China after communism

Question 1

Attack on landlords and the Agarian Reform Law 1950

Answer 1

• Property of large landlords taken away and given to peasants
• Property of enemies of the state, was confiscated
• Putting the reform into action was left to local communities
• Led to biolence and eecution
• Agarian Reform Law brought the desturction
• Won over to communism as numerous peasants benefited

Question 2

Mutual aid teams

Answer 2

• Peasants encouraged to share their equipment, animals, and work in mutual aid teams (10 or fewer households)
• 40% of peasants belonged to mutual aid teams by the end of 1952

Question 3

APC

Answer 3

• Agricultural Producers Co-operatives
• Land still owned by peasants but managed centrally because an APC was a large unit that included thhe animals, equipment, and labour of 3-5 mutual aid teams
• APCs encouraged by Mao from 1953 because he beliebed it would be hte most effective way of increasing production of food
• APCs created demand for machienry, bossting industry as well as allowing much greater production of food
• In some areas, richer peasants took opportunity to buy up large sections of land and hired labour to work on it
• Recovery of capitalism undermined the purpose of APCs and led to interference by communist officials forcing peasants into APCs
• Peasant resistance - kileld their animals and burned their crops
• Mao called for a halt to the APCs in Jan 1955

Question 4

Collectives/communes

Answer 4

• Process of collectivisation intensified in 1956 and 1958 when Mao introduced the Great Leap Forward
• Farms made up of 2000-3000 households
• Land, animals, and equipment belonged to the collective and there was no private ownership
• Mao was anxious to push forward with the programme because he believed the peasants were harming his effort to industrialise China by overeating instead of sending their extra food to the towns
• Produce would not be the property of the peasants and the party would be able to direct it to towns
• By the end of 1958, 700 million people had been placed in collective farms

Question 5

Great Famine 1958-62

Answer 5

• Reslt of collectivisation was a disaster
• Collectivisation was forced on peasants and they reacted by reducing production
• No incentives - peasants no longer had any reason to produce more food than would meet their immediate needs because they could not sell extra produce
• Four Noes Campaign - campaign to get rid of sparrows, flies, mosquitoes, and rats because they were pests - Without any birds, the insects and caterpillars multiplied and ate even more crops and grain
• Political pressures - Mao believed the poor scientific claims of Soviet scientists who said they developed methods that would increase the crop than by using traditional methods - they were wrong but peasants who tried to use traditional farming methods wre denounced by communist officials as enemies of the state
• Fear - communist officials did not speak out about the failure of production in order to impress Mao
• Natural causes - drought in the north
• 50 million deaths in China
• Parents sold their children
• Husbands sold their wives
• Cannibalism

Question 6

First Five Year Plan 1952-57

Answer 6

• Hundrteds of Soviet advisers and spcialists welcomed into China to provide knowledge and expertise to launch industrialisation programme
• By 1952, land reforms had begun to push up agricultural output and to provide food for an urban workforce
• Focus on rapid expansion of heavy industry, coal, iron and steel, and petroleum
• Ambitious targets set to expand industry
• Amazing construction achievments such as road and rail bridge across the Yangzi River at Nanjing
• Coal production doubled
• Electric power production increased by three times
• Stell production icnreased by four times
• Central planning had been accompanied by the gradual removal of private businesses as businessmen were brought into partnership with the state or taken over completley

Question 7

Reasons for tge Great Leap Forward 1958-62

Answer 7

• Annouanced with excitement to the Eight Party Congress in May 1958 by Liu Shaoqi
• Mao’s enthusiasm and faitrh that anything could be achieveied if the will existed
• Mao desired to continue industrial progress that started the first Five Year Plan
• Mao wanted to bring an end to China’s dependence on the USSR in developing China’s economy
• Belief that socialism was superior to capitalism driven by Soviet achievements
• Collectivisation of agriculture would provide sufficient food to feed the expanding workforce and surplus to sell abroad to buy machinery

Question 8

Features of the Great Leap Forward

Answer 8

• Involvement of the whole population to achieve the targets
• Collectivisation of agriculture - change from APCs to collectives was an essential ingredient in increasing the supply of food for urban workers
• Backyard furnaces - whoel of China was involved to produce steel - 600,000 furnaces set up in backyards and families melted down their metal implements
• Men left the fields to worka t the furnaces - even melted farming tools
• Privately owneing businesses came to an end and all businesses were owned b y the state - allowed CCP to control exactly what was produced and to achieve another step towards a communist system
• Massive projects - giant bridges, canals, and dams were constructed

