Agriculture

Question 1

Aims

Answer 1

Increase food supply to cities.
Didn’t want to exploit peasants, learnt from USSR.
Majority of country = peasants, needed popularity in countryside.

Question 2

Attacks on Landlords

Answer 2

Provoked class conflict, encouraged peasants to commit revolution.
Cadres dragged local landlords to “struggle meetings”, public denunciation, for exploiting their tenants + forcing them to give up land.
Executed 3m landlords.

Question 3

Agrarian Land Reform

Answer 3

1950, land taken from landlords + redistributed.
Removed legal protection of landlords = extreme violence, settling old scores/family feuds.
3m landlords killed.
Summer 1952, 43% land (47m hectares) redistributed to 60% of population (300m peasants).
Small, infertile plots.
1950-52, agricultural production increased 15% a year.

Question 4

Agricultural Co-operation

Answer 4

Collectivization, to introduce modern farming techniques, increase food production + implement Communist Marxism.
1951, Mutual Aid Teams (MAT), effective + popular.
1952, Agricultural Producers Co-operative (APC). Unpopular with richer peasants.
1953-54, grain production increased just 2%, disappointing.

Question 5

Mutual Aid Teams

Answer 5

1951.
MAT were voluntary.
Organised peasants into teams of 10 households who pooled resources + tools + labor to benefit whole community.
Helped poorer peasants.
Very popular + effective.

Question 6

Agricultural Producers Co-operative

Answer 6

1952.
APC.
30-50 households.
Land still in private ownership, but large scale collectives to be farmed more efficiently + profitably.
State took share of harvest, peasants compensated. Richer peasants slaughtered animals rather than giving them to APC.
1955, only 14% of rural families in APCs

Question 7

Enforced Collectivization

Answer 7

APC failure = debate over pace of agricultural change.
Shaoqi + Enlai, China lacked mechanization for large-scale farming.
07/1955, Mao demanded greater pace of reformation towards collectivization.
Peasants no longer owned land/equipment and profits shared according to labor contributed.
APC membership became compulsory, households: 1955 = 63% –> 1956 = 97%.

Question 8

Communes

Answer 8

“Walking on Two Legs” policy.
Average size = 5.5k households.
07/1958, 1st in Henan province = Sputnik.
1960, 750k collectives –> 26k communes.

Question 9

Communal Living Aims

Answer 9

Mao believed living standard of peasants in communes would improve, become more self-sufficient.
Mess halls, canteens and creches for kids meant women no longer had responsibilities/burdens.

Question 10

Communal Living Reality

Answer 10

Quality + conditions of creches poor, children died, under-qualified staff.
Productivity fell, no incentives - same pay and food regardless.
Food distributed on work points - women got less food, physically disadvantaged.
Women expected to do hard manual labor even if pregnant = miscarriages
Family units broken down, dormitories split sexes & family meals –> food halls.

Question 11

Four Pests Campaign

Answer 11

03/1958.
Poor food production, Mao blamed vermin/pests
Sparrows, rats, flies, mosquitoes.
Peasants banged pots & pans/drums to scare sparrows so they didn’t land. Birds fell from the sky, exhausted.
No sparrows = plagues of locusts.

Question 12

Abolition of Private Farming

Answer 12

1958, private ownership outlawed.
99% of peasants in communes, everything shared.
Sale of private produce denounced.
Private farming completely destroyed.

Question 13

Lysenkoism

Answer 13

Trofim Lysenko - Soviet agricultural scientist, supported Stalin in 1930s.
Mao adopted his ideas into government policies mid 1950s.
Not designed for China’s agricultural abilities/climates.
Disastrous, crop yields plummeted.

Question 14

Great Famine

Answer 14

1958-62.
Agricultural production plummeted, cadres overinflated crop yield figures so it didn’t seem like a failure.
Party bosses increased quota and “excess” grain sent to Communist countries as free gifts.
Cadres didn’t want to be blamed, blamed communes.
Malnutrition = 30m-50m died.
12/1958, Mao stepped down as Chairman of CCP Central Committee, easier to shift blame.

Question 15

Life During Great Famine

Answer 15

1m died in Tibet (25% pop), ntentional cultural genocide? Party forced them to switch from barley to wheat - unable to grow in climate.
Attacked food stores.
People ate frogs, worms, bark.
Cannibalism.
Wives sold in prostitution for food.

Question 16

Responsibility for Famine

Answer 16

Chang and Halliday blamed Mao for continuing to export food during famine.
Xiadong blames over ambitious Party cadres who tried to gain favor with bosses.
Mao blamed weather.
Mao didn’t control cadres’ lies, but did set atmosphere of fear within party if targets weren’t met or his policies questioned.

Question 17

Restoration of Private Farming

Answer 17

Shaoqi + Xiaoping took control of agriculture.
Pragmatists - willing to sacrifice ideology to fix agriculture.
“Walking on two legs” –> “agriculture as the foundation of the economy”.
Communes reduced in size.
Farming small private plots and selling surplus on private markets.
Emergency supplies (insecticides, fertilizers, tools) to farms.
1965, agricultural production recovered from Great Leap Forward to 1957 levels.