chapter 7

Question 1

1China under Mao intro

political parties

Answer 1

(1949-1976)

• Mao was a journalist, a military strategist, a political theorist, a revolutionary, and the official and the leader of the largest communist nation in history.
• In 1949, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) led by Mao Zedong took power after winning a civil war against Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang\KMT.

Question 2

Canada and mao

Answer 2

-Norman Bethune, a Canadian surgeon, was an important member of Mao’s revolutionary forces.

Question 3

intro to chinese politics

Answer 3

• Chiang and Mao were both Chinese nationalists. However, they had a bitter rivalry fueled by their different views on the economic and political future of China. Chiang had relentlessly tried to crush Mao and the Chinese communists between 1934 and 1937. Chiang failed to do this because of Mao’s epic Long March with his fellow communists who retreated to regions of China that were not firmly controlled by Chiang and the KMT and the Japanese Invasion that began in 1937.
• Mao Zedong (Tse-tung) was also the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He was a founding member of this party back in 1921.
• The triumph of Mao over Chiang in 1949 ended more than a decade of warfare in China (dating back to 1937).
• However, the Chinese were still not secure. They did not know how Mao would govern their country.

Question 4

did everyone agree with Mao’s rule

Answer 4

-Many Chinese were afraid of the future under Mao`s rule. More than 2 million of them followed Chiang to Taiwan (Taiwan still calls itself the Republic of China. Whereas the mainland of China is known as the People’s Republic of China. China and Taiwan are governed like separate states since 1949 even if the UN and the USA do not officially recognize the government of Taiwan. China is still determined to assert its power over Taiwan. This is a major point of tension between the USA and China. Taiwan built a spectacular memorial for Chiang, Mao’s great rival when he died in 1975).

Question 5

how mao spread communist ideology

Answer 5

-Mao used the Mass Line to spread his communist ideology among the Chinese population and eliminate his political opponents.

Question 6

first moderate mao measures

Answer 6

• But he still began his rule by offering relatively moderate measures.
• He postponed the collectivization of land by maintaining private ownerships over fertile land even if large land owners had to give shares of their estates to landless peasants.
• Mao also opened land in remote regions for landless peasants, such as Tibet, a Buddhist region in the Himalayas, which was conquered by Mao’s troops in 1950 (The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists is a refugee in India since he was forced to leave his palace in Lhasa after the Tibetan uprising of 1959).

Question 7

maoism vs marxism

Answer 7

• The fact that Mao did not completely eliminate the unequal distribution of land as soon as he took was surprising because Maoism depends on the revolutionary force of the peasants instead of depending on manufacture workers/proletarians like Marxism because the industrial working class was very small in China in the early 20th Century.
• Mao viewed the peasants as the most oppressed social class in China so he believed that it was the class that should have the most dedicated revolutionaries. Karl Marx considered that a communist revolution could only be led by the Proletarians (i.e., manufacture workers). Therefore, it could only happen after a country became widely industrialized which was not the case for China in 1949.
• Mao’s communist government also maintained private ownership in the industrial and commercial sectors (similar to Lenin’s New Economic Policy after the Russian Revolution).
• However, the private owners faced strict regulations and they were encouraged to develop partnerships with the communist government.

Question 8

second part of Mao’s regime

Answer 8

A)The Great Leap Forward (1958-1961)

Question 9

A)The Great Leap Forward (1958-1961)

Answer 9

-In 1958, Mao and the CCP were ready to implement major socio-economic reforms in China despite the opposition of moderate communists such as Deng Xiaoping who wanted to prioritized the consolidation of the reforms that were already under way instead of adopting a drastic new wave of reforms

Question 10

goal great leap forward goal and cause

Answer 10

• Mao hoped that his ambitious plan would transform China into a modern communist country and help it overcome the loss of economic aid from the USSR (the relations between China and the USSR deteriorated after the death of Stalin in 1953 because Mao disagreed with Nikita Khrushchev’s plan to de-Stalinize the USSR).
• Mao hoped to find ways to significantly increase the production of food and steel in China.
• The main point of the Great Leap Forward was the formation of large farming communes (i.e., the People’s Communes).

