Establishing Communist Rule Flashcards
What problems did China face in 1949?
- lack of food due to destruction of factories
- nationalist threat
- lack of skill in managing cities compared to rural areas
- lack of communication infrastructure made governing difficult
- few people really gave one about mao’s ideology
When was the Land Reform policy and what did it do?
1948 - forced landlords to be beaten + sign a confession for the party to fairly distribute the land among the peasants - massively popular among peasants
How did Land Reform fail in establishing communist rule among the peasants?
most peasants were interested only in events in their own villages and local areas; they were not concerned with national political issues or revolutionary ideology
What percentage of land was redistruted during the land reform scheme and what percentage of the rural population recieved this?
the land reform succeeded in redistributing about 43% of China’s cultivated land to approximately 60% of the rural population
What percentage of China lived in poor and rural areas in 1949?
80%
What were the 3 anti’s?
campaign against corruption, waste and obstructionist bureaucracy
what year was the 3 anti’s campaign launched?
August 1951
what did the 5 anti’s campaign aim to eradicate?
bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts + stealing state economic information
When was the Korean War?
1950 - 1953
What were the benefits of the Korean War?
- enhance position of China (make them seem more impressive)
- gave CCP an excuse to purge political opponents
- helped unite communist countries in the region: Stalin now liked Mao more
- raised nationalism as people were encouraged to donate to war
What were the negative impacts of the Korean War?
- 3 million sent, 400,000 died
- costs $10 billion, unachievable with other committments to social change
- still recovering from civil war + japans invasion in WW2
What was the PLA and when was it formed?
People’s Liberation Army - formed in October 1949
Benefits of PLA for CCP?
- Between 1950 and 1953, the PLA was also
assigned responsibility for the suppression of bandits – for any opposition to the CCP - over 100,000 enemies of the communists were killed. - economic benefit - work teams contributed up
to a week’s free labour a year
When was the ‘Campaign to Suppress Counter-Revolutionaries’ started and what excuse did Mao use?
March 1950 - used the korean war as an excuse to increase use of terror
When was the five antis campaign started?
February 1952
What was the campaign to supress counter revolutionaries?
- tricked any possible counter revolutionaries into implicating themselves with promise of forgiveness then arresting them
- encouraged people to persecute counter-revolutionaries themselves in the name of the CCP
how many people died in first half of 1951 due to the campaign to supress counter revolutionaries?
recorded 800,000 counter-revolutionary deaths during the first half of 1951
Who did the Five Anti’s campaign target and what did this involve?
Middle Class + Business owners - workers were encourage to turn against their own employers
- led to mass suicide attempts from these business owners - those who survived sent to laogai
Successes of the Terror campaigns
- both very successful - in shanghai 99% of businessmen were found guilty of at least 1 five-anti
- helped establish CCP’s control over private businesses
- suspicion + survival instinct caused people to realise they had to submit completely to the CCP
When was the invasion of Tibet
October 1950
Why was Tibet invaded and what did it involve?
- To eradicate the muslim religion in the area
- unify chinese population - remove tibetan identity
- successfully enforced manderin as official language in schools
- built massive highway to encourage emmigration + destroy traditional way of life
What were the laogai’s and how many were in them by start of 1955?
Chinese gulags/ prisons.
By the start of 1955 there were more than 1.3 million people undergoing forced labour
Why were laogai’s beneficial to the CCP?
Forced political rivals + criminals to create unpaid labour - by the mid-1950s contributing over 700 million yuan in industrial products and 350,000 tons of grain to the economy
- A means to intimidate and terrorise the population
- a way of converting former opponents by forcing them to attend study lessons where they would be bombarded with communist propaganda.
When was the Hundred Flowers Campaign launched?
1956
