History Quick'n'Easy Revision

Question 1

Monetary problems at end of Civil War

Answer 1

• Hyperinflation. KMT had bankrolled armies by printing money.
• 1940, 100 yuan could buy a pig. By 1946, an egg.
• People reverted to barter.
• By centralizing the banking system, tightening credit and restricting budgets in 1951, the Party were seen to be sincerely attempting to stabilize prices.
• Was only a threat insofar as it complicated the problems of transport and infrastructure.
• Could not be blamed for KMT problems, actually gained support in cities.

Question 2

Industrial Problems at end of Civil War

Answer 2

• Key ideological goal to industrialize.
• Soviet troops dismantled half
• 1949 factory output 44% bellow 1937 levels.
• Sabotaged power stations and industrial sites.
• Short term aim to stabilize this problem, and not a threat to CCP control, could not be blamed.

Question 3

Administrative problems and lawlessness at end of Civil War.

Answer 3

• Educated elite had departed to Taiwan. In the short term, Soviet advisers would be sent but in the long term Great Leap Forward Sino Soviet Split. Peng : Khrushchev an ideological deviationist, disagreement over Albania resulting in withdrawal of 1400 technicians.
• Ideologically committed and unprepared for government.
• 1 million bandits added to social chaos, many refugees moved to cities.

Question 4

Infrastructure and transport at end of Civil War.

Answer 4

• Half railway networks destroyed.
• Hankou port destroyed by American B-52s.
• Bandits and warlords controlled large areas, making travel and communication difficult.
• Telephone lines damaged.
• Warlords and bandits controlled large areas, 50 ethnic groups.
• Communists unprepared to run cities. Story of flushing rice down the toilet.
• Did not threaten CCP control, a new ambitious government grew support in the cities.

Question 5

Nationalist threat at end of Civil War.

Answer 5

• 1000 killed Shanghai 1950.
• US backed, sent spies and saboteurs.
• Was the immediate, organized, and credible threat.

Question 6

New Constitution

Answer 6

• 662 delegates convened 1969 to write the Common Program: multiparty, private ownership, freedom of thought, speech religion, Mao head of state.
• Democratic League, democratic personalities KMT members invited to CPPCC.
• Temporary, but was relatively democratic, replaced by the 1954 Constitution and democratic centralism.

Question 7

Democratic centralism.

Answer 7

• Supposedly, local congresses and elected representatives would pass the will of the people onto Beijing.
• In reality, top down. Confucian respect for authority, democratic centralism created a triangular power structure. 5.8 million members, Mao at the top.
• Mao’s personal prestige and influence of the the Standing Committee and the Elders in the Politburo ensured personal power.

Question 8

Standing Committee and Politburo and National People’s Congresses

Answer 8

• 5 Close colleagues of Mao, Chen Yun, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, fellow revolutionaries .
• Politburo (20 members) :nothing could be done Mao disapproved, but his power did not rest in the formal role of Party Chairman. Personal authority (allowed him to step back, and then resume following GLF)
• NPCs were rubber stamps.

Question 9

Central Peoples Government

Answer 9

• Interpreted and enacted laws, announced decrees, controlled budgets and appointed key government personnel.
• Government Council was headed by Zhou Enlai, and coordinated 24 new ministries. 56 leading party members, many from Yanan years. Mao was Chairman

Question 10

PLA

Answer 10

• Controlled by Party through military affairs commission.
• Imposed military control of China through reunification
• Suppression of bandits (1950-53 eliminating opponents) 100,000 killed.
• 1955 conscription law: 800,000 new recruits each year.
• Mao later became Chairman of the Central Military Commission, but his power was in his personal prestige.
• PLA loyalty to Mao: marriage law amended 1950 when divorce rate rose.
• Mao’s power over PLA mount he was secure.

Question 11

Regional bureaux

Answer 11

• Six bureaux, each with four officials, two of which were PLA officers.
• This meant power was dispersed, and no one person gained too much control.
• Consolidated PLA influence: regions were under military control.

