching it at all. "The figures confirm that judgment" is what he said, and the judgment he was referring to is the judgment that "the great leap forward became a great leap backward". I am quoting him directly. Your interpretation of what MacFarquhar "really meant" is WP:OR, if that term has any meaning at all.

Can I just ask when any editors plan on getting involved in regulating this dispute? Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:01, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Reminder: this is not "what MacFarquhar" said, it is what he quoted, and he quoted the Chinese Vice Chairman of the State Planning Commission, who was the one who actually used the phrase, speaking in capacity of the government. I don't need OR to know the government's recent position on the GLF; because they are quite open about it, and I wrote about that a bit on the article itself. Quigley (talk) 01:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe it is as plain as it could be that MacFarquhar was both quoting the official and agreeing, in his capacity as a political scientist, with the substance of what the quoted official was saying. Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:28, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

No; saying that the figures support that it was a sharp economic decline is not implicitly commenting on the propriety of the phrase. That phrase only appears once in his book, and that is in that quote of the Vice Minister. If he "agreed" with it, and felt that it was an imperative framing device as you seem to believe, wouldn't he have used it more in the book? He didn't, because explaining the details of the Great Leap Forward is enough; no need for petty name-calling. Quigley (talk) 01:37, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

That is your interpretation. What MacFarquhar actually said is what is at issue here. He was not equivocal on the matter. He agreed unreservedly with the official he was quoting. Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

He absolutely did not "agree unreservedly with the official he was quoting"; his quote was quite sanitary and detached from his professional endorsement. Quoted, "The figures confirm that judgment". That is, that the Great Leap Forward at one point went into sharp decline. He didn't say, "The phrase 'Great Leap Forward' is misleading, and I recommend people use 'Great Leap Backwards' instead"; that must be your interpretation. Quigley (talk) 01:57, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Continuation

I think we should continue the discussion here where the other editors can see it. Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:47, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

That is a really a logistical nightmare; cut-and-paste duplicating the content in two areas. At least find some way of transcluding it so it updates automatically on both pages. Until then, I will continue to reply at the content dispute page on this particular discussion. Quigley (talk) 01:53, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you know how to do that? If so, go ahead and do it. Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course, bear in mind that the content dispute page specifically says to keep comments short on there and we've already gone way past doing that. So perhaps it would be better to keep things here. But up to you. Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:57, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

It does say that, so I will switch my comments to here. In retrospect, not introducing whole new arguments on that board, and just linking to an active discussion here could have kept it really short and not provoked reply. Quigley (talk) 02:02, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Return to the debate

Okay, picking up from your last point - how you get that "the figures confirm that judgment", when applied to a comment suggesting that the "Great Leap Forward" had become the opposite of a great leap forward, isn't a claim that the name "Great Leap Forward" is misleading, I can't fathom in the least. Also, the sense of this doesn't have to be "I recommend people use 'Great Leap Backwards' instead." At no point have I attempted to change the name of the page to that, and it wouldn't be appropriate to do so. But if the name remains an unqualified "Great Leap Forward", not "Great Leap Forward movement" or "Great Leap Forward (campaign)" or something along those lines, then I think it's our responsibility to reflect that the title of the page represents a misnomer because the very opposite of a great leap forward happened. I have no problem calling it the Great Leap Forward movement or campaign because that's what it was. Calling it "Great Leap Forward" gives Wikipedia's endorsement to the idea that it involved a leap forward, and people disagree about that. WP:COMMONNAME is not a license to completely slant the article. Zachary Klaas (talk) 04:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

These words are not being parsed literally. "Great Leap Forward" means something different than each individual word combined, "great", "leap", and "forward"—that's why they're in capital letters. It's not only me; your sources also understand this and thus don't need to go into a discussion about the name. If someone did parse the words literally, they wouldn't make sense. How great? Leap from what? Forward in which way? So there is no endorsement of any idea. And the article is not slanted, at least in the way that you're thinking. Quigley (talk) 04:40, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

At last we agree on something. If someone parsed the words literally, they indeed do not make sense. This, however, was my point the whole time.  :) Zachary Klaas (talk) 04:45, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

