An Exploration And Analysis Of The Errors In Political Decision-making As To The Great Leap Forward Movement

Political decision-making is closely linked to the destiny of the nation and the people and the survival of the socialist cause as well. Of a wide varity of errors, errors in decision-making are the gravest ones. The Great Leap Forward Movement serves as a classic example.The errors in political decision-making concerning the Great Leap Forward Movement mainly run as follows:(1) The policy proposal: There exists an insufficient analysis of the national condition and unrealistic and unreasonable strategic goals, which result in an unbridgeable gap between the strategic goals and the possibilities as to the development of China and the varied relevant factors in reality as well.(2) The policy formulation: The excessively impractical production plans are laid down without scientific evaluation.(3) The policy implementation: During the course of implementation, the policy undergoes distortion. Furthermore, launching the large scale mass movement is employed as the basic approach to achieve the goals of economical development.(4) The policy appraisal: There is a lack of reasonable appraisal on the condition, process, result, cost and profit as to the policy implementation, due to the influence of the political struggle and the"Left rather than right"ideology.The reasons for the errors in political decision-making concerning the Great Leap Forward are mainly as follows: information infidelity; the substitution of decision–making based on experience for scientific decision-making; the substituation of arbitrary decision-making for the democratic decision-making; the negative effects of the ideology; a lack of effective regulation and supervision in the course of the implementation of decisions. A reflection and summary the lesson of the experiences and lessons derived from the errors in political decision-making as to the Great Leap Forward Movement gives us a great inspiration. Political decision-making must be based on authentic information; Political decision-making must be scientific and democratic; In the process of political excision-making, the influence of ideology can never be neglected; and so far as the implementation of political decisions is concerned, it is indispensable to practice effective regulation and supervision.