The Great Leap Forward - 1958 to 1961. The Korean War - 1950 - 1953. Until the Great Leap, Mao had done a fantastic job. Life expectancies shot up by about 15

The Great Leap Forward - 1958 to 1961. The Korean War - 1950 - 1953. Until the Great Leap, Mao had done a fantastic job. Life expectancies shot up by about 15 years, as he dismantled feudalism, and established a relatively functional and stable state. Then he undid all the good he'd done, in the 1958, sending life expectancies back to ~35. Then things improved again, when Deng and co managed to contain Mao a little better (though they sometimes had ... issues). tl;dr - Mao had done a fantastic job, up to 1958, which was well after the Korean War ended.