Question 9

Effects of the Great Leap Forward

Answer 9

• Huge rises in the production of caol, wood, cement, and fertiliser
• Collectivisation failed and 50 million died in the famine
• Steel produced in the backyard furnaces was of poor quality and had to be thrown away
• Production in businesses decreases as without the profit motive there was no reason to work hard
• Soviet experts left China in 1960 but the Chinese were not yet sufficiently trained
• Mao resigned as head of state and for the next few years was rarely seen in public

Question 10

Changes in the role of women

Answer 10

• Mao needed to end unequal treatment of women to achieve a communist society
• Chiense culture treated women as second class citizens
• Women were properties first of their fathers then of their husbands
• Birth of a son was celebrated but a daughter was regarded as a costly expense
• Girls recieved little if anyt education and many were pushed by their fathers into an arranged marriage as teenangers
• Potential husbands expected to be paid a dowry once the marriage happened
• Women could not own property, could not vote, and had no right to divorce
• Women kept as concubines
• CCP insisted that women were equals of mena dn it made certain practices illegal such as foot binding

Question 11

1950 Marriage Law

Answer 11

• Arranged marriage and the payment of a dowry baned
• Minimum age of marriage raised to 18 for womena nd 20 for men
• Keeping concubines was forbidden
• Both men and women had equal rights to reuest a divorce
• Men and women in arranged marriages were entitled to divorce
• Women were given property rights to own, buy and sell proerty
• Infanticide was forbidden

Question 12

Impact of policies on marriage

Answer 12

• Peasants opposed the Marriage Law
• Use of matchmakers to arrange marriages continued
• Rural marriages continued with the exchange of gifts
• Women who divorced their husbands were treated as outcasts
• Average age of marriage rose in the 1950s
• Cases of infanticide were reduced

Question 13

Impact of policies on family life

Answer 13

• 1954, Chian’s biggest pharmaceutical company began producing contraceptives
• Resistance to birth control in rural areas
• Childbirth became safer with the use of trained midwices and procedures such as sterilisation of medical equipment

Question 14

Impact of policies on economic role

Answer 14

• Women’s property rights did not last long; private property was outlawed in the campaign for collectivisation
• Husbands resorted to wife selling during the famine
• Literacy levels among women rose
• Proportion of women in the owrkforce rose from 8% in 1949 to 29% by the mid 1960s

Question 15

Impact of policies on political role

Answer 15

• In 1949, 69 women were elected to the Central People’s Political Consultative Committee, accounting for just 10% of its membership
• In the 1953 election to the National People’s Congress, 12% elected were women
• Women’s participation in politics opposed by men but there was some acceptance women can hold minor roles
• First Minister of Health and Justice were women
• Between 1949 and 1962, women’s participation in politics increased

Question 16

Political changes

Answer 16

• Every adult had the right to vote
• Elections held across the country in the towns and villages
• Claimed that power was in the hands of the people
• However, in reality the CCP was the only political party allowed and its leading members held the key positions in the republic
• Government carried out by politburo, leading members of the CCP controlled by Mao
• MAo was suspicious of any critiicism so it was unlikley anyone with opposing ideas would be elected or given a position

Question 17

Mao thought

Answer 17

• Political system and the way in which government was conducted based upon Mao’s beliefs
• Constant class struggle
• Self reliance
• Need for continuing revolution to prevent counter revolutionary ideas entering China
• Mass movilisation of ordinary people to drive the revolution

Question 18

Thought reform campaign

Answer 18

• GMD supporters sent to reeducation camps
• People had been brought under control by requiring registration in a region and obliging them to obtain permission to move from one area to another
• Mao suspicious of intellectuals whose views were different especially those educated abroad
• September 1951, thought reform campaign focused on forcing intellectuals in universities to confess to the errors in their thinking and to attend study sessions to reeducate with Mao thought

Question 19

Antis campaigns

Answer 19

• Mao suspected party members moving away from his teaching and businessmen of secretly supporting capitalism
• 1951 launched the Three Antis Campaign (Party members and bureaucrats to combat corruption, waste, and inefficiency)
• 1952 the Five Antis Campaign (Targerted businessmen to bring an end to bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, fraud, industrial sabatoge)
• Conducted through mass meetings where loyal citizens were encouraged to denounce officials and employers
• Those denounced encouraged to make public confessions and were punished by fines or sent to labour camps
• Humiliation so great that around 2-3million commited suicide
• Huge increase in support for the party
• Reduction in the activity of criminal gangs in large cities

