In order to catch up to the West, Mao first tried a Five Year Plan like the Soviet Union. When his Five Year Plan failed Mao came up with an innovative, distinctively Chinese,  plan to industrialize. 

Because Chinese peasants had always been the backbone of the Chinese economy, Mao thought Chinese industry should be taken to the countryside. 

Instead of building centralized factories to produce steel in urban centers, he had peasants build "backyard furnaces" (pictured above and below) near their villages. The Great Leap Forward called for peasants to farm by day and smelt steel by night.

*Watch Video below from around 40:00-43:00

Despite the glowing promotion of the Great Leap Forward in propaganda posters like the one above, the reform was such a disaster that some historians refer to it as the "Great Leap Backwards." 

Steel production is a highly scientific and sophisticated practice. It cannot be done by unskilled peasants in such rudimentary conditions. 90% of the steel produced during the Great Leap Forward was useless-either too heavy, too brittle, or too flexible. 

More Importantly (as you will see on the agricultural reforms page), steel production exhausted the farmers and distracted them from effectively producing food, leading to famine and the deaths of around 20 million.