Three Red Banners (Chinese: 三面红旗) was an ideological slogan in the late 1950s which called on the Chinese people to build a socialist state. The "Three Red Banners" also called the "Three Red Flags," consisted of the General Line for socialist construction, the Great Leap Forward and the people's communes. "people were not allowed to cook their own food and instead ate in communal dining halls." " The Leap instead resulted in economic destruction and tens of millions of famine deaths"