Question 20

Hundred Flowers Campaign 1957

Answer 20

• Mao announced that the people were to ‘let a undred flowers bloom’ - encouraged free speech and he called on intellectuals and artisits to say where the party anf government had gone wrong in their efforts to create a communist states

Reasons Mao made the announcement:
- China needed the educated for its industrial development and the lack of intellectual freedom was preventing scientific discoveries
- Mao thought that the campaign would shake up the CCP and identify those in the CCP who were corrupt or not loyal
- The 1956 revolution in Hungary demonstrated what happened when the people did not support their government
- President Khrushchev had criticised the Cult of Stalin in1956 also directed at Mao

Question 20

Result of the Hundred Flowers Campaign

Answer 20

• Volume of criticism grew
• Mao shocked to find that this criticism was not confined to CCP officials but included him
• Mao’s response to the criticism was to stop the campaign and launch instead an Anti-Rightist Campaign
• ## Critics were now labelled as rightists and forced to confess befor ebeing sent to reeducation camps

Question 21

Sino Soviet Relations

Answer 21

• USSR provided military advisers to the COmmunists during its struggle against the GMD
• USSR was the leading communist country in a mainly capitalist world
• Mao wanted military and economic assitance from the Soviet Union and put this request to its politburo on his first visit to Moscow in December 1949
• Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance signed in 1950
• Promise of aid in the event of an attack
• A loan of $300 million
• List of all Soviet agents in China
• Gave China the funding it needed to begin modernising and gave guarantees for its safety
• Treaty also gave extensive economic concessions to the Soviet Union in Manchuria and Xinjiang

Question 22

Soviet Influence on Economic Developments in China

Answer 22

• Provided China with 10,000 economic and military advisers whose salaries were to be paid by the Chinese
• Vital role in establishing the first Five Year Plan
• Khrushchev admitted the 1950 treaty had been unfair to China and in 1954, on his first visit to China, he offered a generous trade package and promised to help China develop its civillian nuclear programme
• Soviet Union also pulled out of Manchruia
• First Soviet nuclear scientists arrived in China in 1958 - helped the Chinese select the Lop Nur salt lake as the site for nuclear testing and helped to build the first Chiense experimental heavy water reactor
• More than 11,000 Chinese specialists and 1,000 scientists travelled to the USSR where they were trained in the new technology
• Training meant that they were able to begin developing nuclear weapons in China
• In 1959, Khrushchev called the Great Leap Forward a foolish scheme
• Khrushchev annouced that the USSR would not be sending to China any nuclear hardware that had been promised

Question 22

Soviet influence on political developments in China

Answer 22

• Mao never trusted Stalin - blamed him for the high price that China had to pay for SOviet weapons to supply its troops in the Korean War and suspected that Stalin had encouraged CHina’s involvement in oerder to weaken China and ensure that the USSR remained the leading communist country
• Mao shocked when Khrushchev denounced Stalism and criticised his cult of persoinality in 1956
• Mao greatly angered by Khrushchev’s suggestion of ajoint Sino Soviet venture in the Pacific believing that Soviets wanted to spy on China
• Mao beleived that Khurshchev was a revisionist and that China was the only true communist power
• Relations declined further after two unsuccessful visits between the two leaders
• Moscow conference 1958 - Deng Xiaoping accused the USSR of sending spies to China disguised as technical advisers and announced that the USSR had betrayed the communist movement
• Increased Deng’s political support and played a key role in his survival during the Cultural revolution

