Establishing Communist Rule | Establishment of a political system

Question 1

Why was it important for the Communists to act quickly to establish a new political system?

Answer 1

They could have lost their gains and China could have slipped into anarchy

Gave the regime an air of legitimacy, so people accepted it’s authority

Question 2

What government control of the press continued through?

Answer 2

Xinhua, the government-controlled press agency

Question 3

What was the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)?

Answer 3

A conference to which Communists invited 600 delegates of 14 other parties in a continuation of the old United Front approach

Acted as a provisional Parliament until 1954

Question 4

What was the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference responsible for?

Answer 4

Passing essential legislation to set up the new China

Question 5

When was the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference held?

Answer 5

September 1949

Question 6

What did the CPPCC appoint as the supreme state body?

Answer 6

The new Central People’s Government

Question 7

What was the Central People’s Government composed of?

Answer 7

Ministers and department heads. This acted as the government of the new China.

Question 8

What did the Central People’s Government later became known as?

Answer 8

From 1954, it became known as the State Council

Question 9

Which program did the CPPCC approve of?

Answer 9

The Common Program

Question 10

What was the Common Program?

Answer 10

It was a temporary constitution determining the name and symbols of the State

It also elected leaders of the new central government, including Mao Zedong as Chairman of the Central People’s Government

Question 11

What did the Common Program declare?

Answer 11

That China had been transformed into a new society based on an alliance between workers and peasants, whose interests would be represented by the CP

Question 12

What did the Common Program guarantee?

Answer 12

It guaranteed a wide range of personal freedom and gender equality, making China theoretically one of the freest countries in the world

Question 13

What was the brutal reality of the Common Program?

Answer 13

It gave the army and the police the right to suppress all counter-revolutionary activity

Question 14

What speech did Mao identify the four categories of people who should be allowed rights and the five black categories?

Answer 14

The ‘On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship’, June 1949

Question 15

Who were the four categories of people who Mao believed should be allowed rights in the new China?

Answer 15

The working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie

Question 16

Who were the five black categories?

Answer 16

Counter-revolutionaries, rich farmers, landlords, rightists and bad-influencers.

Question 17

What was Mao’s perception of democracy in his ‘One the People’s Democratic Dictatorship’ of June 1949?

Answer 17

He believed in a democratic dictatorship

Question 18

What is a democratic dictatorship?

Answer 18

People’s democratic dictatorship is the notion that dictatorial control by the party is necessary to prevent the government from collapsing into a “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”.

Question 19

What was a “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie” supposed to mean?

Answer 19

A liberal democracy in which politicians would act in the interest of the bourgeoisie.

Question 20

What happened to existing laws created by the GMD?

Answer 20

They were abolished and so was the old judicial system

Question 21

How did the central government and the Politburo cooperate?

Answer 21

The central government simply rubber-stamped proposals put in front of it by the Politburo

Question 22

How many regions was China divided into?

Answer 22

China was divided into six regions known as the bureau

Question 23

Why was China divided into regions?

Answer 23

So decisions taken at a national level could be imposed throughout the country

Question 24

What did the creation of regional congresses do?

Answer 24

It gave at least each region the impression that Beijing was listening to them

Question 25

What were the attempts to distribute power in bureaux and which posts existed?

Answer 25

Senior Communist officials were put in place over each region

Posts: military commander, army political commissar, government chairman and a Party secretary

Question 26

What example is proof of how highly-concentrated power was in some regions?

Answer 26

In the northern-eastern Bureau of Manchuria, Gao Gang held all four available posts

Elsewhere, three party leaders all held multiple posts

Question 27

What was such a level of centralisation of power in the bureaux intended for?

Answer 27

To prevent China from reverting to warlord years of the 1920s when powerful regional leaders fought each other and the central government was powerless

Question 28

Who were the Politburo?

Answer 28

Key decision-making body of the CCP

Question 29

How many people were in the Politburo?

Answer 29

14 members when it met for a plenary session, but ultimate decisions were talking by the five-man committee

Question 30

Which men were part of the five-man standing committee of the Politburo?

