Lesson 3: How and why did the system of land ownership change, 1949-57? Flashcards
Define collectives
Areas where the peasants farmed communally rather than for themselves individually
Define collectivisation
The act of distributing the land so it is farmed communally rather than for the individual
Define communes
Organised regions where collectives were grouped
What is an agronomist?
Agricultural scientist
What is an APC?
Agricultural producer co-operatives.
Made up of 40-50 families.
These were created from successful MATs.
What are Khampas?
The nomadic herdsmen of Tibet.
What is an MAT?
Ten or so working together within Mutual Aid Teams.
What is Lysenkoism?
The Soviet theories of improved crop yields which earned the support of Joseph Stalin.
Who are Lysenkoism theories created by?
Trofirm Lysenko
What was supplied to China through the Sino-soviet treaty?
Advisors, manufacturing equipment, loans and ammunitions
What problems did the supplying of resources to China through the Sino-soviet treaty create for China?
Had to repay the soviet debt
When did the Chinese government begin land redistribution?
Less than a year after coming into power
1950
What happened during land redistribution 1950?
Class violence and the execution of over a million landowners
Why were the years between 1950-52 positive for the peasantry?
Had self sufficiency, could grow their own food
What happened from 1953?
Peasants advised to combine their land into collectives of 50 families
What happened in 1956 and what did this lead to in China?
Khrushchev criticised the Stalinist model of collectivisation
Led to Hundred Flowers Campaign
How did the Hundred Flowers Campaign aid Mao with the Great Leap Forward?
Removed opposition to his policies
What was the campaign against sparrows?
Sparrowcide
Where was the first commune introduced?
Henan
What was the size of the first commune in terms of number of families?
1958- contained up to 2000 families
some plans of communes that combined up to 10-20 thousand households
When did the working day start and end?
Dawn and after dark
What did the communes experiment with/introduce?
Collective life geared towards production
Private land abolished
Women freed to work
How much land was redistributed?
More than half of cultivated
How many poor peasants were benefitted by the land redistribution?
300 million
What did Sparrowcide lead to?
A growth of insects
What had initial reforms of the early 1950s been introduced?
In the excitement accompanying the 1949 formation of the PRC.
During the early process of collectivisation, who was land seized from and who was it given to?
Seized from landlords
Given to peasants.
What were peasants urged to do when given land?
Urged to pull resources in farm collectives.
By the end of 1951, how many landlords had lost their land?
some 10 million
By the end of 1951, what percentage of land had changed hands?
about 40%
From what year were groups of ten or so families encouraged to unite to form MATS?
1951
What would families do in MATs?
Pool (merge) labour, animals and equipment
Define pool in this context.
To merge
Who were MATs run by?
Peasant associations
Although peasant associations were thought to be voluntary, what happened to those who were not involved?
Often persecuted.
What happened in 1952 to successful MATs?
Encouraged to combine and form APCs consisting of 40-50 families.
What happened to land after APCs were introduced?
Pooled (merged) and consolidated (united) into larger units.
Land was cultivated as a group.
During the early process of collectivisation, when were profits shared out?
At the end of the year.
List in chronological order the process of collectivisation.
- Agrarian Reform Law
- MATs
- APCs
- Forced collectivisation
- Communisation
- Abolition of private farming/communal living
What is bigger: collective or commune?
Commune-bigger version of collectives
Communes were combinations of collectives.
What year was the Agrarian Reform Law?
1949
What was the Agrarian Reform Law?
This Law gave the legal framework to remove the landlord classes.
What were the landlord class portrayed as?
The ruling class.
Due to the Agrarian Reform Law, what happened to landlords?
Publicly humiliated and accused of exploitation.
After the Agrarian Reform Law, how many landlords had died by the end of 1951?
700,000
Despite being put into MATs, what did the peasants still retain?
Rights to private ownership.
After moving into APCs, what were families who had larger holdings still allowed to do?
Keep back some land for personal use.
When did the MATs come into being?
1951
When did the APCs come into being?
1952
When was communisation introduced?
1956-58
When was forced collectivisation introduced?
1955-56
When was communal living introduced?
1958 onwards
When was abolition of private farming introduced?
1958 onwards
Why did Mao push ahead with full communisation?
Wanted to maximise food production.
What plan was communisation a part of?
GLF in the development of agriculture and industry
What was the first commune known as?
Sputnik
In what province was the first commune started?
Henan Province
When was the first commune started in the Henan Province?
April 1958
During the years of communisation, how many collectives were merged into how many communes?
750,000 collectives were merged into 26,000 communes
How many households lived in the 26,000 communes?
120 million
Why did Mao decide to move towards full scale collectivisation?
He was annoyed at the slow pace of the APCs.
When did Mao decide to move towards full scale collectivisation?
July 1955
Between July 1955 and January 1956, what did the number of households in APCs go from and what did it go to?
July 1955=17 million
January 1956=75 million
What did Mao believe the peasants could not be trusted with which aided in making his decision to forced collectivisation?
Land
What did life within the communes involve?
Communal living with peasants eating together in canteens and sleeping in communal dormitories.
In communes, who was peasants’ working lives directed by?
New management teams.
What were the communes responsible for providing?
Local services, such as:
Education
Public health
Policing
Militia to differing success
What did abolition of private farming mean?
Individuals within communes had to surrender their private property, meaning private farming was abolished.
What were peasant provided with in collectives, in regards to work?
Work points
In communes, who was meant to provide food for everybody’s needs?
