Agricultural/Industrial Changes 49-65 Flashcards
Mao’s aims for agriculture (49-57)
Increase food supplies to cities to feed workers in factories
Needs to increase supplies and enhance popularity of communism in countryside
Attacks on landlordism (1949-57)
Communists viewed landowners as class enemies - needed to be destroyed before redistribution of land
Work teams of party cadres sent to villages to encourage peasants to drag local landlords to struggle meetings
Some sentenced to death
The redistribution of land
1950 Agrarian Reform Law stated ‘system of peasant land ownership shall be introduced’ - removed legal protection from landlords leaving them powerless
Summer 1952, 43% of land redistributed to 60% of population
Rural production 1950-52 increased at a rate of 15% per annum
Mutual aid teams (1951)
Organised peasants into teams of 10 households.
Shared resources like tools, fertilisers and animals and pooled their labour for benefit of community
Helped poorer peasants and were effective and popular
Buying/selling of land still allowed
Agricultural Producers Co-operatives (APC’s)
Made up of 30-50 households
Land remained in private ownership but parties reorganised landholdings into larger units - farmed more efficiently
State took share of harvest - paid peasants
Richer peasants don’t like - killed animals
1953-54 grain production rose 2%
Enforced collectivisation
Lui and Zhou claimed china didn’t have the equipment for large scale farming
July 1955 demanded increase in pace of reform towards full collectivisation and end to private property
Dec 1955 63.3% of households part of APC
Jan 1956 80.3% of households part of APC
Private ownership abolished/members only compensated for labour
Organisation of the communes 1956
Mao believed progress of MATs and APCs was a signal that his desire to increase pace of collectivisation was correct (going against colleagues)
Peasants organised into communes - increased agricultural/industrial production (“Walking on two legs”)
Approx 5,500 household - first commune July 1958
Communal living
Mess halls provided food and crèches
Schools helped with healthcare/education - mothers freed from childcare
Grandparents could enjoy old age in happiness homes
BUT crèches under qualified staff, parents worked long hours, food was poor, women had hard physical labour
Mao blamed this on pests so introduced 4 pests campaign
4 pests campaign
Made to exterminate sparrows/rats/flies/mosquitoes
Peasants told to bang pots and pans to scare sparrows and stop them from landing
Birds fell from the sky exhausted but they ate the insects so without them there was a plague of locust eating harvest
The abolition of private farming 1958
Party claimed 99% of peasant population had been moved into communes (represents half a billion people)
Private ownership of land outlawed
Livestock couldn’t be owned
Selling of private produce denounced
Markets were banned
Private farming system was destroyed
Lysenkoism
Lysenko was a soviet agrobiologist supported by Stalin in 1930s
Mid 1950s Mao made his ideas gov policy
Claimed crop yields would increase if exposed to moisture/low temp before planted - crop yields fell and lead to disastrous famine of 1958-62
Great famine 1958-62
Peasants had little incentive to work and exhausted by long hours of work or chasing vermin in 4 pests campaign - agricultural production dropped drastically
Party cadres didn’t want to be seen as failures so inflated reports of commune production
In turn Party set higher quota
Life during the great famine 1958-62
Worst recorded famine of 20th century
8 million people starved to death in Anhui province, 7.8 million in Henan, 9 million in Sichuan and 1 million in Tibet
Starving peasants launched desperate attacks on food stores
Birth rates plummeted - women fertility low
Outbreaks of cannibalism, men sold wives into forced sex work for food
Restoration of private farming by Liu and Deng
Replaced “Walking on two legs” with the motto “Agriculture as the foundation of the economy”
Communes reduced in size and peasants allowed to farm small private plots
They could trade food in the markets
Party sent emergency supplies eg tools
1965 agri production had recovered from GLF returned to same level as 1957
First Five Year Plan 1952-56:
USSR’s financial/ technical support
Closely modelled on Stalin’s plans for industry in USSR - helped win WW2
USSR was Chinas only major ally, a grain embargo imposed western powers as a result of China’s involvement in Korean war
So USSR loaned $300 million over 5 years
Help with construction of iron and steel plants, electrical power stations and machinery plants
11,000 experts sent from USSR to China to provide training/advice/technical help
First Five Year Plan 1952-56:
Plans targets
Quickly increase China’s heavy industries like coal and steel, constructing advanced industrial plants with modern machines
Mao wanted China to be self sufficient
Industrial plants could supply the PLA with modern weapons needed to protect China from aggression of the Wedt
First Five Year Plan 1952-56:
Successes and failures
+ Annual growth rate of 9%/targets set surpassed
+ Engineering works eg bridge Yangtze river
+ Living standards/job security guaranteed
+ Population of towns/cities double 100m+
- Quantity over quality/exaggerated output
- Workers had low levels of literacy/skills
- Admin lacked organisation/managerial
Second Five Year Plan (GLF) 1958-62:
Mao’s reasons for launching
•Wanted to overtake Britain in 15 years and be the leading Communist nation in Asia
•Success of industry convinced Mao that rapid/large improvement of agri production could be made
•Communists winning the cold war
•Still wanted “Walking on two legs”
Second Five Year Plan (GLF) 1958-62:
State-owned enterprises
Industrial firms taken over to create state owned enterprises
Party dictated the prices businesses could charge and production targets they had to meet - good for nation not profit
Wages set at a guaranteed level
Workers given a home/health/education
Enterprises inefficient - didn’t matter amount of work put in he was still payed the same (little incentive)
Surplus taken away by state
Second Five Year Plan (GLF) 1958-62:
Successes and failures (HUGE FAILURE)
+Increase in production of some raw materials (steel/oil)
+Tiananmen square remodelled (propaganda success)
+Private property banned peasants lived communally (ideologically good)
-Targets unrealistic (millions work to death)
-Badly planned projects (Three gate gorge) caused environmental damage
-Backyard furnaces
Second Five Year Plan (GLF) 1958-62:
Backyard furnaces
Industrial production had declined by 40% from 1958-59 level
Peasants demanded make home furnaces
Peasants put cooking implements like woks/chairs/tables into furnace
Steel produced was poor quality and useless, crops rotted in fields because peasants tended furnaces many died
Party dumped steel made underground
Lushan conference 1959
Minister of defence Peng Duhai voiced doubts about reports of a record grain harvest (375million tonnes)
He has witnessed the plight of peasantry and wrote a letter to Mao explaining
Mao felt betrayed and made the letter public accusing him of colluding with Krushchev
Peng replaced by Lin Biao
Liu, Deng and economic reform 1962-65
Reforms:
•In industry factories told to make a profit instead of aiming for ideology
•Factories made products to help agriculture (steel, wood and bamboo for tools)
•1965 industrial output doubled 1957
•Light industry grew at 27% per year
•Heavy industry grew at 17%
•Experts released from Laogais
•Communes reduced in size and peasants given freedom to grow what they want and sell surplus to market