Question 12

PLA modernisation

Answer 12

• Following Korean War, Peng Dehuai aimed to technologically advance PLA.
• New military academies Beijing Nanjing, soldiers sent to train in USSR.
• Shrank to 3.5 million 1953, abandoned guerilla tactics.

Question 13

Campaign to Suppress Counter Revolutionaries.

Answer 13

• March 1950: provided an excuse for purging and social control, under the pretence of hunting spies.
• Feb 1951 decree “Punishments of Counter Revolutionaries” expanded what was meant by counter-revolutionary - anyone who the Party disapproved.
• Ministry of Public Security deceived former nationalists into revealing themselves, and arrested them.

Question 14

Mass Participation

Answer 14

• Public struggle meetings encouraged by Mao as part of the campaign to suppress counter revolutionaries.
• Ministry of Public Security publishes ‘How to Hold an Accusation Meeting” manual in 1951, in the first half of 1951, 800,000 deaths.
• Peoples Daily published details of punishment.
• ## Control, fulfilled Mao’s penchant for involvement, taught and involved the people in communism.

Question 15

Three Antis

Answer 15

• 1951, former civil employees imprisoned or executed replaced with loyal Party cadres.
• Consolidated Mao’s power base, supposedly and popularly targeting “waste, corruption and inefficiency within the Party”.

Question 16

Five Antis

Answer 16

• January 1952 against businessmen.
• Mao gained confidence to turn against the bourgeoisie he had tolerated in the early years.
• Immense psychological pressure. 15000 trained propagandists working in Shanghai, huge anti-capitalist parades, “Denunciation Boxes”, police patrolled parks to stop people hanging themselves.
• Control over private business, 99% businessmen found guilty. Cadres looks over management roles.
• Break down of social fabric, traditional relationships broke down replaced with loyalty to CCP.

Question 17

Tibet

Answer 17

• Rival belief: Buddhism, loyalty to the Dalai Lama. Far from Beijing vulnerable to foreign influence.
• 60,000 resisted, but PLA entered Lhasa Nov 1950.
• Representatives forced to sign 17 Point Agreement on Liberation of Tibet.
• Tibetan language, religion, political meetings prohibited. Borders redrawn with Sichuan, forcing land reform.
• Nov 1952 Mao declared the aim for population to increase 3 - 10 million migration of Han Chinese.
• Propaganda: dances, radio, propaganda films.

Question 18

Xinjang

Answer 18

• Concern of USSR influence, separatist sentiment and fierce opposition to central control.
• Cleared of opposition by Peng 1950, migration of Han into what was 3/4 Uigur.
• Mining and industry developed.

Question 19

Guangdong and Taiwan

Answer 19

• 28000 executed in Guangdong in Campaign to Suppress Counter Revolutionaries. Valuable trading port Guangzhou very pro-nationalist, fears spies remained.
• Taiwan was the failure of reunification. Kai Shek prepared to reinvade mainland. Communists prevented from invasion from Civil War.

Question 20

Laogai

Answer 20

• 1955 1.3 million
• 300,000 political prisoners from Antis and Counter-revoloutionaries.
• Guangdong tin mines, 1/3 died first year. Thousands froze to death building railroads in Sichuan.
• Torture, dysentry, starvation commonplace.

Question 21

Laogai importance

Answer 21

• Economic: mid 1950s, 700 million yuan in industrial products 350,000 tons of grain. A purge in 1955, added 770000 prisoners. Laojiao camps established, and abandoned judicial procedure.
• Fear. Suicide in Guangdong. An important role in the Chinese collective conscience.

Question 22

Hundred Flowers rectification

Answer 22

• Disillusioned by deception of self registration in counter-revolutionaries. May 1956 attempt failed
• 1956, stalling production asked for support of intellectuals, advance technology, modernise industry.
• Rectify bureaucratic, Soviet style rulers, criticism would allow him to remove them.
• Speech published February 1957, On Handling Contradiction showed full support for campaign and hope for criticism. Admitted 800,000 were killed, promised releases from labour camps to the Party - urgence.
• Over confidence - facts about reunification, Korea. Mao expected praise.

