First And Second Plan Flashcards
What was the problem with the Soviet advice given in the first plan?
High salaries paid by Chinese for 10,000 advisers and $300 mil loan had to be repaid with interest
What was another problem with Soviet interference?
Office blocks & contruction projects built in ‘Soviet brutalist’ style
R penetrated education (only foreign lng taight in schools)
TASS official Soviet news agency main source from which the Chinese newspapers gathered their info
However, what was the advice considered?
Invaluable
A further problem of first plan
Quantity over quality
Success of first plan: how much did the output of steel increase on avg a year?
31.2%
BUT FIGURes unreliable as officials exaggerated
Success of first plan: most sectors of eceonomy suceeded in reaching their targets, what was target and actual of coal
1957
Target: 113
Actual: 130 millions of tonnes
Success of First plan: annual growth rate per year
9%
How did urban living standards rise in first plan?
In terms of wages & job security BUT LOSS OF FREEDOM TO CHANGE JOBS OR TRAVEL
How many people migrated to city 1949-1957
1949, 57 mil
1957- 100 mil
Another failure of Soviet guidance
Exposed short-comings in the skill and literacy levels of Chinese workers
And into of Lysenkoism
What happened in countryside and why?
Peasants in communes going short of food (exported to Russia to pay for Soviet advice and sold cheaply to cities to feed urban population)
Success of First Plan for Mao?
Hold over population tightened
Second plan success- increase in the output of raw materials- oil
3.7 mil of barrels 1958, 5.3 mil 1962
Figure to show 2nd plan unsuccessful in terms if industrial output
1962- China only producing half the amount of heavy industrial goods & 3/4 the amount of light industrial goods that were being made 1957 (start of plan)
What was a good propaganda success?
Construction of Tiananmen Square in Beijing
Backyard furnaces- what happened to night sky?
Turned red by the fires& by day smoke blotted out the sun
In 1958, how much of China’s steel came from local furnaces?
48%
At its peak, how much of the population had abandoned their normal activities to take part in backyard furnaces?
A quarter of the population
What did this high participation lead to?
Unsustainable strain on food production, which led to school closures to make shock brigades to get in the harvests
Why were the backyard furnaces not abandoned in 1959 when it was discovered they didn’t work?
Fear of losing face
Carried on making ppl do it but took it and buried out of sight
Two main consequences of backyard furnaces
Economically damaging (people deployed on futile activity to the detriment of producing food) Negative ecological consequences- destruction of vast swathes of woodland to supply fuel for furnaces, led to faster soil erosion and worse flooding
Yes, second a failure: construction projects- what was used?
No machinery, rudimentary equip like shovels
Yes, second a failure: construction projects- example of disastrous irrigation schemes
The Three Gate Gorge Dam to control flow of the Yellow River too ambitious and had to be rebuilt within a year
1961- 2x as much mud was being deposited downstream & foreign visitors banned from going near the dam
Though some of smaller projects relatively successful, what shows cost colossal?
Lives lost and labour taken away from fatming
What prevented productivity in agriculture?
New irrigation schemes led to increased salinisation (excessive build-up of salt in soil which reduces its fertility)
Check the things about communes to include also
Ye
