The story
Calque from Chinese 大躍進／大跃进 (Dàyuèjìn). Coined by a People's Daily commentator in 1957.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Great Leap Forward
Today it means: A vast economic and social plan lasting from 1958 to 1961 which aimed to use the Chinese population to rapidly transform the Communist China from a primarily agrarian economy by peasant farmers into a modern communist society through agriculturalization and industrialization, but failed disastrously (resulting in massive famine and the deaths of many millions of people). Full definition →