Question 23

Hundred Flowers International concerns

Answer 23

• Secret Speech Feb 1956. Mao similar to Stalin, repression intimidation, Gulag/ Laogai.
• Suggestion of sharing power may have threatened Mao, so tried to prove he was not a dictator.

Question 24

Hundred Flowers events

Answer 24

• Comparisons to Auschwitz. Posters denouncing the Party, one compared him to the Pope, another encouraged peasants to throw his portrait down a toilet.
• Headquarters attacked by students, criticism of low wages.
• Zhisui Li: Mao stayed in bed depressed.
• Handling Contradictions published in Peoples Daily in June, “Poisonous Weeds”, “Right Wingers”.

Question 25

Anti Rightist

Answer 25

• 5% Danwei work units to be named rightists.
• “Denying achievements of revolution” could lead to arrest.
• 400,000 - 700,000 purged to laogai, even well known novelist Ding Ling accused

Question 26

Korean War Unity

Answer 26

• Distraction from Five Antis, Reunification, distrust, and breaking down of social fabric, culture of denunciation.
• Propaganda, mass meetings, and tales of donating week’s wage, and model soldiers. Symbiosis of attacking anthrax happy imperialists internal + collective spirit.

Question 27

Korean War Causes

Answer 27

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Question 28

Korean War Impacts Economic

Answer 28

• War could be seen as over-emphasized in control, if simply accelerator, the 10 billion cost could be seen as more significant.
• Already suffering from hyperinflation, industry…
• Long term strain, embargoes, USSR dependence, diversion of funds to military, slowed recovery, but did not cause collapse.
• Five Antis allowed by war targeted tax evasion, lowered inflation.

Question 29

Impacts Foreign

Answer 29

• Loss of Taiwan. Pride.
• US policy became more aggressive. Truman: Japan an unsinkable aircraft carrier, 50 billion defense spending.
• 1950 Treaty of SS Friendship. Not important in terms of military threats. 400, 000 deaths, manipulative Stalin did inflame tensions, but this preexist war. Clash of personalities. Engineers advisors continued to be sent, no major policy changes. 200 major construction projects 1950s. Under Khrushchev, bound to deteriorate because…
• Peripheral concerns.

Question 30

State Capitalism.

Answer 30

Vesenkha economic planners.
Large industry nationalized.
Unpopular generally, similar to before war.
Bukharin Radicals disliked it.
1917 decree on land popular.
Ended June 1918.

Question 31

War Communism Measures

Answer 31

• Food Dictatorship. Rationing, Cheka seizing/requisitioning.
• Compulsory work 16-50, harsh punishments.
• Abolition of money complete nationalization.
  Bukharin, radicals - major achievement.

Question 32

War Communism Results.

Answer 32

• Economic collapse, decline in industrial production
• 3 million 1917 to 1.2 million
• Massive blackmarket, 60% food
• Mass poverty. 6 million people died in famine beginning
• Tambov 50,000 anticommunist fighters, sailors - political crisis.

Question 33

NEP

Answer 33

Revive economy, political stability.
-Money reintroduced, free market agricultural production, denationalize companies with fewer than 20.
Ideological compromise. Build socialism capitalist has
NEPmen, industrial economy plateaued 1928 - scissors crisis.
Left wing Trotsky feared reemergence of capitalist class.

Question 34

Five Year Plans

Answer 34

Industrial production, transport 1935 Moscow Volga Canal. Coal 165 million tonnes by 1940. Labour productivity supposedly rose, Stakhanovites. Rearamament.

• Production problems, Gosplan terror attacks, 40 wastage.
• Consumer goods queue of 6000 for shoes in Leningrad. Housing - shacks and mud huts outside Magnitogorsk.
• Black market continued.

Question 35

Agriculture collectivisation causes.

Answer 35

• Ideology, belief in efficiency. NEP failure. Farmers decreased production, ‘Kulak Grain Strike’ . Moving to the left, Stalin gained support of central committee.

Question 36

Collectivisation

Answer 36

• 1.5 million sent to labour camps. Kulaks liquidized as a class, forceful collectivization, 17 million horses killed. Absence of incentive, best farmers execution.