Three Red Banners () was an ideological slogan in the late 1950s which called on the Chinese people to build a

socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a Sovereign state, sovereign State (polity), state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The ...

. The "Three Red Banners" also called the "Three Red Flags," consisted of the General Line for socialist construction, the

Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...

and the

people's communes The people's commune () was the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas of the People's Republic of China during the period from 1958 to 1983, until they were replaced by townships. Communes, the largest collective units, were divi ...

.Yang Jisheng (2012). ''Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962'' (Kindle edition). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 87. .''The Other China: Hunger'' Part I - The Three Red Flags of Death (1976)
/ref> After the first Five-Year Plan, the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

continued its socialist construction by introducing "Three Red Banners Movement". The General Line directed the Chinese people to "go all out, aim high, and build socialism with greater, faster, better, and more economical results." By the end of 1958, nearly all Chinese peasants had been organized into communes averaging 5000 households each. All privately owned property was taken for or contributed to the communes and people were not allowed to cook their own food and instead ate in communal dining halls. The Great Leap Forward, begun in 1958, was a campaign to rapidly modernize by using China's vast labor resources in agricultural and industrial projects. The Leap instead resulted in economic destruction and tens of millions of famine deaths, and had been mostly abandoned by early 1962. Membership in communes was gradually reduced in the early 1960s, with some private property ownership and enterprise again being allowed. The communes continued until being dismantled in the early 1980s under Deng Xiaoping.

References

Great Leap Forward Slogans {{CP-stub