Question 11

propaganda great leap forward

Answer 11

• The CCP and Mao encouraged the people by saying that short-term sacrifices would ensure the future of China.
• Their slogan was “Hard work for a few years, happiness for a thousand”.

Question 12

was great leap forward well received?

Answer 12

• This draconian reform did not seem necessary to many Chinese.
• This was especially the case for peasants who had received land for the first time just a few years earlier. They had to give up their land, their house, their animals, their furniture and their tools to Mao`s communist government.

Question 13

some cultural consequences of the great leap forward

Answer 13

• The uncompromising reform of Mao threatened to eliminate the family as a working unit which was risky since farms have usually been operated like family projects since humans invented agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution: They had to eat in communal dining halls, leave their children in nurseries, and even sleep in dormitories (Roskin, 2013, p. 295)
• It also removed incentives that families had to be productive. Conjugal life was also challenging for Chinese couples who were forced to move to the communes.

Question 14

economic consequences great leap forward

Answer 14

• There were no salaries on communes. Government appointed supervisors were responsible for making sure that people stayed in their assigned communes and to keep track of their productivity. The only reward for high productivity was more food.
• China’s food output plummeted because of Mao’s utopian land reform.
• This led to the Great Chinese famine (1958-1962). It was one of the largest famines in history. It killed at least 35 million Chinese (China approximately had 600 million inhabitants at that point in history). Cases of cannibalism and people eating dirt were reported (Roskin, 2013).
• By 1962, the Great Leap Forward, driven by Mao’s ideological zeal, had caused the worst famine of the 20th century.
• The famine was exacerbated by bad weather, the spectacular growth of China’s population and China’s total isolation from the rest of the world during the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, large parts of the food produced in communes had to be sent to the workers who stayed in the cities.

Question 15

secondary goal great leap forward

Answer 15

• Mao also hoped to produce as much steel as Great Britain.
• China failed miserably to attain this ambitious goal: Backyard blast furnaces were ordered built so every commune could produce its own iron. The projects were foolish and a waste of labor (Roskin, 2013, p. 295).

Question 16

did great leap forward go well consequences?

Answer 16

• In 1961, the Chinese were gradually allowed to leave the communes and return to live in cities or on family farms.
• The tragic failure of the Great Leap Forward remains taboo in China to this day. Nobody could openly question Mao’s radical decisions.
• But inside the elite of the CCP, the calamitous results of the Great Leap Forward reduced Mao’s power.
• This fiasco forced Mao to temporarily abandon his revolutionary fervor and his radical policies.

Question 17

political enemies after great leap forward

Answer 17

-Mao was isolated by moderate decision-makers of the CCP such as Deng Xiaoping.

Question 18

mao reaction to this isolation

Answer 18

• But Mao remained the leading heroic symbol even if his influence over the CCP diminished considerably after the catastrophic failure of the Great Leap Forward.
• This led Mao into a power struggle against his rivals within the CCP.
• He sought the support of China’s youth to regain real power within the CCP and to fully accomplish his dream of an egalitarian communist society in China.
• By the mid-1960s, Mao realized that this dream might not be coming true within his lifetime due to his age and his declining influence within the CCP.
• He hoped that he could form a new generation of dedicated communists to finalize his revolution.
• This led to the formation of the Red Guards. They were in charge of carrying out the purge of people who blocked China’s road to communism.

Question 19

red guards

Answer 19

-The Red Guards and Mao’s ultimate attempt to eradicate capitalism and the remnants of foregone eras (i.e., the periods when China was ruled by emperors, foreigners or the Chinese nationalists) from China was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

Question 20

next era after great leap forawrd

Answer 20

B)The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

Question 21

B)The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

Answer 21

“The young man whose revolutionary work of destruction I had interrupted said angrily ‘You shut up! These things belong to the old culture. They are useless toys of the feudal emperors and modern capitalist class and have no significance to us, the proletarian class.’’ Nien Cheng, 1986. 
-In 1966, the revolutionary Red Guards were galvanized by Mao’s orders to recommit the Chinese to the Revolution.

Question 22

how achieve the cultural revolution

Answer 22

-To achieve this the Red Guards mercilessly attacked what they called the Four olds (i.e., Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, Old Customs).

