Mao Flashcards
Economic conditions leading to Mao’s RTP
- Invasion of Manchuria - Sept 1931
- Opium Wars 1839-42, 1856-60, UK trying to gain access to Chinese resources
- After 1850 the population grew 8%, and land cultivated only grew 1%
- 80% of the population lived in abject poverty, and some paid 80% of the harvest in taxes
- During the civil War Mao had the Red Army aid in land reform and harvesting, had 12k helping
Social Conditions leading to Mao’s rtp
- 1899-1900, boxer rebellion against foreign intervention, put down by foreign intervention, “a hundred years of humiliation”
- over 44m died in the civil war
- after 1949, landowners lost power, finance and industry were nationalized, changes to education
- promoted Confucianism after 1949
Key events in Maos rtp
1926 - Northern expedition
1927 - Shanghais Massacre, end of the first united front
1934-1935 (oct)- Long March, 90% of forces died (86-6k)
1937 - Japan invades Beijing, 2nd United Front forms
1941 - 2nd United Front ends after GMD attacks CCP
1945 - WW2 loss
1946 - US-sanctioned ceasefires, CCP takes Manchuria
1949 - CCP takes Nanjing after guerillas attack trade routes, est PRC
Key events in Mao’s cop
1950 - Land reform, Resist America aid Korea campaign
1951 - Three Antis (Waste, corruption obstruction)
1952 - Five Antis, all other parties banned
1956 May - Hundred flowers, “letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools fo thought content is the policy… for change.”
1958 - GLF
1958-59 - Famine - approx. 50m dead
1958 - Temp. Leave
1966 - Cultural revolution
1971 - Lin Biao ies, PRC replaced Taiwan at the UN
1972 - Nixon Visits Beijing
1976 - Mao dies
Key domestic and foreign policy aims
1950 - Marriage law
1951- Coop farming, 90% of families “modern serfdom under party control.” - Fairbank
1953 - Two legs - majority of steel in backyard furnaces, increased drastically but less than 1% was viable
1956 - Hundred flowers
1958 - GLF
1959 - Tibet Uprising
1966 - Cultural Revolution
Methods used to achieve aims (and stats)
- Legalized divorce, grows to 1.3m in 1953
- Outlaws arranged marriages and killing of daughters
- Women are 13% of party
- Force in Tibet 1950, “liberate it from its imperial oppressors” 60k resistance
- “speak bitterness” against landlords, 2m killed
- “struggles sessions” - 2m commit suicide
- Purges of party members(Rao jail 1954, Gao suicide 1954, Deng twice, 66 and ‘criticize deng’ by the four olds in 75)
- 1966 - Little Red Book, ‘four olds’ encouraged the young to target the old.
- Laogai, 10k camps, 10m inmates per year
Domestic policy successes and failures
Successes:
- 1950 - Marriage law, support
- Propaganda
Failures:
- 1951 - Cooperative farming
- 1953 - 2 legs
- 1958 - GL
Foreign policy successes and failures
Successes:
- 1971 - PRC replaces Taiwan at the UN
- 1972 - Nixon visits China
Failures:
- Strained relations with Russia prominent after Korea 1950, when China was forced to pay for all costs
PSQs
- “the red army is an army of heroes”
- “all power grows out of the barrel of a gun”
- “arouse the masses of the people[to cooperate in] democratic socialism.”
- “Today he uses sweet words … to those he entices; tomorrow he puts them to death for fabricated crimes.”- Lin Biaos son
- “Death to the American Imperialists and all their running dogs”
- “Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for…progress.”
- “be prepared to struggle for the cause of communism”- youth movement in 1966
HSQs
- Mao set about thought reform “more intensively than have other ruling groups” - Bradbury
- Chang and Halliday suggest that struggle sessions are what separated Mao from Hitler and Stalin
- Orthodox historians have concluded that Mao is a greater mass murderer than Stalin and Hitler combined
- “People were a blank sheet of paper, mere numbers to be used as the leader saw fit” - Fenby on 1966
