# The Cultural Revolution vs the Great Leap Forward

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cultural-revolution-vs-the-great-leap-forward/630670>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 6, 2012, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cultural-revolution-vs-the-great-leap-forward/630670 "2012-08-06T23:00:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cultural-revolution-vs-the-great-leap-forward/630670/1 "2012-08-06T23:00:00Z")

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Which one was more insane?

I intentionally left out the obvious answer of “They were both really insane.” Too easy.

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**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cultural-revolution-vs-the-great-leap-forward/630670/2 "2012-08-06T23:05:23Z")

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The Leap lead to famine, didn’t it?

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**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cultural-revolution-vs-the-great-leap-forward/630670/3 "2012-08-06T23:06:23Z")

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I voted for the Great Leap Forward. Because while the Cultural Revolution was clearly crazy and killed millions of people and destroyed a lot of property, it was supposed to do those things. So at that level at least, it was a success. But the Great Leap Forward was crazy even by its own standards.

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**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cultural-revolution-vs-the-great-leap-forward/630670/4 "2012-08-06T23:08:25Z")

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> [@etv78](#):
>
> The Leap lead to famine, didn’t it?

About thirty million people died.

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**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cultural-revolution-vs-the-great-leap-forward/630670/5 "2012-08-07T03:20:53Z")

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The Leap. The Cultural Revolution was just another exercise in tried and tested depravity of humans. \*

The Leap was pure insanity.

- Makes note to go reread _For Whom the Bell Tolls_, which isn’t that particularly bad, I didn’t real it until I was an adult and could picture being in the room with a mob outside the door ready to kill me with knives and rent _The Killing Fields_.