Question 23

Motives for the CUltural Revolution

Answer 23

• Mao rarely seen after 1962
• From the sidelines he observed the actions of CCp leaders including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping with increasing disapproval
• By 1965, he was ready to return and to save the reovlution from being destroyed
• Mao prepared steering the revolution in China in a new and etremely radical riection
• Desire for permanent revolution - determined that revolution should not fail - wanted to make sure that old attitudes and behaviours diid not undo the changes introduced by the CCP
• Provide a test for young people - believed that strength of CCP came from years of struggle and the young communists had no experience of this struggle
• Remove ‘self-satisfied’ officials who were motivated by the privileges of power - believed communsit China was being run by bureaucrats who were not interested in revolution but were motivated by the power and the social and economic benefits
• Prevent revolution being weakened by revisionists - Mao opposed the measures adopted in CHina after the failure of the Great Leap Forward - deeply suspicious that Liu and Deng had encouraged private trade and ownership because they were capitalist symphathisers
• Remove opponents who did not support Mao’s policies - feared that he had opponents within the CCP leadership who were seeking to remove him - main targets Liu and Deng
• First sign Mao was ready came in 1965 when Mao forced the deputy mayor of Beijing (intellectual) to resign because he disapproved of a play that Wu had written that could be interpreted as a criticism of Mao’s regime
• Mao established the Central Cultural Revolution Group under the leaderhip of his supporter Chen Boda
• The implementation of the Cultural Revolution’s policies was dfominated by the Maoist Lin Biao, Jiang Qing, and Kang Sheng
• July 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution with his swim across the Yangtze River

Question 24

Mass mobilisation and the role of young people

Answer 24

• Mao mobilised young peopel to carry out hte ideas behind the Cultural Revolution
• August 1966, a big character poster written by Mao was published where he called upon the young to attack the revisionists in the CCP in a ‘Bombard the Headquarters’ campaign
• Next stage was by organising eight mass rallies in RTianamen Square between August and Novemeber 1966
• Crows listened to a speech by Mao’s closest supporter, Lin Biao in which they were encouraged to attack not only the leaders of the CCP who had adopted revisionist ideas but also all aspects of China’s culture that could be regarded as old

Question 25

Attack on the ‘Four Olds’

Answer 25

• Eight mass rallies launched the campaign against the ‘Four olds’
• Old habits
• Old ideas
• Old culture
• Old customs
• Young encouraged to attack everything in China associated with the past
• Attacked churches and cultural sites and invaded people’s homes to seize possessions that were associated with the old bourgeoisie including books, jewellery, and musical instruments
• Only the presence of the PLA that prevented them from destroying the Forbidden Palace

Question 26

Red guards and the use of violence

Answer 26

• Students and schoolchildren formed themselves into units to carry out Mao’s instructions to attack the opponents
• Red guards whip ‘class enimies’ and were thorougly indoctrinated in Mao thought
• The first members were the children of party officials
• Young people from so called ‘bad-class’ backrounds were allowed to join - often most violent as they wanted to prove their loyalty
• ORganisation also allowed young people from all backrounds to settle old arguments and to get revenge on those who had punished them in the past
• Vast numbers travelled to Beijing to attend the mass rallies and then carried the message throughout China
• Made possible by decision to allow red guards travel for free on railways
• Carried out frenzied acts of violence in implementing the attack on four olds
• Victims were forced onto their knees with arms held back in an aeroplane position and were made to confess their crimes - if resisted they were beaten and kicked
• Red guards had official approval
• Occasions when the attacs were direct by the CCRG most especially Madame Mao
• Mao would not call an end to violence as long as it was effective in removing opponents

Question 27

Cult of Mao and the little red book

Answer 27

• Gave Mao a special status and involved the worship of Mao
• Worshipped as the great hero who had save China from foreigners and brough communism to China
• Young people devoted themselves to the task with unquestioning obedience
• Every red guard had a little red book and used it as guidance
• Production of Mao souvenirs became a huge business

Question 28

Education

Answer 28

• As intellectuals were idnetified as enemies in the attack on the four olds, it was certain that childrne would turn against their teachers as reactionaries who had been holding back the progress of communism
• All schools and colleges were closed so that children could take part in the revolutionary struggle
• First victims were their teachers - many tortured and beaten to death while others committed suicide

Question 29

The PLA and the end of the violence

Answer 29

• By Janurary 1967, Chian had fallen into near anarchy
• Red guards turned against one another and attacked the workers’ units that had been formed to drive the Cultural Revolution in the factories
• PLA was concerned that the continued radicalism would soon turn it against hte pLA
• By Septmeber 1967, Mao was also concerned as he feared that anarchy weakened CHina adn that foreign powers might take advantage to seize territoy
• 1968, Mao ordered the military to destroy red guards and regain control
• PLA closed down red guard newspapers and reopened the schools to ecnourage young people to leave the streets
• PLA conducted a purge of the red guards
• THousands were killed

