Agriculture and industry 1949-65

Question 1

How was the land redistributed?

Answer 1

• 1950, Agrarian reform law, villagers labelled landlord, rich peasant or poor peasant
• Landlords had land divided to villagers, beaten up and executed
• 1951, 10 million landlords lost land, 40% of land changed hands and 700,000 died

Question 2

How did the move towards agricultural co-operation begin?

Answer 2

• 1951, MATs of ten families, those who stayed outside would be denied resources and persecuted
• 1952, successful MATs combined to APCs of 40-50 families. Rich families allowed to rent land to APCs
• Only 14% were APCs 1955
• 75 million APCs by 1956
• HPCs, 200-300 families nothing privately owned and profits would be shared due to work points
• Food production only increased 4% annually

Question 3

What were the reasons for launching the communes?

Answer 3

• Grouping farms meant higher food production to support industrial growth
• Grouping resources meant freeing workforce for water conservation projects
• To continue revolution

Question 4

How were the communes organised?

Answer 4

• Great leap forward announced to make China walk on two legs and overcome Britain in 7 and a half years
• First commune in Henan, Sputnik, 1958. merged 27 collectives and 9000 households
• 26000 communes by 1960

Question 5

What was communal living like?

Answer 5

• Communal canteens and dormitories with conjugal visits
• Promises of childcare and elderly homes
• Provided basics but private possessions banned

Question 6

How were private farms abolished?

Answer 6

• Forced into communes and state ownership of everything for ideological reasons
• Removal of workpoints means lack of motivation to work and had 6 hours of sleep every two days
• Everyone between ages of 15 and 50 had to be military trained

Question 7

What was Lysenkoism?

Answer 7

• Ukrainian scientist used by Stalin but his methods were bad
• 1958, made official policy and an 8 point programme of Lysenkoism
• Killing birds caused ecological inbalance making insects eat all the crops
• Many peasant homes ploughed into the ground to fertilise land and thousands of peasants forced to seek shelter

Question 8

What was the great famine of 1958-62?

Answer 8

• 1958, Mao declared 430 million recorded grain reduced to 375 million when it was only 200 million
• Liu Shaoqi made head of PRC
• :ushan

Question 9

How bad was the 1958-62 famine?

Answer 9

• Worst famine of the 20th century
• highest estimates being 50 million deaths
• Reports of prostitution, banditry, wife selling and cannibalism

Question 10

What caused the 1958-61 famine and why was it so bad?

Answer 10

• Mao expected too much from the workforce by expecting backyard furnaces, agriculture, industry and water conservancy projects
• Lysenkoism
• Experts purged in 100 flowers campaign
• Cadres falsified successful grain harvests to avoid persecution in a terror filled climate
• Demotivating effects on peasants by lack of incentive
• Mao believed making China stronger was worth 50 million lives

Question 11

What was the Lushan conference?

Answer 11

• 1959, Peng dehaui opposed Mao through expressing concerns of great leap forward
• Pen sacked and replaced by Lin Biao the leader of the PLA
• No one supported Peng exceot Zhe de and this caused Mao to intensify the famine with a second great leap forward

Question 12

How was private farming restored?

Answer 12

• Mao shifted blame of famine to local officials by overthrowing the management of communes - Emergency directive in 1960 allowed villages to keep private plots of land which could lead to the dismantling of the communes
• 1962, Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi put in charge of restoring food production levels and encouraged the peasants to use the 1960 directive
• Communes broke up into 30 households each and food production returned to normal levels in 1957.
• Ideological fanaticism had been replaced with economic realism

Question 13

Why was the 5 year plan not immediately used?

Answer 13

• Communism had to be reinforced
• Infaltion had to be reduced from 100%
• High levels of military spending caused by the Korean war

Question 14

How did the soviets help the Chinese durin gthe first five year plan? 1952-56

Answer 14

• Sino-Soviet treaty of 1950
• 10,000 soviet experts helped China in all regions of a country but housed and paid by China
• Russia lent China 300 million $ in exchange for interest and held China’s bullion stocks

Question 15

What were the five year plan’s targets?

Answer 15

• To make PRC self sufficient in food and goods production
• Channel resources into heavy industry way from consumer goods
• To nationalise the state through the antis campaigns

Question 16

What were the successes and failures of the first five year plan? 1952-56

Answer 16

Successes
- Official statistics put annual growth rate at 9% a year

Failures
- Official statistics unreliable
- Focus on targets meant quantity over quality
- Soviet expertise highlighted Chinese inferiority in the workforce
- Competition for resources between private and public
- Less than half of children in full time education by 1956
- Food reparations and lysenkoism meant famine in the countryside

Question 17

What were Mao’s reasons for launching the second 5 year plan?

Answer 17

• Agricultural reforms would support the growth of industry
• Mechanisation of farming would free workers for urban vacancies
• Collectivisation and water conservancy projects successful making Mao overconfident
• Wanted to prove to Russia that China could go its own way and still be successful

Question 18

How did the second great leap forward decentralise economic activity?

Answer 18

• Gave more freedom to local party officials
• If bureaucrats held all the power the impetus of the revolution would slow

Question 19

What were backyard furnaces?

Answer 19

• Mao declared new steel target would quadruple to 20 million tonnes annually by 1961
• 1958 Steel target 10.7 million tonnes and this couldn’t be reached with current circumstances
• Water conservancy influenced Mao to use mass mobilisation to increase steel production
• 35% increase in steel coming from peasants in a month
• The steel produced was not good quality and was buried but the project continued
• Environmentally damaging causing soil erosion and flooding

Question 20

What were the successes and failures of the second five year plan?

Answer 20

Successes
- Increase in output of raw materials
- Tiananmen square
- Development of nuclear weapons

Failures
- Catastrophic failure in output of manufactured goods
- Heavy industry 50% drop and 25% light industry drop

Question 21

What was the third five year plan 1962-65?

Answer 21

• Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping put in charge
• Broke down communes, broke down inneficient projects and set more realistic targets

Successes
- Agricultural levels the same as 1957 and heavy industry goods such as coal increased
- Mao admiited blame and left Liu, Deng and Zhou in charge
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