Question 23

cultural revolution consequences on people and culture

Answer 23

• The Red Guards began their furious attacks on Chinese citizens and organizations that were not sufficiently committed to communism because they incarnated the Four olds.
• The Red Guards wanted to destroy all traces of previous eras of history of China.
• They were opposed to all the individuals and groups who symbolized the presence of religion, western imperialism and the previous rulers of China (i.e., the emperors and the Nationalist of the KMT).
• The guards ransacked houses and hauled thousands of Chinese before mass struggle meetings. These grueling meetings were brutal cases of physical and psychological humiliation and torture.

Question 24

cultural revolution education

Answer 24

The Cultural Revolution also changed education in China.

• Mao’s Little Red Book became the centerpiece of the curriculum. It contains 427 quotations from Mao.
• Students were encouraged to seek a practical education instead of studying sciences. They also burned books that contradicted Mao’s ideas.
• For Mao, the revolutionary fervor of the Red Guards was his last attempt to regain power over the moderates of the CCP such a Deng Xiaoping.
• Mao was refusing to be just the figurehead of the CCP while others were taking all the decisions. Mao’s real target of the Cultural Revolution was the CCP. The Red Guards allowed Mao to intimidate Chinese communists who dared to oppose him.

Question 25

Cultural Revolution international relations

Answer 25

-It was also during this period of upheaval that Mao improved China’s relationship with the United States (Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger) and Canada (Pierre Elliot Trudeau). This marked the end of China’s isolation that dated back to the Revolution of 1949.

Question 26

end cultural revolution

Answer 26

• The turmoil instigated by Mao subsided after 1969 when the PLA started to oppose the Red Guards because it had gotten out of control.
• But the Cultural Revolution only came to a complete end with the death of Mao in 1976 (Mao outlived his archrival Chiang who died a year earlier after governing Taiwan for more than 25 years).
• The CCP officially declared the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
• Mao’s oppression and unpractical policies caused over 70 million deaths in China (Chang & Halliday, 2005).

Question 27

who replaced mao

Answer 27

-It was up to Deng Xiaoping to replace Mao even if they often disagreed with each other (Deng was once forced to be an unpaid worker in a tractor factory because Mao accused him of being a capitalist who wanted to betray the revolution).

Question 28

what was deng’s vibe

Answer 28

• The rise of Deng Xiaoping marked the victory of the moderate communist over the radicals of the CCP: Many Chinese leaders, badly shaken by the Cultural Revolution, looked to old comrade Deng to restore stability (Roskin, 2013, p. 278)
• Under Deng, unpractical policies based on the communist ideology were replaced by projects that favored economic growth.
• Deng’s goal was simple. He wanted to give a better life to his fellow Chinese.
• Radicals such as Jiang Qing, Mao’s widow, were arrested for the horrible excesses of the Cultural Revolution.

Question 29

deng’s goal for china

Answer 29

• Deng became the leader of China in 1971. However, he was only able to truly impose his will after Mao’s death in 1976.
• Deng wanted to modernize China’s:
  1. Agriculture
  2. Industry and Commerce
  3. Military
  4. Sciences and Technologies
• The Four Modernizations aimed at reducing China’s technological backwardness vis-à-vis the industrialized countries of Europe and North America.
• Deng realized that China had to have a prosperous economy if it was ever become a global power once again.
• He was a pragmatic. He wanted solutions that would work even if they did not conform to communist ideology.
• Deng once said “Black cat, white cat, what does it matter so long as it catches the mice?”

Question 30

how did deng compare to other communist leaders

Answer 30

• Deng believed that flexibility was the best way to secure the CCP power. He also believed that economic growth was more important than conformity Communist ideology.
• He was sure that modernization would please the Chinese masses and prevent large protests against the CCP.
• China simply needed to be more productive to meet the needs of its enormous population.
• Deng led a country that had more than 1 billion inhabitants and he did not feel that his party could afford other potentially catastrophic, unpractical and unpopular communist reforms.
• He gave more independence to manufacture managers over the prices of their products and the salaries of their employees.
• He encouraged them to compete against each other. He even allowed bonuses to stimulate industrial productivity.
• His government also allowed their citizens to start their own businesses.
• The Authorities even allowed farmers and fishermen to sell their products in public markets.
• The Little Red Book was no longer the core of the Chinese curriculum. American and European schools became models to follow for the Chinese.
• Chinese students were encouraged to seek higher education (especially in science and mathematics). The high achievers were even allowed to study in American and European universities to become familiar with foreign technologies.

