Editing Zhou Enlai (section)

==The Great Leap Forward==
{{Main|Great Leap Forward}}
In 1958, Mao Zedong began the [[Great Leap Forward]], aimed at increasing China's production levels in industry and agriculture with unrealistic targets. As a popular and practical administrator, Zhou maintained his position through the Leap. Zhou has been described by [[Frank Dikötter]] as the "midwife" of the Great Leap Forward, who "transformed nightmares into reality".<ref>Dikotter 448</ref><ref>Kingston</ref>

By the early 1960s, Mao's prestige was not as high as it had once been. Mao's economic policies in the 1950s had failed, and he had developed a lifestyle that was increasingly out of touch with many of his oldest colleagues. Among the activities that seemed contrary to his popular image were the swims in his private pool in [[Zhongnanhai]], his many villas around China that he would travel to on a private train, his private, book-lined study, and the companionship of an ever-changing succession of enthusiastic young women whom he met either on weekly dances in Zhongnanhai or on his journeys by train. The combination of his personal eccentricities and industrialization policy failures produced criticism from such veteran revolutionaries as [[Liu Shaoqi]], [[Deng Xiaoping]], [[Chen Yun]], and Zhou Enlai, who seemed less and less to share an enthusiasm for his vision of continuous revolutionary struggle.<ref>Spence 565</ref>