From 1958 through 1962, due to a drought, economic mismanagement from the top-down mandated attempt to become an industrial power called the Great Leap Forward, and reduced Soviet economic support, the economy contracted by 25 percent and an estimated 16–40 million people died of famine. Estimates suggest that over that period industrial output fell by 19 percent in aggregate, with a fall of around 36 percent from the 1959 peak. Historians agree that it was a terrible period,
China