However, most people literate in English realize it is a proper name and don't. That was my point. Quigley (talk) 05:43, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I am sure that you are not suggesting I am not literate, and thus I await your withdrawing this comment, which is WP:UNCIVIL as written. Zachary Klaas (talk) 12:10, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Can I just ask you why you think the heavens will fall down if the name of the page were changed to, let's say, "Great Leap Forward (campaign)"? Was it not a campaign? Have I changed the words Great Leap Forward? Also, there is a Great Leap Forward disambiguation page which distinguishes, for example, "Great Leap Forward (band)" or "Great Leap Forward (The 4400 episode)". This would satisfy me, and, if you think about it, it probably should satisfy you as well. How does such a title for the page misrepresent anything? Zachary Klaas (talk) 04:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguator parentheses are not needed because this page is what most people want to get to, and is the most referenced subject when people mention the Great Leap Forward. The first clause of the first sentence mentions says that it was a campaign anyway. Quigley (talk) 05:43, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but it's such a reasonable compromise. I'm going to continue to try and find some kind of way to establish some balance on the page otherwise - perhaps not the things I've tried, but something (you can pretend to be as shocked by this as you want to, but let's face it, I'm not going to let this rest). This is a compromise which causes no misrepresentation and which would clearly satisfy me, but you're just going to shove your opinion on this down my throat to teach me a lesson not to mess with important editors such as yourself? If you're suggesting that people would regard the page as non-encyclopedic because it contains the word "(campaign)" in parentheses after the title, aren't you just being melodramatic? Isn't the problem merely that you perceive me as having a personal agenda, not that any such agenda would be really be served by the change? Zachary Klaas (talk) 11:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Zachary do you really take proper name titles so literally that you think they need to be debunked as titles? This continued discussion that the title endorses some false truth is just... preposterous. It is named what it is named. That's all it means. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

When they're policies that resulted in (as the conservative estimates have it) more than ten million people dying, then yes. I'm not aware that the punk band to which you're referring caused any deaths. This title, however, is a euphemism, suggesting there was some possible "up side" to a policy that, as all concede, resulted in famine and misery. "War is Peace." "Freedom is Slavery." And "China had a Great Leap Forward." You're damn right it needs to be debunked as a title. It's doublethink. Zachary Klaas (talk) 11:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

And I think you know making the point the way you just made it was designed to present my opinion in a cartoonish sort of way instead of taking my viewpoint seriously, which is WP:UNCIVIL. (People who don't know to what I'm referring should click on the words "proper name titles" in what Schmucky just said to see what that links to.) Zachary Klaas (talk) 12:01, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Zachary, I don't get the urgency of this request. Is or is not campaign in the first sentence of the article? Can't anyone who reads the lead understand that GLF, like other proper nouns, was the name of a camapaign? The lead doesn't claim "China had a great leap forward called the Great Leap Forward," it documents "China had a campaign called the Great Leap Forward and it was a deadly catastrophe." Such clarifications are not essential to other politically dubious, common names such as Manifest Destiny, Missile gap, or No Child Left Behind, but rigorous discussion of the facts is. Quigley, I would prefer that some summary of outside evaluation, beyond the CPC-internal reviews, be included in the lead, preferably by economists, political scientists, and historians. It's possible that "great leap backward" is the best summary, but I'm not convinced yet; perhaps something less like a slogan and more like an overall characterization. Maybe you two could come to meaningful summary that you can agree on.--Carwil (talk) 12:44, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Your examples, I think, all show what I would hope would be done with this article. The Manifest Destiny article refers to the defined term as a "belief" which "fell out of favor by 1960". The Missile Gap article refers to the defined term using this characterisation: "Like the bomber gap of only a few years earlier, it is believed that the 'gap' was known to be illusionary from the start, and was being used solely as a political tool, another example of policy by press release." The No Child Left Behind article is actually entitled "No Child Left Behind Act", which was its formal name as an Act of Congress, and which serves to make the distinction that it is not a fact accepted by all viewpoints that "no children have been left behind". All three of these clarifications put the title in the proper context. We do not have something similar in this article. It is possible for someone unacquainted with the topic to read the article and still ask the question "well, then why was this a great leap forward for China?"

