The two biggest problems were the lack of ability to procure foreign industrial goods and technology and the need to spend a huge amount on defence. During the 1950s there was a fast growth rate in industry, which was mostly aided by the soviets sending experts and transferring industrial equipment to China. When the sino soviet split happened this stopped, and economic growth slowed down. Pretty much the remainder of the Maoist era was spent trying to figure out how to build up the economy independently, they failed in this regard. They choose labour-intensive methods over capital intensive ones, as labour was abundant and capital was not. The problem was that this ended up with people simply working harder without much increase in efficiency, and eventually without much progress by the 1970s people began to tire of these practices, which is why there was little resistance to the adoption of Deng Xiaoping's agenda.
There were proposals to try to focus a significant proportion of resources on mechanising agriculture, which would have kick-started growth by freeing up peasants to go work in the cities, however, this policy was not adopted in any meaningful sense until Deng, because of the (in my view erroneous) arguments that doing so would exacerbate the urban-rural divide.
Regarding defence, Maoist china was on the defensive for pretty much the entire time it existed. You start off with the Korean war and the need to send hundreds of thousands of troops to defend them. Then you have the Vietnam war going on for 25 years right on your border, you have conflicts with India over the border in the Himalayas, with Taiwan because they are a breakaway province, with the US as the CIA attempts to fuel separatist and reactionary forces in the country, and finally with the soviets after the sino soviet split, by 1969 many observers were seriously concerned that war would actually break out between the two countries, fortunately, it did not.
This necessitated a large amount of resources being devoted to defence, which is why despite being a poor country, the Chinese military was making serious attempts at modernisation, they developed indigenous tanks, aircraft, rifles and other equipment. They developed nuclear capabilities, ballistic missile technology and launched their first satellite in 1970, a mere 13 years after sputnik.
The two biggest problems were the lack of ability to procure foreign industrial goods and technology and the need to spend a huge amount on defence. During the 1950s there was a fast growth rate in industry, which was mostly aided by the soviets sending experts and transferring industrial equipment to China. When the sino soviet split happened this stopped, and economic growth slowed down. Pretty much the remainder of the Maoist era was spent trying to figure out how to build up the economy independently, they failed in this regard. They choose labour-intensive methods over capital intensive ones, as labour was abundant and capital was not. The problem was that this ended up with people simply working harder without much increase in efficiency, and eventually without much progress by the 1970s people began to tire of these practices, which is why there was little resistance to the adoption of Deng Xiaoping's agenda.
There were proposals to try to focus a significant proportion of resources on mechanising agriculture, which would have kick-started growth by freeing up peasants to go work in the cities, however, this policy was not adopted in any meaningful sense until Deng, because of the (in my view erroneous) arguments that doing so would exacerbate the urban-rural divide.
Regarding defence, Maoist china was on the defensive for pretty much the entire time it existed. You start off with the Korean war and the need to send hundreds of thousands of troops to defend them. Then you have the Vietnam war going on for 25 years right on your border, you have conflicts with India over the border in the Himalayas, with Taiwan because they are a breakaway province, with the US as the CIA attempts to fuel separatist and reactionary forces in the country, and finally with the soviets after the sino soviet split, by 1969 many observers were seriously concerned that war would actually break out between the two countries, fortunately, it did not.
This necessitated a large amount of resources being devoted to defence, which is why despite being a poor country, the Chinese military was making serious attempts at modernisation, they developed indigenous tanks, aircraft, rifles and other equipment. They developed nuclear capabilities, ballistic missile technology and launched their first satellite in 1970, a mere 13 years after sputnik.