Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward was an actual experiment done by Mao Zedong in 1960. Although hailed as one of humanity's greatest achievements at the time it was proposed, it is now greatly recognized as one of the greatest follies done by the People's Republic of China.
Origins[edit]
During one of those boring Politburo meetings which there was nothing to do but to fold paper cranes and toss them at the speaker, Mao decided to pass the time by looking outside of the window and noticed that it was winter. He suddenly had the brilliant insight that if winter did not exist, then crops could be planted all-year-'round, thus effectively doubling the production of grain without much effort. When he went home and consulted his high school physics book and some poorly worded Chinese proverbs he decided on a plan to abolish the seasons by altering the tilt in the earth's axis. To this, he decided that if every Chinese leap north at the same time, the momentum of all those people going north would force the axis of the earth to tilt south, and therefore abolish the seasons. Little did he understand that the law of conservation of momentum says that the earth's axis could not be forced to tilt by a bunch of people jumping at the same time, not even a billion scrawny Chinese people who barely have skin over their despicably small-frame skeletons. Unfortunately Mao never discovered this since the people who knew of the impracticality of his scheme had either been killed or being made into dinner for Mao and were in too much pain in the process of being butchered that they do not have the cognizance to dismiss this plan. Mao's penchant for cannibalism (or what we calls "getting rid of the degenerate bourgeoisie class") would eventually result in his massive weight gain, and the hypertension and heart troubles which will haunt him for the rest of his life. However, this well-intentioned but poorly conceived plan was put into action.
The Actual Leap[edit]
On October 12, 1960 all of China prepared for the giant leap that they were going to take in order to tilt the axis of the earth. The citizenry of China had prepared for this moment for six months, every woman, man, child, infant, fetus had planned to make the huge leap which Mao promised. Labor was induced in pregnant women who were coming to terms so that their newly born infant could partake of this historic event in which the jumping of billions of people will alter the rotation of the earth. Finally, at noon the message was sent all over China, from the most gangster-ridden urban areas to rural areas that are so backward that the local fertilizer factory is called a "cow." Then all the people began jumping, from the most leech-infested rice paddies to hospital rooms which patients who are opened for surgery was force to wake up, hold the giant incision in their stomach so their intestines would not fall out, and take a leap for China. Unfortunately because of poor planning many people leap to their deaths, the reasons varied, some participants in their 80's and broke a hip as they leap, others did not look where they were going and leap off of tall buildings, others who were too slow were trampled over by the people leaping behind them, while others were impaled by sharp objects while making their landing. Overall it was estimated that 21,000,000 died during the Great Leap Forward, the greatest number of Chinese people dying in a single day in history until that occasion in which millions of Chinese nerds committed suicide after discovering that the latest shipment of the Wii had been delayed for two weeks due to the sinking of a container ship.
Aftermath[edit]
Despite the failure of the Great Leap Forward a die-hard group of Chinese still continued the practice of leaping in order to change the tilt of the earth's axis. After China outlawed the practice of leaping, the die-hards decided to form a group which will eventually become the Falun Gong. However, Chinese propaganda still portrayed the Great Leap Forward as having been a success, even though it did not change the earth's axis and the rest of the world would have cared less. Due to the millions of people dying in the Great Leap Forward, and the amount of crop damage done during the leap, China was pushed into a famine which would devastate it for the next decade, and eventually lead to the Cultural Revolution.