Question 31

deng other policies to help china

Answer 31

• The one child policy was also introduced during Deng’s rule. Therefore, Chinese families did not have the right to more than one child (rural couples can have two children. The ban was lifted in 2016. All the Chinese couples can have two kids at this point).
• This drastic population control program reduced the frantic growth of China’s population.
• Foreign investments were also allowed to accelerate China’s growth.
• Deng’s reforms allowed many Chinese to improve their living conditions.
• They also helped the CCP to maintain its monopoly on political power.

Question 32

5th modernization

Answer 32

• In the late 1980s, many young Chinese believed that Deng’s program should include a 5th Modernization: Politics. They believed that their country had to become more democratic.
• In 1989, the death of Hu Yaobang, the leading reformer in the CCP, led the students to demand a serious dialogue with the CCP on the future of China (the students did want to see Hu`s idea die with him).

Question 33

deng democratic homie ?

Answer 33

Deng refused to meet the students. The students continued their protest and asked for Deng’s resignation.

• The CCP saw the students like rioters. Martial law was declared and the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) entered Beijing, China’s capital, to stop the protest.
• The PLA used overwhelming force to repress large demonstrations that were taking place in Beijing and in many large Chinese cities.
• The military crackdown was shockingly brutal in Tiananmen Square, the largest public place in the world.
• Moreover, hospitals were not allowed to treat injured demonstrators and the families of the victims are still not allowed to mourn in public. Protests remain nonexistent in China since 1989 (except in Hong Kong).

Question 34

conclusion deng rule

Answer 34

• The aging Deng had secured the place of the CCP at the top to China`s political scene on the eve of his retirement. He was not going to see the Communists Party lose power (unlike the communist dictators of Eastern Europe at the same time).
• By using force to repress protests Deng started China on its present course by splitting economics from politics. He offered the Chinese a new deal: Work and get rich in a partly market economy but leave politics to the Communist Party (Roskin, 2013, p. 278).
• His successors, Jiang Zemin (1989-2002), Hu Jintao (2002-2012) and Xi Jingping (2013-) are following Deng’s path of repression of political dissidents.

Question 35

deng and the economy

Answer 35

• On the other hand, China’s economy is changing very rapidly especially since it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) back in 2001 after 15 years of negotiations.
• This is arguably the most important economic event of the 21st century because it made China an open market for corporations of Europe, Japan and North America (many of them transferred large parts of their production to China after 2001).
• Jiang’s rule was also marked by the retrocession of Hong Kong (1997) and Macau (1999).

Question 36

how did china feel about itself

Answer 36

-Modern China showed its pride and prosperity to the world during the opening of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, and the Olympic Games in Beijing (Peking).

Question 37

consequences of fast and huge economic growth 3

Answer 37

But China’s unchecked prosperity has devastating effects on its environment (Beijing and Shanghai are two of the most polluted cities in the world. Pollution also affects smaller communities such as Guiyu. It is a digital wasteland. It receives containers of hazardous scraps from all over the world. This obviously has devastating effects on its inhabitants).

• China`s current economic growth also created many social inequalities (it’s destroying Mao’s dream of an egalitarian society).
• China seems on its way to become the largest economy on Earth (Episode 3 of the Netflix series History 101 explains how China’s spectacular economic growth happened).
• China is even developing its own space exploration program. But according to Jonathan Spence (2002), the main challenge that faces Chinese authority is to resolve the contradiction between political authoritarianism and economic growth.
• Will China`s economic growth lead to political democracy? This remains one of the main questions of our era.

Question 38

china and democracy

Answer 38

-The hopes of seeing a more democratic China in the near future were dashed in 2018. The CCP agreed to change the constitution to allow Xi Jinping to remain China’s leader for as long as wishes but China’s attempt to take complete of Hong Kong and the Muslim regions of western China have met stiff resistance and Taiwan remains determined to keep its autonomy.