Answer 30

Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun and Zhu De

Question 31

How did decisions become laws under the Politburo?

Answer 31

Decisions became laws when the legislature (the National People’s Congress, from 1954) approved them, which they always did

Question 32

What was a political commissar?

Answer 32

Those responsible for monitoring people’s loyalty to the Party at a local level and enforcing control as necessary

Question 33

What was the 1954 constitution?

Answer 33

It was a new constitution published in 1954 which officially confirmed China’s status as a Communist country

Question 34

What changes did the 1954 Constitution make?

Answer 34

The National People’s Congress was created as the new legislature, rubber-stamped Politburo decisions

The State Council took over the functions of the Central People’s Government

Question 35

What didn’t the 1954 Constitution change?

Answer 35

Real power remained in the highest Party bodies, where decisions were taken before being endorsed by the state bodies

Question 36

How did the administrative composition of China change under the 1954 Constitution?

Answer 36

Six regions were now subdivided into 21 provinces, five border regions and two urban centres

Question 37

How much did the number of bureaucrats needed to staff the Communist system grow?

Answer 37

From 720,000 state officials employed in 1949 to nearly eight million ten years later

Question 38

Why was Mao worried about the increase in bureaucrats?

Answer 38

He feared they would become more interested in preserving the status quo to safeguard their careers than in advancing the cause of the revolution

Question 39

What is the bureaucratisation of the revolution?

Answer 39

The idea that the dynamic nature of change would be slowed down if too much influence passed to the bureaucrats

Question 40

What is a bureaucrat?

Answer 40

An official in a government department

Question 41

What did leading CCP officials always hold?

Answer 41

Key posts in both the state and army

E.g. Zhou Enlai was premier of the State Council from 1949 to his death.

Question 42

When did Mao stand down as head of state?

Answer 42

In 1958, he retained his position as Chairman of the Party because that was where real power lay

Question 43

When did political leaders knew they had made it to the top?

Answer 43

When they were invited to join the Politburo

Question 44

Who was Party membership restricted to?

Answer 44

Those who could prove their commitment and ideological correctness

Question 45

By how much did Party membership rise from October 1949?

Answer 45

In October 1949, there were 4.5 million Party members.

By the end of the 1950, this figure to 5.8 million

Question 46

Why was mass participation in Party groups encouraged?

Answer 46

So that ordinary people played a positive role and identified with the Party’s causes

Question 47

What were some important Party groups?

Answer 47

Youth League

Women’s Federation

Question 48

Who were cadres?

Answer 48

Trained party members who monitored civic organisations

Question 49

How did cadres spy?

Answer 49

Part of their work involved reporting on the loyalty of their fellow Party colleagues and the general public

Question 50

What did Mao say about political power in 1938?

Answer 50

“Political power grows out of the barrel of the gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.”

Question 51

Why did the PLA enjoy a special place in Communist mythology?

Answer 51

The PLA had defeated the Japanese and the GMD to enable the Communist Party to come to power

Question 52

What did the PLA epitomise?

Answer 52

Revolutionary values of disciple and self-sacrifice

Question 53

How large was the PLA?

Answer 53

It was the world’s largest army and consumed over 40% of the state budget.

Question 54

By how much was the PLA reduced?

Answer 54

In 1950, it had about 5 million men, but was reduced to 2.5 million by 1957

Question 55

What happened as the PLA became smaller?

Answer 55

It became more professional, technically advanced and less egalitarian

Question 56

After 1949, what did the PLA act as a means for internally?

Answer 56

Indoctrination and enforcing central government control in the regions

Question 57

What did the PLA’s political department do?

Answer 57

The PLA was loosing the favour of the peasantry, so the PLA political department drew up a new code of conduct in 1956 stressing the need to help peasants on farms

Question 58

What did the PLA act as a means for externally?

Answer 58

Achieving Great Power status for China

Question 59

What is the history of Yanan to the Communists?

Answer 59

Yanan remained the Communists’ base area until the Japanese surrender in 1954, when the civil war against Nationalists resumed