First five year plans: 1953-1957

Question 1

aims

Answer 1

-supply the needs of its people for food and manufactured goods
→ farm produce to pay for foreign machinery
-Achieve self-sufficiency, build Socialism in China
-Industrial development → absolute priority for economic development (modelling after Stalin’s Soviet Union in the 1930s. However, in both cases, it turns out that the people’s welfare and living conditions were sacrificed for industrial development)

Question 2

Results

Answer 2

1. Achievements were impressive (figures collected were not entirely reliable due to inflation of numbers to please mao)
2. Many new workers were illiterate and not trained for industrial work (did not have necessary skills and unable to read instructions) → much expensive modern equipment was ruined through not being installed properly + lack of maintenance
3. Emphasis on quantity > quality
4. State planners were ignorant of basic procedures and there were serious bureaucratic delays → bottlenecks (impeded flow) in the production, distribution and supply process
5. Competition for scarce resources between industries and between State and private industries

Question 3

Social and economic consequences of planning

Answer 3

1. Workers gained greater job security and stable incomes (further loss of personal freedom as there were strict controls on movement between jobs and the right to travel)
2. Living standards in cities generally seemed to have risen (living standards for Chinese workers were still not high by international standards and living standards of peasants were deliberately held down to finance industrial investment)
3. Speeding up in the shift of population from the countryside to towns (57 million → 100 million)
4. Part of the cost of industrialization was met by borrowing money from the Soviet Union (loans carried a high rate of interest and were repaid mainly through food exports)
5. City populations rose by 40 million due to peasants moving into cities → severe overcrowding
6. Peasants resentful of CCP’s control over their lives
7. Food shortages (much food was sent abroad to buy weapons and machines)
8. Housing problems