The Great Leap Forward is known by almost every Chinese, many of whom having family members actually experienced that. That said, having millions of people starved to death has been quite common throughout the history of China. They could be caused by war, by natural disaster, by human, or a combination of multiple factors. Even in 20th century, starving has been commonplace until the economy started to improve after the economic reform in 1978 (a huge accomplishment that is often ignored by western people) It's hard for younger generations of Chinese to even imagine the darker ages.

> Even in 20th century, starving has been commonplace until the economy started to improve after the economic reform in 1978 (a huge accomplishment that is often ignored by western people) It's hard for younger generations of Chinese to even imagine the darker ages.

What was the huge accomplishment of the 1978 reforms that Western people should recognize? From my vantage point, they were basically the abandonment of a lot of Maoist ideas in favor of something that was more in line with Western economic thought.

> they were basically the abandonment of a lot of Maoist ideas in favor of something that was more in line with Western economic thought

That’s right. The government basically concluded communism isn’t going to happen any time soon and shifted focus back towards gradual economic growth, and chaned lots of policies like opening more and more markets to private companies, letting state owned companies run in the same way as private companies, etc. (Before then, everything was owned and ran by the government). 1978 was just the beginning of the series of economic reforms

What’s different from many western economies though, is that government is investing and driving a lot of these changes.

Not the reforms themselves, but what followed. China's growth since then has led to the largest poverty reduction the world has ever seen, and that didn't happen because a bureaucrat flicked his pen, but because hundreds of millions of Chinese toiled for generations to make it happen.

> Not the reforms themselves, but what followed. China's growth since then has led to the largest poverty reduction the world has ever seen,

So the content of the reforms themselves weren't really an accomplishment, but rather activity of the people that the previous policies had restrained?

> and that didn't happen because a bureaucrat flicked his pen, but because hundreds of millions of Chinese toiled for generations to make it happen.

To make what happen? Deng's reforms? Poverty reduction? The path was so circuitous and so driven by the ideology and policy of leaders that I'm not sure if much can really be said about the political intent of that toil by such a large group over such a long span of time.

It seems that government schools are not that eager to teach about how governments killed 150+ million of their own citizens in 20th century. Maybe it’s to promote the idea that the fear of the tyrannical government is somehow irrational mere 18 years later.

My extremely run of the mill US suburban high school taught us about the Great Leap Forward in its regular world history curriculum.

Parent said "of their own citizens", referring to Chinese schools.

Really is that not common knowledge? (I'm from the US)

I think it is.