Question 30

Up to the mountains and down to the villages campaign

Answer 30

• Violent phase ended by 1969 spring
• Mao wanted to end their vilent behaviour in the towns and cities
• Party now encouraged anew revolutionary experience for the young
• THey were to head for the countryside to learn how the peasants lived
• Young people were now to be educated in the realities of rural life
• WOudl also bring them omre effectively under the control of the pLA because the military ran a large number of the communes
• Reduce une,ployment in the cities
• TO send the Red guartds to areas where they would do less damage
• Vast majority did not enjoy peasant life
• Peasants did not welcome extra mouths to feed
• Millions of young people who were forced into the countryside were thoroughly disillusioned by the campaign - led them to question the authority of the party and their faith in Mao

Question 31

Removal of the oppoisiton to Mao in the Communist party

Answer 31

• Mao believed that many members of the CCp were revisionists who had become too fond of power and good living
• Red guard attacked party cadres, who were accused of acting more like capitalists
• By 1969, more than 70% of the provincial and regional party officials and 60% of the highest level officials in the national party had been removed
• Replaced by memebrs of the PLA that now became a very powerful in the CCP
• Mao also wanted to remove the leading memebrs of the CCP who beleived were ignoring him as he got older, and because he did not agree with the economic policies that they had iomplemented after the Great Leap Forward
• Mao criticised Liu and forced him to confess to betraying the revolution
• Liu was attacked in the press as a ‘big scab’ and a traitor - arrested and imprioned and died in 1969 from a lung disease - Mao refused to allow him to be treated
• Deng forced out of office but had the support of Zhou Enlai
• Lin Biao lost Mao’s support - the PLA that he controlled had restored order but in the process Lin became very powerful
• Lin was accepted as Mao’s successor and Mao became suspicious that Lin was planning to overthrow him and set up a military dictatorship
• Lin died in a plane crash after Zhou Enlai prevented it from refuelling

Question 32

Imapct of the Cultural Revolution on Mao’s position

Answer 32

• Mao became much more powerful as a result of the evnts
• Mao’s opponents were removed and made him unchallenged
• CCP was firmly under Mao’s control
• Population gave full support to Mao
• Prison camps known as laogi where opponents were reeducated to support Mao and the ideals of communism
• Increased his suspicions so that he came to beleive that leading members of the CCp were making plans against him
• Mao was quite isolated at the top and his health was also declining

Question 33

Imapct on CHina’s economy

Answer 33

• Negative effect on the development of the economy
• Managers whose loyalty was suspect were removed and their replacements often lacked the ksills
• Use of trains to transport red guards meant there was a shortage of trains to bring raw materials to the factories and transport ogods to market
• Beyween 1966 and 1970, industrial prodcution fell by 13%
• Impact on agriculture was less severe however grian production fell and governemnt had to introduce rationing
• Improvements after 1969 but progress was very slow

Question 34

Impact of Cultural revolution on the lives of CHiense peopel

Answer 34

• LEss than 1% had a degree and only 35% of the population had attended school up to the age of 12
• Weakened the family which was criticised as one of the four olds - family ties broken
• Doctors were suspected as being reactionaries and many feared they would beaccused so they cancelled operations and showed solidarity with hospital workers by spending their time sweeping floors
• Rapid training of barefoot doctors led to significant improvements in the lives of peasants
• Religion was criticised - public worhip was forbidden and clergy (priests) were rounded up and sent to prison camps
• Mao’s fourth wife was put in charge of developing a new Communist approved culture and removing traditional Chinese culture

Question 35

Effect of Sino Soivet Split on the economy

Answer 35

• 1960, Khrushchev took back the Soviet technicians and military experts
• Damaging as the advisers had been helping CHina overcome the crisis brought by the Great Leap Forward
• 200 projects cancelled
• Soviets destroyed all the documents relating to nuclear energy
• Mao used the CUban Missile Crisis to accuse Khrushchev of cowardice while Khurshchev claimed Mao’s polciies would lead to a nuclear war
• China was forced to seek friends elsewhere
• China provided loans of %2 billion to African nations to secure their support
• Chinese communism better than USSR for Africa
• China tested its own nuclear weapon in 1964 and its own H bomb in 1967
• Mao claimed that there was no change in the USSR’s government when Brezhnev came to power
• Red guards attacked the Soviet embassy and intimidated Soviet officials in 1967
• Lin BIao accused Soviet leaders of being social fascists
• 1969, series of broder fights - all out war was avoided when two sides agreed to have talks
• 1970s - Mao tried to improve CHina’s relations with the USa - In 1972, he invited Nixon to CHina for talks and agreed on development of cultural, educational, and eocnomic relations
• China’s nuclear weapons were now aimed at the USSR