After the famine of the Three Hard Years, concern about feeding China's growing population dominated agricultural policy, as captured in a slogan, “Take Grain as the Key Link” [Yi Liang Wei Gang]. The chastened Mao Zedong settled into a quieter mode, allowing other leaders to emphasize the production of consumer staples. Peasants were again permitted to grow vegetables on small private plots and to trade their surplus in free markets, and the rural economy gradually rejuvenated. The abrupt withdrawal of Soviet aid in July 1960, which soon resulted in a full split between the two socialist powers, had cast China into deep isolation. In reaction, China's leaders promoted “self-reliance” [zili gengsheng]. Although the phrase expressed defiance toward the outside world, it also described a domestic policy of regional self-sufficiency, as localities were asked to support themselves in grain and other supplies. This was both a security precaution to guard against distribution problems in the event of war and a way of reducing the impoverished state government's responsibility to provide relief.

By 1964, Mao was beginning a political comeback. He called on the entire country to imitate the Dazhai Brigade of the Dazhai People's Commune, which had overcome natural disaster through self-reliance. Located in Shanxi's mountainous Xiyang County, not far from the historic Communist Party base at Yanan in neighboring Shaanxi, Dazhai first attracted notice in August 1963, after a week of flooding caused by heavy rainfall.