Each paper in this panel brings a unique perspective to the study of the Great Leap Forward. Peilun Hao’s paper explores the challenges of food supply and rationing in Chinese cities during the Leap, arguing that the food crisis stemmed from contradictions within the rationing system that prioritized industrialization over food security. Focusing on the pharmaceutical industry, Yang Li’s research highlights the Technological Revolution, a mass science campaign that aimed to fuel grassroots innovation, and shows the campaign’s continuity from socialist industrialization. Her paper shows how tensions between factory leadership and state directives hindered the success of this movement and failed to create a culture of widespread technological innovation. Xiao Sun examines the textile industry’s reorganization during the Great Leap Forward from the angle of inflation, arguing that the decentralized reorganization of the sector during the Great Leap Forward exacerbated existing economic imbalances in the socialist industrial economy. Finally, Guanhua Tan’s project on history education in Shanghai’s secondary schools during the Leap examines the shift from traditional pedagogies to more radical, experience-based approaches that reflected the broader revolutionary agenda of the period. Collectively, these papers offer fresh perspectives on an often-reductive historical narrative and emphasize the multifaceted legacies of this revolutionary period.

This panel’s innovative perspectives also speak to broader global debates on state-led modernization, rapid industrialization, and the politics of revolutionary social transformation. By connecting themes such as urban governance, technological ambition, economic restructuring, and educational reform, the research presented in this panel offers comparative frameworks that illuminate the challenges and contradictions inherent in transformative state policies in both modern China and the world in the twentieth century.