I'd like to think Quigley and others will take your suggestion that a summary of outside evaluation be added to the lead. I'm not sure they will given the state of discourse in here, but I hope that they will. Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:13, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

No, the reason that the No Child Left Behind Act is named that is because it is an Act of Congress, and by convention (not on Wikipedia, I mean) acts are named this way. It has nothing to do with debunking the title. Quigley (talk) 01:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

My fear is that no language, no matter how supported by economists, political scientists or historians, will be accepted if it makes the case that the "leap" involved retrogression rather than progress, hence falsifying (or at least qualifying) the claim of the title. People have made it pretty clear that they consider even scholarly arguments to that effect editorialisations. Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

You haven't imported any scholarly arguments to the page, and by this I mean figures etc. All that you want to add are simplistic denunciations to refute the title.

Also, maybe my language wasn't clear in the past, but the details of the CPC assessment is not in the lead; it just explains the consequences for the government and how it transitioned to another period in Chinese history. If "outside evaluations" add something unique, for example, if one historian explored the effects of the GLF on agriculture in China, or on the subsequent GDP changes, that would certainly merit inclusion. What's being proposed here are not evaluations like this, but a condemnation of the GLF using hyperbolic and derogatory language, hiding behind authorities. Quigley (talk) 01:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

For a general view for historians, please consult this link, representing pages from the Cambridge History of China. Note at the bottom of page 483 continuing on to page 484 the following statement:

In many respects, the best comparison of the degree of disruption in the Great Leap and Cultural Revolution period are the figures for the productivity of investment (capital-output ratios) in Tables 14 and 15 in the following section. As these figures indicate, enormous amounts of investment produced only modest increases in production or none at all. The growth of national income for the entire 1958-65 period was less than half of the 1966-78 period, and it took almost twice the level of investment to produce a given increase in output in the former period as in the latter. In short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster. The Cultural Revolution at its peak (1967-8) was a severe but essentially temporary interruption of a magnitude experienced by most countries at one time or another.

Skipping ahead to Table 15 on page 493, you can see that the period of the Great Leap (1958-1962) was the only period in which there was no growth for the Chinese economy (a negative growth rate of -4.3%), and hence for which no capital-output ratio could be calculated (using the methodology they use of dividing the elements in column 1 of the table by the elements in column 2, this would be a capital-loss ratio of -7.16).

There was no leap. Even the numbers in industry reflect that there was a decline during this period, not an advance. We need language that says this, in so many words. Frankly, directly quoting the Cambridge History of China as I have done here, would satisfy me that we have explained things well. Zachary Klaas (talk) 16:32, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't object to adding such figures to the lead, which are surprisingly absent in an article about an economic campaign (too much focus on starvation). However, it should, as any paragraph in the lead, summarize a part of the article's content (which means adding to the economic effects section, and fixing some of the contradictions—right now the article says that iron production increased for a time) Also, the presentation should be just the facts. Presented neutrally, it will likely have the intended effect of solidifying that the GLF was not an economic advance for the reader, but you must not indulge the temptation to add your own complaints about the title in the text. Quigley (talk) 01:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

If this is the kind of stuff you're amenable to adding to the article, I will not have any complaints. I have no objections to continuing to represent that factoid about iron production increasing for a time if you have no objections to presenting that nevertheless, the overall effect of the "leap" from 1958-1962 was negative - that the government spent a lot and things did not only did not improve in some large-scale way but measurably regressed. The language of the Cambridge History of China describing this is straightforward, and I will have no problems with the title if such language, or something similar, is used. Would you like to propose some changes to the page and I'll see if we can come to some mutual arrangement? Sounds like we might actually be getting close to that. Zachary Klaas (talk) 02:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I might (but not so soon), but you can as soon as you wish. As a guide, what we should be adding are facts, rather than debating points. Quigley (talk) 02:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer you do it, since my "facts" seem to be your "debating points". I want to see what kind of language you would accept. It would be easier if you could propose some. Zachary Klaas (talk) 03:45, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

