The Great Leap Forward was a push by Mao Zedongto change China from a predominantly agrarian (farming) society to a modern, industrial society—in just five years. It was an impossible goal, of course, but Mao had the power to force the world's largest society to … The ‘Great Leap Forward’ was an alternative name for China’s Second Five-Year Plan (1958-62). The Great Leap Forward took place in 1958. Card issued to celebrate the Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward contained even more ambitious targets that the First Five-Year Plan, particularly in the areas of heavy industry and steel production. Great Leap Forward, in Chinese history, the campaign undertaken by the Chinese communists between 1958 and early 1960 to organize its vast population, especially in large-scale rural communes, to meet China’s industrial and agricultural problems. The Great Leap Forward was Mao’s attempt to modernise China’s economy so that by 1988, China would have an economy that rivalled America. The Great Leap Forward was a five-year plan of forced agricultural collectivization and rural industrialization that was instituted by the Chinese … The Chinese hoped to develop labour-intensive methods of industrialization, which would emphasize manpower rather than machines and capital expenditure.