What were people's attitudes to the Great Leap Forward?

Source 6
An extract from Anhua Gao from the book To The Edge Of The Sky (2000)

'Mao called on the nation to increase production of steel to an extraordinarily high level. He raised the slogan 'Catch up with Britain within fifteen years!' All over the city we saw the slogan. The radio relayed the same message. At school, the teachers wrote the slogan on the blackboards. The roads had huge billboards that shouted 'Catch up with Britain within fifteen years!' All public buildings and vehicles displayed it. Shops had it chalked on boards slung from the ceiling. Huge portraits of Chairman Mao looked down on us, with the slogan written underneath. It was everywhere. 
I was curious. We Chinese had to catch with Britain within fifteen years. Britain was the reason I couldn't enjoy my grandmother's wonderful cooking and had to eat the no-so-good food from the canteen. Where, I wondered, was Britain.'


Just a small extract in seeing how the population felt with Mao's new found idea's, and how enforced was the idea of Great Leap Forward, being shoved and pushed in extreme cases in order to gain the peoples support and indoctrinate people into believing that through Mao's idea of the GLF China can be transformed into a new world leading Power.