344. Chairman Mao: The Great Leap Forward (Ep 5)

Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William DeRumpel. And welcome back to our series on Mao Zedung. We're delighted to welcome back our very good friend now and hostage, Professor Rana Mitter from Harvard Kennedy School, is back with us and is going to never be able to leave again. Are we going to be let out of the box at some point?

Maybe. If you're good, we'll see how it goes in the next couple of episodes, shall we, Rana? Not promising anything. You have to just like throw some bits of chicken or something in there. Now remind us, Willie, where we were in the last episode.

We were in Stockholm syndrome with Rana increasingly fond of this pod as he told us how Mao had consolidated his power at the very top. of the People's Republic of China. We saw how his policy of cleaning the house before inviting guests saw Mao crack down on the party and private businesses before he began rapidly industrializing under the first five year plans. We also saw how the Hundred Flowers campaign, a brief moment of openness, culminated in the brutal crackdown of the anti rightist movement.

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