Prior to the Third Front construction, the fourteen largest cities in China's potentially vulnerable regions included approximately 60% of the country's manufacturing, 50% of its chemical industries, and 52% of its national defense industries. The campaign was centrally planned. Ultimately, construction of the Third Front cost accounting for more than a third of China's spending over the 15-year period in which the Third Front construction occurred. Although the policy laid the seeds of industrial development in the Northwest, during the
Civil War development eventually died down. After the failure of the
Great Leap Forward, China's leadership slowed the pace of industrialization. The
Gulf of Tonkin Incident on August 2, 1964, however, quickly changed the discussion about the Third Five-Year Plan. Other key leadership's fear of attack by the United States increased also, and the Third Front received broad support thereafter. Rural migrants, returned
sent-down youth, and locally recruited apprentices also contributed to the Third Front. Significantly expanding its
nuclear weapons production capacity, China built another set of fissile material production facilities in the Third Front areas. In Sichuan province, China developed an integrated nuclear sector which included uranium mining and processing facilities. This was more than twenty times the number of electronics factories China had in 1965. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, nearly all work units in China's aerospace industry were established via the Third Front. These Third Front Projects benefitted
China's space program through the launch of
Dong Fang Hong 1 (China's first satellite) in 1970, expansion of
Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, building
Xichang Satellite Launch Center, and building
Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.
Administrative mechanisms On September 11, 1964, the Party established centralized organizations to direct the Third Front construction. The highest Third Front-specific administrative body was the Third Front Construction Support and Examination
Small Group, which was tasked with providing physical and financial resources for the building of the Third Front. This Small Group was led by Economic Commission Vice Director
Gu Mu. It also formed the Southwest Railroad Construction headquarters to oversee railroad development. Another body, the Southwest Third Front Preparatory Small Group, was established to oversee regional construction and planning. It was led by
Li Jingquan. It in turn established a planning group to administer the industrial complex being developed in Panzhihua and another planning group to administer conventional weapons production around Chongqing. On December 1, 1964, the Economic Commission issued regulations for projects which were being relocated to the Third Front, mandating that all relocated projects had to be approved by the central Party and that none could be approved by local governments themselves. Administrative changes occurred in February 1965, as the
State Council further consolidated central control of the Third Front construction. It converted the Third Front Preparatory Small Group into the Southwest Third Front Commission and required it to work with central ministries in fulfilling needs for labor, equipment, and building materials. The State Council put this Commission within the Economic Commission's supervision and then within the jurisdiction of the Infrastructure Committee when it was created in March 1965. In an August 19, 1965 report,
Li Fuchun,
Bo Yibo and
Luo Ruiqing suggested that no new projects should be constructed in major cities in the First Front, that new projects should be built concealed in the mountains, and that industrial enterprises, research institutes, and universities should be moved to the Third Front. Every Third Front project was a state-owned enterprise.
Small Third Front In addition to the Big Third Front projects in China's remote regions, a series of "Small Third Front" regions were established in coastal and near-coastal provinces. The most significant Small Third Front Project was Shanghai's. At its largest, the Shanghai Small Front had 54,000 workers, 17,000 families, and 81 work units. The "rear base" in Anhui was the centerpiece of the project and served as "a multi-function manufacturing base for anti-aircraft and anti-tank weaponry. By 1966, it was producing arms including rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft weapons. Steel mills, chemical plants, instrumentation factories, electronic factories, and extensive road infrastructure were also built in the Shanghai Small Front. The Shanghai Small Third Front was busy into the early 1970s; like the rest of the Third Front, its work slowed as China and the United States developed their diplomatic relationship. The Shanghai Small Front office ultimately shut down in 1991. In Shandong, Small Third Front projects focused on the development of electronics and chemical factories. Machinery factors were also moved inland, and others moved to the Big Third Front. Small Third Front projects were also established in Liaoning, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong.
Ideological factors To recruit and develop the labor force responsible for building Third Front projects, the CCP sought to develop a labor force committed to the Third Front campaign as a way to build socialist modernity. The Party emphasized austere living and working, although not as an end in-and-of-itself, but as a means necessary for socialist development given the level of China's development at the time. In mobilizing and recruiting workers for Third Front Projects, the Party instructed recruiters to "take Mao's strategic thought as the guiding principle, teach employees to consider the big picture, resolutely obey the needs of the country, take pride in supporting Third Front construction ... and help solve employees' concrete problems." In the official perspective, it was a political privilege to be selected as a Third Front recruit. Among the important recruitment mechanisms were oath-swearing ceremonies or mobilization meetings held at
urban work units or
rural communes. At these events, local officials exhorted crowds to join the Third Front construction effort. The Party instructed them to urge workers to "learn from the
PLA and the
Daqing oilfield and use revolutionary spirit to overcome all difficulties." The Party did not attempt to hide the challenges of working on the Third Front, however, and told local officials to "speak clearly about the difficulties, not boast, and not make empty promises." Because Chinese policymakers believed that the risks of invasion from foreign powers were imminent, Third Front workers were instructed to "engage in a race against time with American imperialism and Soviet revisionism." Policymakers adopted military-style thinking, framing project selection in the rhetoric of "choos[ing] the proper targets to attack" and "concentrat[ing] forces to wage wars of annihilation" on a focused number of projects. Workers themselves often linked their tasks to broader conflicts, for example describing the drilling of tunnels as an act in opposition to "American wolves," thereby advancing "the people of
Vietnam's war" with the United States. Third Front factories often assigned workers to read
three classic Mao speeches:
Remember Norman Bethune,
The Foolish Old Man who Moved Mountains, and
Serve the People. == Winding down ==