That blockquote from page 483-484 of the Cambridge History of China is an example of language I would accept. Of course, we cannot just copy the quote, because that would be copyright infringement. But notice the tone that I like: strong figures, but not strong rhetoric. Appropriate context is given; it doesn't simply say "this event was bad", or spend time arguing about the semantics. If no one gets around to it before I do, I will draft some improvements to the economic effects section and summarize it in the lead, but I don't feel a strong sense of urgency against the current version as you may feel, and I am not editing WP for as long as I did when we started this discussion. Quigley (talk) 21:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The important question is whether you accept that these figures demonstrate economic regress. I don't want to put in something along the lines of this quote, comment that this quote supports the view that 1958-1962 was the only surveyed period in which the Chinese economy was, overall, regressing, and then get attacked for original research for summarising exactly what those figures demonstrate. I think the readers need to have the point emphasised that this was a period of economic regress, to have their attentions drawn to that fact so they can then make the judgment about the title with some context. Will an edit based on this quote be shot down if I do call attention to "economic regress"? My view is that this is pretty much the whole of what I'm fighting to get included. Zachary Klaas (talk) 21:45, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Could I get an answer to this question? If you can give me some guidance on whether you will accept my calling attention to "economic regress" during the 1958-1962 period, then I will go ahead and make the changes. Otherwise, I'm concerned about possibly being reverted the minute the changes are made. Zachary Klaas (talk) 16:41, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Is it at all controversial that the country went through a period of massive economic regress during the GLF? I didn't think so. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 18:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, the debate is not about whether the GLF was economic regress, but about whether, quoting Zachary, "readers need to have the point emphasised... so they can then make the judgment about the title". Of course, that's euphemistic, because Zachary really believes that the title needs to be heavily refuted, even though it has been explained that with just neutral information and neutral presentation, readers with a modicum of intelligence automatically see the irony of the title without having it forced down their throats. Quigley (talk) 19:32, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Quigley, you answered TheSoundAndTheFury's question, but not mine. And yes, it is about emphasis - but as I see from TheSoundAndTheFury's comment, it is emphasising a point which is not doubted. Zachary Klaas (talk) 20:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, the figures that you pulled out are interesting and merit inclusion [according to proper weight] in an encyclopedia article, but your thesis about the name of the event is not. These two are strictly separated in my mind. Quigley (talk) 21:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I just scanned the above discussion. Sorry to have said anything. This is totally stupid: the name needn't be changed at all. I am with Quigley here. If there are some other facts about the breakdown of the Chinese economy, that's fine, include them; but that has nothing to do with the name of the article. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 23:25, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Quigley, can you please clarify your comment. I asked you specifically if I can use the phrase "economic regress" to summarise what is being said by those figures. You have not said yes or no about that. I will not feel comfortable adding a word to this article until you tell me whether you will accept specifically those words. Why are you not directly answering the question? If it's no, what could your reasoning possibly be? The figures demonstrate that regress.

TheSoundAndTheFury, it is evident that you scanned the discussion - if you had read it instead of scanned it, you might have understood it better. I am no longer trying to change the name of the article itself. I am trying to work out what language should be in the lead of the article with Quigley. What I want is appropriate language making it clear that there was no economic "leap". I was asked to produce figures supporting that view. I have done so. You yourself admit that "the country went through a period of massive economic regress during the GLF", so how you can have any objection to language saying exactly that is beyond me. Do you really bear so much of a dislike for me that this causes you not let me add wording to the article that you admit reflects the truth of the matter and that clearly follows from the quote I've provided above? Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:20, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't appreciate the insinuations. As I repeated I-don't-know-how-many-times, the point of dispute is about the article title and whether it needs to be explicitly refuted and condemned. I have never had a problem with "economic regress" or other things. So yes, you can use "economic regress" BUT! in this format: "the GDP dropped from x to y in z years. Based on this, professor A called the GLF an economic regression." This way it is not original analysis. Quigley (talk) 01:28, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I think I can deal with that. The Cambridge History of China is a collective project, so I guess I will have to cite the editors Roderick MacFarquhar, John K. Fairbank and Denis Twitchett, as well as the specific author of that chapter of the volume containing the quote, who is the Harvard professor of political economy Dwight H. Perkins. I will note that the Cambridge History considers the years 1953-1985, and I will say that Perkins argued that 1958-1962 was the only period of economic regress, as measured by the growth rate - all the other periods surveyed in the Cambridge History show positive growth rates but this period. I hope we at last have consensus on this. Zachary Klaas (talk) 01:45, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

