Mao Consolidation of Power Flashcards
GMD errors at the start of Mao’s rule
- Failure to defeat CCP led many to question long-term ability
- Putting CCP over Jp in threat level leads to lost patriotic support
- Lost popularity due to treatment of peasants
Factors of CCP success
Military: Guerilla warfare, capturing of enemy weapons, recruiting peasants
Politically: Mao presented war as a national struggle, effective GMD infiltration
Economically: Land reform, assists peasants, food distribution, fairer taxes
Foreign Aid: Soviet military aid
Factors of GMD failure
Military: Low morale, focussed too far from base of support
Politically: Increasingly repressive, failed to gain the support of workers and peasants
Economically: Corrupt, unfair taxation, rampant inflation
Foreign Aid: Impact of association/dependence on the USA
How did Mao achieve his position in the CCP
Achieved a position of predominance due to:
- Survival in early battles and infighting
- Fragmented nature of China let him experiment with rural communism 1941-43
- Uses campaigns and movements to consolidate
- Ideas popular with peasants, played down communist ideology
Problems faced by the CCP in 1949 (at the end of the CW)
- Formal announcement didn’t solidify communist authority
- Millions dead, economy in ruin, government chaos
- Less support in cities among middle classes
Problems faced by the CCP once taking power (REGALDS)
Lawlessness: about 1m bandits, warlords control areas
Administrative Chaos: experience officials leave with GMD, only 750k cadres
Economy: no stable currency, hyperinflation, skilled personnel fled to Taiwan
Damaged Transport: Rural and urban areas separated
GMD Threat: Harassment through raids on cities
Rift with West: Alienated, rely on USSR
Ideology: few understood ideology and goals
Stabilization of Power
- wanted to “arouse the masses of the people”to cooperate in a ‘democratic centralism’ system
- seized property of fled GMD, public utilities
- middle classes remained after invited to stay in their current positions under Mao
- economic regulation, taxes raised, new currency
“Resist America, Aid Korea” Campaign
- 1950
- Execution of 28k suspected counter-revolutionaries in one province alone
- Mass rallies organized to draw peasants into frenzy of suspicion
Oppressive political control
- Labour camps with 1.5m inmates
- Danwei: neighbourhood/work groups used for surveillance, implementing ‘thought reform’, 2-3m committed suicide due to humiliation
- Encouraged trade unions, Communist Youth League, Women’s Federation
- PLA suppressed bandits, 100k killed
- ‘learn from PLA’ campaign enforced soldier like attributes
Antis Campaigns
- 3 Antis-Campaign 1951, against corruption, waste and obstruction
- 5 Antis-Campaign 1952, against bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating gov’t contracts, economic espionage
- Victims subjected to ‘struggle sessions’
What were the only territories not under CCP control by 1950?
GB Hong Kong, Portugese Macao, Outer Mongolia, Taiwan. Plans to take Taiwan called off due to Korea. Tibetan resistance took 6 months to crush
How many CCP members were there by 1954
6.1m, no shortage of officials now
Mao’s Cult of Personality
All were to know quotes from The Little Red Book by heart as ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ could solve all their problems
Fenby HSQ
People were a blank sheet, mere numbers to be used as the leader saw fit
Propaganda
The CCP “set about it … more intensively than have other ruling groups” Bradbury
- Lei Feng, fictitious icon
- loudspeakers in every village
Political control 54-76
- Cadres ran schools and universities
- 1954 constitution developed a justice system based on USSR, ‘peoples lawyers’ and trials
- Not practiced until after Mao dies
- Mostly show trials
Hundred Flowers 1956-57
- Lifted censorship, encouraged ‘constructive’ criticism
- “Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress”
- May-June 57, many letters and Democratic Wall at Beijing Uni
- Reimposed censorship
Anti-Rightist Campaign
- July 1957
- After hundred flowers, half a million branded as ‘rightists’
- Faced beatings imprisonment and labour, many committed suicide
Mao’s public disappearance
- 1959, after Great Leap Forward failure, Mao leaves to ‘plan’
- Purges continued despite being gone, ex. Peng Dehuai in july
- Also feared ‘communist road’ denounced Deng and Liu for moderate policies
Cultural Revolution and Deng
- 1966-76
- Group of Five (started cultural rev.) purged, replaced with Gang of Four (including Maos wife)
- Launch ‘criticize Deng and oppose the rehabilitation of right-leaning elements’ as Deng supports Group of Five
- Zhous dies in 1976, Deng wants to be PM, Mao purges him, but when Mao dies, Deng takes power 78-92
Opposition and Historiography
- main targets of bourgeois and intellectuals
- Creates Central Investigation Dept. in CCP, Inteligence wing of PLA, Central case examination group
- 1951, residence permits required for all over 15
- Chang and Halliday say struggle session separated Mao from others, public humiliation v. secret police
Labour Camps
- Aided by Russian advisors, like gulags
- Called Laogai
- On average 10m per year in camps, by 1976 10k camps existed
- Many died from hunger, ill-treatment or suicide
- Families shunned by association
Repressions
- 1959 purge of Gao and Rao
- Gao aimed for PM, urged, committed suicide
- Rao, associate with Gao, purged and imprisoned
- “today he uses sweet words … to those he entices; tomorrow he puts them to death for fabricated crimes” - Lin Biaos Son
Relations with USSR
- Treaty in 1950 for military and economic aid (facade)
- Korea showed limits of USSR, China paid for military involvement
- Citizens accept ‘brother russia’ until Krushchevs ‘peaceful coexistence’ with the west
- USSR supports India in Sino-Indian war in 62
- Cuban Missile crisis leads to propaganda war in 63
Relations with America
- USA portrayed as ‘paper tigers’, children chant “Death to the American imperialists and all their running dogs”
- Campaigns peaked in 63 due to Vietnam
- 1971, PRC recognized by UN
- ‘ping-pong diplomacy’ leads to talks with USA
- Nixon visits Beijing in 1972
Reunification Campaigns
- Wanted to take Tibet, Xinjiang and Guangdong
- Threat from XInjiang as it had many muslims and similar to Russia
- Threat from Dalai Lama in Tibet - religious challenge
Tibet
- PLA sent in Oct 1950
- 60k tried to resist
- Dalai Lama force to sign Agreement Measure on the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet
- Mao wipes Tibetan culture, replaced with Han
