Lives changed

Question 1

Lives changed - peasants general

Answer 1

• between 1968 and 1972 – around 17 million young people, Red Guards, lived and worked with peasants or workers in state-owned provincial industries – some went voluntarily; others were coerced

• literacy rate up from 20% in 1950 to 83% in 1970
• critical questioning & reflection:
• critical questions about the new Communist society given the bleakness of peasant life
• whilst not labouring, students read contraband literature
• ‘rustification’ programme – May Seventh Schools, launched May 7 1968, were farms and industrial enterprises where CCP officials/cadres would carry out heavy labour
• improvement for rural people:
• educational needs of country people considered – increased number of schools in villages
• election of village leaders became more independent; peasantry gained political power
• increased state expenditure n agricultural sector; greater mechanisation of basic machinery

Question 2

LIves changed peasants Fenby

Answer 2

• Once more, farmers found themselves put under bosses ignorant of agricultural methods and intent on boosting output for political ends.
• it was an ideal opportunity for the incompetent tograb jobs

Question 3

Lives changed - workers

Answer 3

• Workers were allowed to set up ‘revolutionary organizations’
• ‘poor and lower-middle peasant youths’ would formtheir own groups in the countryside
• . Per capita growthof national income dropped to 2.95 per cent in the second half of the 1960s.
• The number of fatal industrial accidents quadrupled in the sameperiod.
• cultural revolution had cost $34 billion

** Life expectancy rose from 36 to 57 years, urban housing standards improved and urban incomes increased by 40 per cent. Workplaces were organised on socialist principles; urban and industrial workers subsidised housing, medical care and educational facilities. **

Question 4

Lives changed - women

Answer 4

• Suddenly, they felt free to express themselves, and play a part in society long denied by the straitjacket of the Party and the administration. For young women in a male-dominated society, the Cultural Revolution offered a chance to step to the front

- More than a million women took advantageof a new divorce law.

• The All-China Women’s Federation had 40,000 staff in eighty-three cities.
• 1 May 1950 Marriage Law

- Article 48 of the Constitution “women enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of life”

• women employed in the PLA, access to career opportunities
• An important aspect of female involvement in PLA work was membership of the** people’s militia,** a type of volunteer defense corps, mainly organized in rural areas. In Southeastern China, in particular along the border with Vietnam, and along the coast of Fujian Province, located opposite Taiwan, these militia were engaged in active defense of the motherland against potential American aggression spilling over from the Vietnamese conflict, or Taiwanese actions aimed at sabotage.

Richard Burger suggests that sex and relationships were severely restricted by the CCP. Premarital sex and homosexuality were forbidden, as was prostitution, pornography, sex education – and indeed all reference to sex in books or film. According to Burger, the CCP wrapped its people “in a cocoon of chastity” and was “intent on creating a society that was basically sexless outside of their homes

The All-China Women’s Federation, formed in 1949, helped deliver some of these new freedoms to women -however historians Lily Lee and Sue Wiles argue that Chinese women were still largely excluded from the all-male party hierarchy. They note that **women continued to work on issues related to women, traditional gender segregation making it easier for them to have contact with other women **

Question 5

Women’s rights Fenby

Answer 5

women went on getting the lesswell-paid jobs, and were still expected to look after the household, queuing for food and necessities. The Shanghai Party secretary excluded female homemakers from the ranks of ‘productive people’

Question 6

Health

Answer 6

• between 1950 and 1952, over 512 million of China’s ~ 600 million people were vaccinated against smallpox
• By 1957, more than two-thirds of China’s then ~ 2050 counties had an epidemic prevention station
• Patriotic Health Campaign of 1952
• ** cases of typhus dropped by 95% in the 1950s**
• China’s barefoot doctors rose in number from around one million in 1970 to a peak of around 1.8 million in 1977.

- 1958 eradicate the 4 pests ( flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows)

Question 7

Electrification

Answer 7

During 1949–1957, China’s first 5-year plan period, although China imported power technologiesfrom the former USSRand developed manypower projects, not much electricity wassupplied to rural communities. Rural electrification was mainly managed by provincial and local governments. There was no specific national institution to manage and invest in the rural electricity system. From 1958, the government started to establish wholesale and retail power institutions at the county level to manage power supply for rural areas. In 1958, the Government set out a plan to promote rural electrification in 100 villages of 5 counties as demonstrativemodels.

** During the 1960s, rural electricity’s share of national
electricity consumption increased from 1.36% to 10.9%**

In 1959, rural electricity consumption reached 307 million kWh, but still only accounted for 0.6% of the nation’s total electricity consumption