Essay prep unit 2 Flashcards
Natrual factors
Eight of twelve main rivers in Shandong dried up because of drought, over 60% of cultivated land was affected and 2 million died through drowning or from starvation.
Drought and flooding across China was beyond Mao’s control; it catastrophically affected large quantities of people and land which reduced agricultural output.
However, the severity of the great famine and other destructive consequences cannot be attributed to only the natural factors.
Lysenko
Mao strongly relied on the highly acclaimed methods of soviet agrobiologist Lysenko. However most of Lysenko’s theories were entirely fraudulent as a means of acquiring fame in the USSR.
This meant crop organisation all across China became poorly optimised and inefficient, resulting in crop failure and an overall drop in agricultural production.
‘Walking on two legs’
Mao championed the idea of “walking on two legs”, essentially Mao wanted to improve both industry and agriculture simultaneously and in 1957 he predicted steel output would quadruple in 4 years.
The peasants enacted this policy by using backyard furnaces which produced unusable low quality steel and meant the fields were left unattended. In the end Steel production suffered in 1961 it reached 8.7 million tons which was actually lower than in 1958.
four pests campaign
In 1958 Mao launched the four pests campaign where he instructed peasants to hunt down sparrows, rats, flies and mosquitoes which he believed were eating crops and causing low agricultural output.
This only worsened the fragile state of agriculture as crops were left by peasants to rot in favour of hunting pests and the ‘sparrowcide’ led to a population explosion of caterpillars which did consume crops.
first 5 year plan working class population
Industrial working class exploded from 6 million people to 10 million people, as well as this the new steel center in Ashan attracted 36,000 new workers.
Mao’s policy of growing heavy industrialisation was a resounding benefit by helping to create thousands of jobs, which meant improved living standard and stability for the majority of industrial workers.
first 5 year plan sucess
Mao’s slogan “the soviet unions today is our tomorrow” promised to replicate the success the USSR saw with Stalin’s 5 year plans and transform China into a reputable world power.
By the end of the first 5 year plan in 1957 Mao’s economic policy had successfully improved Chinese industry, output grew by 15.5% annually even outstripping the original ambitious target of 14.7%.
first five year plan faliure
Originally the plan had aimed to procure grain at fixed prices, for example the state planned to procure 22 million tons of grain in 1953.
In actuality the state forced farmers to sell at artificially low prices in a bid to pay off the USSR aggressive loans, this meant production suffered and agricultural output drastically dropped from 14.1% to 2.1% per year.
anti rightist
During the anti rightists campaigns Mao had callously branded any cadres or officials who opposed him as ‘rightists’ and had as many as 550,000 purged. This happened continuously and over multiple years and different campaigns.
This meant party cadres feared reporting the subpar results that came from the poor agricultural methods and so they lied to the party which meant even higher targets.
Mao’s climate of fear resulted in overly ambitious targets which gave peasants little reward and so incentives and production suffered.
other ccp leaders responsible
Many party members were neglectful such as the local party secretary in Sichuan ,an enthusiastic Mao supporter, who dismissed the rapid population decrease of 6 million in only four years. The secretary excused the loss in life by saying “which dynasty has not witnessed death by starvation?”.
Party leaders enabled the widespread catastrophe that was the great leap forward by remaining unquestioningly loyal to Mao despite obvious flaws in the plan.
These officials had the power to save people but simply did not exercise it meaning Mao’s leadership is not wholly important in explaining the plan’s failure.
communal living brings order
In all communes any able bodied citizen aged 15 to 50 served in the commune militia which acted as a police force. They enforced commune rules like not taking extra food from the canteen or punishing those who put enough effort into work.
For most peasants this brought more structure and order to their lives than life prior to communes, it meant there was less worry about crimes, life theft or violence.
communal living liberated women
Between 1958 and 1959 90% of women laboured in agriculture instead of being forced to fulfil monotonous domestic responsibilities.
Women were finally free to fulfil their economic part for the country and were even praised by propaganda for being ‘iron women’.
Communal life was more beneficial than harmful to peasants as it liberated women to be free from lives of domestic servitude.
However this argument is not completely accurate as in reality women gave up domestic roles for harsh physical labour that was previously only the role of men.
communal living impact on family
Communes featured ‘mess halls’, canteens which Mao envisioned would help foster communist spirit as workers ate and socialised with each other during the break from their labour.
In reality these canteens replaced the traditional family meal which meant family bonds broke down, parents lost influence over raising their children and grandparents became depressingly isolated.
communal living impact on the elderly
Mao’s vision for the elderly was for them to be free from caring for grandchildren and be able to enjoy their time with other elderly people in ‘happiness homes’.
In reality many grandparents spent the remainder of their lives surrounded by strangers in these ‘happiness homes’, leaving them isolated and depressed.
Sino soviet split
As a part of the Sino Soviet split the Soviet Union suddenly withdrew 1390 technicians and ended 600 contracts with the PRC.
Mao had purged many officials and intellectuals meaning after the sino-soviet agreement China mostly relied on the guidance of soviet experts.
