4.2 - Consequences of Chinese Revolution INTERPRETATIONS Flashcards
1
Q
Interpretations
Peasants and Land Reform
x2
A
- “Peasants… were wedded to the new revolutionary order” (Short)
- “a pact sealed in blood between the Party and the poor” (Dikotter)
2
Q
Interpretations
Mass Campaigns
x1
A
- “the CCP replaced its relatively pragmatic early approach with a renewed drive for revolution” (Fenby)
3
Q
Interpretations
Thought Reform
x2
A
- “carefully cultivated Auschwitz of the mind” (Dikotter)
- “mounted to bring intellectuals into line” (Fenby)
4
Q
Interpretations
1st Five Year Plan
x1
A
- “a formidable achievement” (Spence)
5
Q
Interpretations
Five Antis
x3
A
- “an opportunity to pulverise China’s capitalists politically” (Gray)
- “Many capitalists turned red when the heat went on, silently, like lobsters put in hot water” (Terrill)
- “the so-called tigers had been declawed” (Ryan)
6
Q
Interpretations
Early Communist Rule
x5
A
- “governed honestly and efficiently for the first time in modern Chinese history” (Meisner)
- “dedicated government” (Fairbank)
- “brought order and discipline to their environment” (Escherick)
- “one of the worst tyrannies in the history of the twentieth century” (Dikotter)
- “guided by pragmatic considerations” (Moise)
7
Q
Interpretations
Hundred Flowers Campaign
x4
A
- “an extraordinary response… that demonstrated Mao’s naïvety and then his utter ruthlessness” (Fenby)
- Mao was determined for his “garden to bloom” (Ryan)
- “Mao had hoped for moderate criticism of the details, not the fundamentals” (Mitter)
- “started as an attempt to bridge the gap between the Party and the people… became a trap” (Short)
8
Q
Interpretations
Great Leap Forward
x4
A
- “not based on sound economic analysis but from the air of a whim” (Lynch)
- “on an adrenaline high pumped up by the limitless vista of a bright Communist future” (Short)
- “a revolutionary project… to remake the world” (Karl)
- “‘utopian’ in nature from the beginning” + “assumed that failure in the end was inevitable” (Meisner)
9
Q
Interpretations
High Tide of Collectivisation
x1
A
- “electrifying effect” (Ryan)
10
Q
Interpretations
People’s Communes
x3
A
- “The state had become the ultimate landlord” (Fairbank)
- “aim was to make slave driving more efficient” (Chang and Halliday)
- “many ordinary people were genuinely enthusiastic for the People’s Communes” (Ryan)
11
Q
Interpretations
Statistics in the Great Leap Forward
x2
A
- “disregard for reality” (Chang)
- “the lies became more and more fantastic, a ghastly parody of Chinese Whispers” (Becker)
12
Q
Interpretations
Backyard Furnace
x1
A
- “The country looked as though it had been picked clean by iron-eating ants” (Salisbury)
13
Q
Interpretations
Lushan Plenum
x2
A
- “Mao turned his brand of brothers into a claque, clapping hands and nodding heads like mechanical dolls” (Salisbury)
- “When Mao insisted that he was, metaphorically, well clothed … few besides Peng cared to contradict him” (Lee)
14
Q
Interpretations
Three Bad Years’ Famine
x3
A
- “an all-time first-class manmade famine” (Fairbank)
- “a Mao-made catastrophe” (Fairbank)
- “in terms of sheer numbers, no other event comes close” (Becker)
15
Q
Interpretations
Socialist Education Movement
x1
A
- “a hardship to be endured rather than an experience to be cherished” (Hsu)