All right, done. Can you tell me if you're satisfied with the change? I hope so. Consensus-building is tiring.  :) Zachary Klaas (talk) 02:06, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Zachary, thanks for doing the spade work on this. I think the text is good Wikipedia content, and belongs in the article. However, I'd like to see slightly briefer summary in the lead, where I don't think that book titles and data-compiling historians belong, except as footnotes. If that seems too vague, I'll pitch in in the next couple days. I've downloaded the chapter but haven't looked at the data yet. By the way, when I look, I'll treat this sort of sequence of growth rates--2% 2% 1% 0% 0% 1%--as "stagnation"; and this sequence--2% 2% 0% -1% 2%--as "regress", though I will look for per capita growth, which might make the former into the latter.--Carwil (talk) 14:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why some of the information couldn't be in the body of the article rather than the lead, if conserving space is your concern. Suggestions for how to do that are welcome, of course. (I notice the bit that you added to the previous paragraph further makes the case for moving some of the quoted material to the body of the article because it supports the point I was trying to establish.) Zachary Klaas (talk) 00:07, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Space is not the only concern. Lead sections in Wikipedia articles, according to the Manual of Style, should briefly summarize the article's contents, not add new information. Quigley (talk) 00:18, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but I would regard you deleting what I just added to the lead as being in bad faith after I spent considerable time above saying "I'm about to add this information to the lead. Could you please tell me if you have a problem with me specifically adding this kind of wording to the lead." You knew the whole time why I wanted to add this specific information, and specifically to the lead. Besides, if we transfer some of the information to the body of the article, then what remains in the lead will be a summary of what is found in the body of the article. Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:03, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

What?! I did not delete what you just added to the lead, nor was my comment above a suggestion to do so. I was expressing agreement with Carwil that it is too long, and needs to be moved to the body, and summarized in the lead. Quigley (talk) 14:58, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Glad to hear that I must have misunderstood you, then. Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Reliance on backyard furnaces

The last phrase of this sentence appears to be false:

In the August 1958 Politburo meetings, it was decided that steel production would be set to double within the year, most of the increase coming through backyard steel furnaces.

Lardy in the Cambridge History of China states, "Although small-scale industry was a highly visible part of the investment drive, most increases were channeled into medium and large-scale state projects." Anyone care to substantiate it? If not, I'll remove it. Backyard steel furnaces might be the most colorfully stupid aspect of the Great Leap, but they were not the center of its industrial plan. (p.s., I've tried to provide a complete picture of industrialization during the Great Leap, something which was missing. A second source might be nice, though.)--Carwil (talk) 16:49, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll try and find you something in the next couple of days. Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:02, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Beginning to look now. I took you to mean that you wanted further sources on the "complete picture of industrialization", and specifically how industry fared during the GLF - here are a number of sources that say "Not well". I will look for something specific about the extent to which the "backyard furnaces" campaign specifically was part of the industrial plan in a bit.

Here is another source representing Columbia University's explanation of the period. On page 157, the characterisation of the author, R. Keith Schoppa, is that "The campaign so destabilized the Chinese economy that both industrial and agricultural production suffered drastically."

Also, Edwin Pak-Wah Leung's "Modern Chinese History Essentials" says on page 114 that "The Great Leap Forward Campaign was an economic failure. In early 1959, amid signs of rising popular restlessness, the CCP admitted that the favorable production report for 1958 had been exaggerated. Among the Great Leap Forward Campaign's economic consequences were a drastic shortage of food; shortage of raw materials for industry; over-production of poor-quality goods; deterioration of industrial plants through mismanagement; and exhaustion and demoralization of the peasantry, intellectuals and party and government cadres at all levels."

Another source is William Joseph's Politics In China: An Introduction, which characterizes the GLF on page 402 as something which "ended in one of the worst famines in human history and an industrial depression that wiped out nearly all the economic gains of the CCP's first years in power."

Marc Blecher's book "China Against The Tides" says "Industrial output value rose rapidly through 1960, but then went into free fall." Since the GLF started in 1958, this indicates that within two years the investment strategy had failed. There is a table to support this claim, but I cannot access this from Google Books, unfortunately. Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Zachary, I wanted an answer to the simpler question: were backyard furnaces the principal initiative of the GLF industrialization. My own edits were based on evidence that industrialization didn't go well, although will more emphasis on transformation (30 million new urban residents) and less on evaluation. Any idea about the relative scale of backyard furnaces and new factories?--Carwil (talk) 21:05, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Mobo Gao

http://www.confucius.adelaide.edu.au/people/mobogao.html

Mobo Gao is officially an employee of HanBan, which is a propaganda apparatus of the Chinese Government, so his opinions reflect official Chinese communist view points. Arilang ^talk 04:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)