In what ways did Mao Zedong try to rebuild China after WWII?

Question

In what ways did Mao Zedong’s communist government try to rebuild China after WW II?

Answer 1

I heard he produced lots and lots of steel.  Unfortunately, it was poor quality because producers were trying to make quota.

He gathered up millions of farmers and had them live on communal farms.  I imagine thousands of farmers living in crowded apartment complexes (tenements) and working on these huge farms.

Answer 2

In the first ten years after the establishment of the People's Republic (1 October 1949), Mao, as the chairman both of the government and the party, worked to unify the nation and rebuild it after decades of war. He instituted land reform and oversaw the transition to a socialist economy. However, de-Stalinization in the USSR from 1956 brought about a radical shift in Mao's thinking.

Determined to avoid what he saw as the rise of bourgeois elements in the Soviet Union, he instituted his Great Leap Forward (1958–1960), an attempt to industrialize China at the rural level. Not only was the attempt a failure, the diversion of resources from agriculture caused widespread famine. Undeterred from his vision, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966; it was an attempt to keep the CCP and society at large from restratifying, but its result was societal chaos. Nevertheless, the CCP concluded officially in 1981 that Mao's contributions to the Chinese revolution far outweighed the "gross mistakes" he committed during his final years. Mao died on 9 September 1976 and his body remains on display in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.