The state
What did lack of work points and incentives lead to?
Lack of motivation amongst the peasantry to work.
What was Mao’s frustration in regards to the process of collectivisation?
He viewed it as slow progress.
What did many local officials do in regards to APCs?
Rush into them before they were properly planned
What thing infuriated Mao that he viewed as a rejection of his revolution?
Many peasants were still practicing Capitalism within the localities-buying and selling food and land.
By the end of 1956, what percentage of peasants were farming as individuals?
Only 3%
In 1958, what did Mao make the collectivisation an important part of?
The GLF
How many members did an average household have?
5
Who was the whole system of Communes under the direct control of?
Central Government
What things in the communes was to be directed from above?
Farming methods
Sale and distribution of produce
Setting of prices.
What did peasants need to pass from one commune to another?
Internal passports
Who were the initial steps towards communes taken by before Mao?
Enthusiastic cadres within Henan province who claimed local APCs were willing to take the step to amalgamate (merge) into communes.
What did Mao embark on in 1958, in regards to collectivisation?
A fact finding tour of the countryside in 1958.
What did Mao think about the process of collectivisation when he went on his fact finding tour of the countryside?
He was impressed by these voluntary efforts.
What did Mao use the results of his fact finding tour to do?
Persuade both Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi that the process of communes was a good idea.
Why did Mao believe there would be no way that the GLF would lose its impetus (energy)?
There were 600 million people being mobilised behind the GLF.
What did Trofirm Lysenko have a great impact on in the early 20th century?
Russian and agricultural policy
Who was Trofirm Lysenko?
an Ukranian agronomist whose pseudo-scientific ideas had a disastrous impact on Russia and China in the early 20th century.
What is Trofirm Lysenko and example of?
A Quack doctor.
What does being quack mean?
His ideas had little or no scientific basis.
What was Lysenko’s most catastrophic idea?
Pest control
What did Lysenko’s pest control focus on?
Killing birds to prevent them eating seeds.
What happened as a result of pest control/sparrowcide?
Peasants wasted hours banging pots and pans together in order to prevent them from landing, until they fell exhausted from the sky.
This however upset the ecological balance, leading to a growth in insects
What was Mao’s agricultural policy made to complement?
Industrialisation plans
What did the organisers of the 1st FYP become aware of in the mid 1950s?
China had a severe labour shortage
Which group of people was only a minority of the Chinese working population?
Those employed.
Who did Mao blame for the increase production of food not meeting the urban workers?
The peasants.
What did Mao urge officials to do in 1953? (quotation)
“Educate peasants to eat less. The state should try its hardest to prevent peasants from wanting too much.”
Despite Mao’s background, he had a very high opinion of peasants.
True or false.
False.
Mao used to be a peasant and despite this he has a low opinion of them.
In 1957, what did Mao declare to a group of ministers? (quotation)
“Peasants are hiding food and are very bad. There is no Communist spirit in them! Peasants are after all peasants. That’s the only way they can behave.”
Define peasant.
A poor smallholder or agricultural labourer of low social status (chiefly in historical use or with reference to subsistence farming in poorer countries).
What are the 5 main stages of moving towards communes?
- The 750,00 collectives were merged into 26,000 communes
- The communes collectively contained 120 million households (an average household having five members)
- The whole system was under the direct control of the central government.
- Private farming was ended
- The peasants needed internal passports to pass from one commune to another
What did Mao maintain collectivisation was a direct result of?
The peasant’s own wishes.
In 1958, what did the CCP’s Central Committee declare in Mao’s name? (quotation)
“The people have taken to the organising themselves along military lines leading toward a happier collective life and further fostering ideas of collectivism among the peasant masses.”
What had collectivisation been imposed on the people as a part of?
A massive social experiment in which the wishes of the peasants themselves were simply ignore.
What did Mao wish to ensure was maintained for the cities?
Production levels.
Why was collectivisation ideologically a massive success for Mao?
It meant that he controlled 90% of the land on which the population worked.
What did the speed in which collectivisation was implemented and enforced do?
Showed Mao’s authority over the party
Increased Mao’s ability to control people at a local level.
Who did collectivisation lead to a change in relationship between?
The peasantry and the party.
What were the peasants viewed as due to collectivisation?
Servants rather than loyal supporters.
Economic impact was disappointing during the 1st FYP.
What had food production only increased to?
3.8% per annum
What happened to cultivated land and labour productivity during collectivisation?
Low amount of cultivated land and low labour productivity.
What did the GLF involve?
Developing industry and agriculture.
What did Mao see the GLF as? (quotation)
‘Walking on two legs.’
What would happen to People’s Communes and the labour forces in them?
People’s Communes were to be expanded.
Labour forces was to be mobilised further onto water conservancy and other projects.
Who did China aim to overtake with communes?
Britain
What was the focus of work within the communes?
Production of grain (General Grain)
What 2 things were given equal focus?
Production of steel and grain
At the beginning of organising communes what did the figures regarding collectives and households look at?
Merged 27 collectives and brought over 9000 households together.
Over the next 2 years of organising communes what did the figures regarding collectives and households look at?
750,000 collectives merged into 26,000 communes, containing 120 million households
At what point, do Mao’s policies benefit the peasant the most?
Land redistribution
At what point, do Mao’s agricultural policies seem to be mismanaged?
Forced collectivisation
Lysenkoism
Were peasants socially better off or worse off by 1962?
Better off-they lost their rights of land ownership and free movement because they are forced to stay on communes.
Been utilised as work tools and resources
