Except it had little to do authoritarianism or communism, it had to do with the fact that at the time, telecommunication technology had not sufficiently proliferated in the rural communities for individuals aside from the beauracrats sent by Mao to oversee the project would have been able to report the unfolding disaster.
The beauracrats were ironically sent to those rural communities precisely because Mao was worried that the government was becoming overly Byzantine in it's structure so the motivation was in fact to flatten power structures. The problem is that those bureaucrats were motivated to misrepresent the level of success the agriculture project was having out of a desire for increasing their standing.
Mao primary fuck up here was in assuming that these cushy officials would somehow be "purified" by being forced to interact with the salt of the earth rural people. In fact, they just recreated the social hierarchies that they were used to prior to the revolution - using Mao as their justification which would have been fairly effective since he was fairly beloved in the rural communities at the time prior to the cluster fuck that was about to unfold.
Ultimately, the real lesson is that the myth of the "strong leader" is innately counter revolutionary. Mao should have realised this since he had studied some anarchist theory as well as what happened with Lenin when he decided to patronise his entire population and murdered all the independent worker communes and any chance of democracy in the post-Tsar Russia.
Mao tried many experiments including trying to form equitable arrangements with capitalists and land owners, and a national day dedicated to facilitating criticisms of the government. Ultimately though, a combination of ego and niavity ruined what could have been a far more successful and less destructive revolution than what happened in Russia.
Of course the modern day CCP is so byzantine in structure and dehumanising that even Mao's worst nightmares couldn't have imagined it.
The beauracrats were ironically sent to those rural communities precisely because Mao was worried that the government was becoming overly Byzantine in it's structure so the motivation was in fact to flatten power structures. The problem is that those bureaucrats were motivated to misrepresent the level of success the agriculture project was having out of a desire for increasing their standing.
Mao primary fuck up here was in assuming that these cushy officials would somehow be "purified" by being forced to interact with the salt of the earth rural people. In fact, they just recreated the social hierarchies that they were used to prior to the revolution - using Mao as their justification which would have been fairly effective since he was fairly beloved in the rural communities at the time prior to the cluster fuck that was about to unfold.
Ultimately, the real lesson is that the myth of the "strong leader" is innately counter revolutionary. Mao should have realised this since he had studied some anarchist theory as well as what happened with Lenin when he decided to patronise his entire population and murdered all the independent worker communes and any chance of democracy in the post-Tsar Russia.
Mao tried many experiments including trying to form equitable arrangements with capitalists and land owners, and a national day dedicated to facilitating criticisms of the government. Ultimately though, a combination of ego and niavity ruined what could have been a far more successful and less destructive revolution than what happened in Russia.
Of course the modern day CCP is so byzantine in structure and dehumanising that even Mao's worst nightmares couldn't have imagined it.