Real History of Great Leap Forward Emerges

The Great Leap Forward, a calamity that killed tens of millions, afflicted China with the misery and morals of a concentration camp and spawned the Cultural Revolution, was once a shunned and shameful topic.

But convenient myths - such as the threadbare explanation of "Three Years of Natural Disasters", fingerpointing at the Soviet Union, and exculpatory emphasis on quixotic but seemingly admirable revolutionary enthusiasm - are now crumbling as a new generation feels enough distance to confront the painful past, and at the same time races to record the memories of the citizens who suffered through the period before they pass on.