Mao... Flashcards
The marriage reform?..
- Both genders equal in Union (first time), both need to agree to marriage(eliminating arranged marriage).
Basic human rights established: women not sold for prostituion, unwanted female babies not disposable. Foot binding illegal. Allowed women to own property and land.
Replaced by collectivization policy of the First Five year Plan, 1953.
Unpopular amount traditionalists and Muslims in the west.
The agrarian reform
June 1950. Aimed at redistributing all land in China.
Landlords -> Peasants. Millions of landlord perished.
Mao achieved both fulfillment of his promise of land to poor peasants, but also rectification of traditional power base who might have opposed him.
What was Mao’s democratic centralism?
Similar to Lenin’s dictatorship of the proletariat. Elite group led by central figure entrusted with state control.
The benefits and disadvantages of the Korean War.
Advantages:
- Brought the new state together as people united against the enemy.
- After PRC successfully fighting UN(including US) forces, China and Mao’s reputation increased.
- Gave Mao excuse to take action against unwanted parts of the Chinese society (Read: Rectification)!
Costs:
- War soon after founding of PRC (young and unstable nation)
- Essential resources moved away from modernization and towards military.
Describe the antis movements
- Three antis movement, Late 1951: Against evils of corruption, waste and bureaucracy. Directed against party members, government officials and business owners.
(‘Cleaning the inside of the system’) - Five antis movement, 1952: Cheating on government contracts, stealing state economic information, tax evasion, theft of state property, and bribery. Employees in privat businesses encouraged to denounce their bosses, bosses required to take ‘thought reform programme’ to eliminate ‘wrong thinking’.
Focused on bourgeoisie and capitalists. Stat revenue increased and inflation reduced, and another part of Chinese society under stover meant control.
What was the aim of the First Five Year Plan and why was it successful?
Aim to double industrial output and complete ‘socialist transformation’. Great success, but at some cost: all private businesses under state control. 58.2% of government investment towards industry, only 7.6% towards agriculture.
Land reform divided into three stages:
- Mutual aid teams: 3-30 peasants work small area of land, co-owning tools and materials. Class division amount peasants.
- Cooperatives from merging Mutual aid teams. Theoretically individual ownership still possible, but land pooled as well as tools, materials and work force.
- Large scale cooperatives: private ownership abolished. Contained up to 300 families.
What was the Hundred Flowers Campaigns?
Promote progress in art, literature and science by allowing criticism and freedom of expression.
Ideas applied to CPC - CPC drowned in critique over individual members, attitudes, economic situation, corruption, party members privileges etc.
Sparked anti-rightist campaign, July 1957: led by Deng Xiaoping, hundreds of thousands of intellectuals identified as “rightists”, party members committed suicide, were executed or sent to countryside to ‘learn’ from peasants about labour.
What was the Great Leap Forward, and why was it not Mao’s greatest idea?
Mao convinced that the way forward was through increased steel production. Believed the people could be “psyched up” for even more Labour. Created larger communes from the collectives - 27,000 communes with ~5,000 households. Private ownership of land completely abolished, unrealistic quotas set and backyard furnaces were built to meet steel quotas (Pro tip: people who know nothing about making steel, and does so in their backyard makes bad steel!)
Describe the cultural revolution
The socialist education movement, 1962-66: aimed at nursing collectivism, patriotism and socialism. Achieved through ‘Four clean-ups’: politics, economy, CPC structure and ideology.
By 1965 army turned into propaganda organ.
August 1966: Central Cultural Revolution Group (CCRG) set up and meant to be the mean through which Mao achieved Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution (GPCR).
May 1966: Students at Beijing University rebelled against uni administration. Mao supported students and promised change in educational system.
Attack against the ‘four olds’: old idea, habits, culture and customs.
Red Guards (students with red armbands and carrying the Little Red Book) would carry out cultural revolution. Assisted by PLA. Mao lost control at the end of 1966 and Red Guards split into factions fighting each other. Shanghai government overthrown in Jan 1967 by workers -> Mao told PLA to restore order using lethal force if necessary.
PLA replaced Red Guard and started their own campaign of terror, persecuting counter-revolutionaries (lasted to 1971).
Cultural revolution cost China the suffering of up to 100 mil people, almost made China bankrupt, damaged CPC and its leadership
