What happened when Mao unilaterally declared that ploughshares should be melted down for the good of the economy?

I'm not a huge fan of authoritarian systems, but individual people are even more fallible. Laying decision-making power on one individual is a recipe for failure; they're going to be wrong eventually, and chances are people will be reluctant to speak out against their god-emperor when that happens in a system where power is so ridiculously centralized.