Discuss the aims and results of Maos Economic Policies

Question 1

Economic Policies

Answer 1

Massive failure

• Mao aimed to grow agricultural output –> MAT’S (1954: 58.3% families included) –> Agricultural Producers Cooperatives (1957: 95.7% families included)
• Collectivisation –> Low EG: –> ‘58-‘60: Grain output -28% –> Led to famine (20 - 50 million died) ‘59 - ‘61
• Mao aimed to industrial output –> Second Five Year plan –> established state owned industries + encouraged rural peasants to participate in steel production (600 k furnaces built)
• Mao, once again, failed –>

Question 2

Introduction

Answer 2

Thesis: Mao, to a greater extent, was more succesful in his economic policies than Hitler

Primary Aim:
- Hitler: gear the economy to war.
- Mao: grow China as a great industrial power

*Secondary Aim *

• Hitler: achieve autarky
• Mao: promote ideology via collectivisation.

**Criteria: **The success of a nation’s economic policy must be measured by the extent to which the policies met the aim of the state.

Question 3

Focus of P1:

Primary Aim

Answer 3

Whereas Hitler’s primary aim in his economic policy was rearmament and gearing the economy to war whilst, Mao’s primary focus was to make China a great industrial power.

Germany:

Overy - 4th September 1936

–> Hitler placed Goering in charge of the Office of the Four-Year Plan making Germany ready for war in four years

–> Emphasized rearmament alongside interventionist policies with regulations on foreign exchange, price levels, and raw materials.

–> Successful - actual output rose significantly, with oil production quadrupling from 1936 to 1940

–> Rearmament leading to over 1.4 million in the army achieved his aim of gearing the economy to war.

–> 1933 military spending accounted for just 1.9% of GDP, in 1939, it accounted for 1944

China:

–> Mao launched the first ‘5-Year-Plan’ in 1953; this involved the introduction of Agricultural Producers’ Cooperatives initially compromising 30 – 50 households then later by 1956, 160 families to make agriculture more efficient.

–> Feignon notes that the first 5-year plan was particularly successful as ‘national income grew at an annual rate of 8.9%’ with agricultbout :

—> suggests Mao’s economic policies were incredibly successful in promoting China as a great industrial power.

Question 4

P1 Evaluation Primary Aim

Answer 4

That being said, Mason notes that from 1939-41, there were huge deficiencies in war material, with Germany unable to replace planes after the Battle of Britain in 1940, suggesting that in reality, Goering had not achieved the aim of readying the economy for war in four years.

–> German economy unable to sustain their output over the long-run with the production of tanks also falling from 5000 per month in 1943 to just 500 per month by end of 1944.

–> Moïse: failure of the ‘Great Leap Forward’; where he states that communes set themselves unrealistic targets and felt pressured to publish false reports of production, leading to famine, where approximately 30-50 million died, as the government distributed food based on false statistics.

–> Fenby notes that this turmoil led to coal, steel, and cement production all decreasing by 1962, thus the GLF had been an economic disaster and Mao’s aim of ‘overtaking Britain’s output in 15 years’ had failed.

Thus, significant evidence to suggest that both leaders failed in their primary aims with Hitler failing to gear the economy to war and Mao’s GLF stagnating economic growth

Question 5

Focus P2

Answer 5

The secondary economic aim of Hitler was to create an autarkic state, whereas Mao sought to consolidate and promote his ideology via collectivisation.

Overy notes that as part of the ‘1936 Four-year Plan’, Hitler aimed to lose dependency on imports for key commodities through increasing domestic production as well as developing substitute, Ersatz, products; he argues that figures from the ‘Four-Year Plan’ set out that oil, aluminium, steel, and coal production at least doubled from 1936 to 1938, thus underlining the success of the economic policy in creating strides toward autarky.

Senés sets out that under the ‘First Five-year plan’, Mao sought to push Chinese agriculture towards a production process similar to the Soviet collectivisation of agriculture by establishing larger agricultural producers’ cooperatives. By 1956, Senés notes that 92% of households had been collectivised (an increase of 78% in one year) and by 1957, 800,000 cooperatives had been established – each of which consisting of 160 households; this faced little organised resistance and proved that the fears of Liu Shaoqi who had believed Mao’s quick move toward collectivisation would arouse similar resistance among Chinese peasants to that of kulaks in the USSR were unfounded.

As a result, both a move toward autarky and collectivisation were apparently successful.