Famine is always closely related to the market. After the onset of the Great Famine in 1959, food became scarce, and the provision of foodstuff to the urban and rural population became a difficult task. People searched for food in every possible way to feed themselves, and black markets prospered with prices riding high. The Party decided to reopen the free markets in 1960 as a way to relieve the famine and to mitigate the economic impacts of the black markets. After the re-opening of the free markets, the government designed a whole set of regulations for them. The initial policies were fairly loose, and the government tolerated the famine victims' food purchase. As the crisis wound down and market supply conditions improved, however, the issue of "fighting speculation" once again returned to the Party's agenda. This was not only related to the public-private competitions on the market, but also determined by the Party's conception of the nature of the market at the time. The Party's policy towards free market was passive, temporary and strategic in nature. Whenever people started taking advantage of the free market to run business and make high profits, they would become targets of suppression. Nevertheless, some market regulatory agencies still carefully examined the nature of the various "speculative trading activities" in dealing with such cases. The identities and living conditions of the accused were also factors that affected the final verdicts. The parties involved in this kind of "inappropriate" activities were not just individual vendors, but also collective units and even state-run business agencies. The free markets and other tolerant policies in the post-famine years drove the people (and other economic actors) to pursue profit. Black market activities were intermingled with legitimate trading practices. Some party cadres came to see such developments as signs of the revival of "spontaneous capitalist forces". This also became the excuse for the party leadership to launch a new round of party line struggles. The socialist education movement and the Cultural Revolution followed thereafter.