Is there a real Wikipedia page titled "Great Leap Backward" describing the opening months of President Trump's second term? No, that's not true: A screenshot of such a page appears to have been created by digitally editing the page about China's "Great Leap Forward" during Chairman Mao's rule. Searches on Wikipedia and Google did not bring up such a page at the time of writing. Note: it is not impossible one will eventually be created as theoretically anyone can add content to Wikipedia.
The screenshot appeared in a post on X (archived here) published on April 9, 2025 with a comment that read:
Defund Wikipedia 😡
This is what the image looked like:
(Image source: downloaded from x.com)
The text in the image read:
The Great Leap Backward was an economic and social campaign within the United States starting in 2025, led by the Republican Party. President Donald Trump launched the campaign to transform the country from at the time the most advanced economy into an industrialized society. Millions of people lost their livelihood during the Great Leap. It led to the Second Great Depression, one of the largest economic crises. [1][2][3][4]
The Great Leap Backward stemmed from multiple factors, including "the purge of intellectuals, the surge of less-educated radicals..
That text is almost identical to the text on the Wikipedia page for "Great Leap Forward" (archived here) but with Chinese people, groups and events replaced by American ones:
The Great Leap Forward was an economic and social campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an industrialized society through the formation of people's communes. Millions of people died in mainland China during the Great Leap, with estimates based on demographic reconstruction ranging from 15 to 55 million, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest or second-largest famine[1] in human history.[2][3][4][5]
The Great Leap Forward stemmed from multiple factors, including "the purge of intellectuals, the surge of less-educated radicals...
The subheaders in the left sidebar were also identical to the ones on that page.
A Google search for "Great Leap Backward" , limited to links on wikipedia.com 'using the "site:" search operator) returned no results (archived here), indicating Google didn't index such a page.
At the time of writing, there is a redirect in place (archived here) on Wikipedia so visitors looking for an article named "Great Leap Backward" are automatically sent to the "Great Leap Forward" article. This redirect appears to have been active since 2012 according to the Wikipedia edit history (archived here).
