MAO Politics part 2 Flashcards
Why did the PLA enjoy a special place in Communist mythology?
Defeated the Japanese and the GMD; epitomised revolutionary values
How many people made up the PLA in 1950?
5 million
How much of the state budget did the PLA consume in 1950?
Over 40%
How many men was the PLA reduced to by 1957?
2.5 million
Who supervised the reduction in the numbers of the PLA?
Minister of Defence, Peng Dehuai
What happened to the PLA as it became smaller?
Became more professional; more technically advanced; less egalitarian; with differentiated pay scales between clearly defined ranks
When did the PLA’s political department draw up a new code of conduct, stressing the need to help peasants on collective farms?
1956
How many young men were conscripted to the PLA each year and for how long?
800,000; 3-year term
How did the PLA remain of pivotal importance to the PRC post-1949?
Acted as a means of indoctrination; a workforce for rebuilding transport infrastructure after the civil war; a means of enforcing central gov control in the regions
When did Mao become leader of the CCP?
1943
What made Mao head of state as well as of the Party?
Appointment as chair of the Central People’s Government
What are early examples of Mao setting the pace and direction of policy?
Korean War 1950; ‘five antis’ campaign 1952
What are some examples of Mao’s power not being absolute?
1956 Party Congress removed ref to Mao Zedong Thought while Mao was ill; Hundred Flowers campaign 1956-57; debate about pace of agricultural change
Who did Mao like to compare himself to?
First Qin emperor who had united China in 3rd century BC
Why did Mao have to adapt Marxism for China?
Only 1% of the population could be classed as industrial workers
Where did Mao first build strong links between the Communists and the peasantry?
Jiangxi; Yanan
What were the different aspects of Mao Zedong thought?
Nationalism; continuing revolution; listening to the people; mass mobilisation
What was reaffirmed in the 1954 constitution as one of the principles on which the PRC was based?
Democratic centralism
Where did the Great Terror begin?
Rural areas- October 1950
When did the Great Terror spread to the cities?
April 1951
How many people were killed in the Great Terror?
1/2 million
Who was the next target of the regime after the Great Terror?
Professionals who had been asked to stay in their posts, but whose support became less important as time passed
How many government officials were sacked in the ‘three antis’ movement in 1951?
Over a million
Who was attacked in the 1952 ‘five antis’ campaign?
Business community
Where were the reunification campaigns?
Guangdong; Xinjiang; Tibet
When were the reunification campaigns?
1950-51
When did the civil war drag on in the far south until?
End of 1950
Why was Guangdong targeted during the reunification campaigns?
GMD heartland during the last months of the civil war; town of Guangzhou was the GMD capital
How long did it take for the PLA to secure Guangdong after the declaration of the PRC?
2 weeks
What was the population of Xinjiang like?
Ethnically mixed, but 80% were Uyghurs, most of whom were Muslims
How was the nationalist opposition in Xinjiang subdued by the Communist Party?
By a combination of conquest and negotiation
Why was Xinjiang targeted during the reunification campaigns?
Westernmost province of China, which had only been conquered by the Qing in the 1880s; Russians had been developing it as a potential buffer state
What were the local Uyghur leaders in Xinjiang offered?
Key posts in the regional council
When did Peng use the PLA to capture Urumqi, the provincial capital of Xinjiang?
End of 1949
How was future Communist control established in Xinjiang?
Appointment of a Long March veteran to run the local CCP and army unit
What did Xinjiang become for China after the reunification campaign there?
Security buffer zone
How did the Party distill the Uyghur population in Xinjiang?
Sent in large members of Han Chinese to work on construction projects
When had Tibet been operating as an independent entity from?
1913
Why was Tibet left alone to face Chinese conquest?
India was independent and so the British were no longer interested in protecting Tibet; UN was too busy with Korea; Russia had agreed to allow China a free hand there, in return for the same in Outer Mongolia; too far from the USA for its direct influence to come into play
When did the PLA invade Tibet?
October 1950
When did Tibet come under Chinese sovereignty?
May 1951
How did the PRC begin a prolonged campaign to destroy Tibetan identity after the country had come under Chinese sovereignty?
Brought in large numbers of Han settlers; promoted a Chinese lifestyle
Who backed the local resistance to the PRC in Tibet?
American CIA
How was every employed worker allocated food, clothing and housing?
Through a danwei
How many different class labels were there?
60, divided into 3 broad categories- ‘good’, ‘middle’ and ‘bad’
How were people assigned class labels?
According to their presumed loyalty to the revolution
What were the class labels eventually simplified into?
‘Red’ or ‘black’
Why did the class labels determine an individual’s fate for years to come?
Children inherited the status of the head of their household
Dangan
A dossier containing detailed personal information on anyone that came to the attention of the Party- access to employment, housing or pensions depended on this
How long did it take for people of ‘dubious’ class backgrounds, whose professional expertise was contributing to the regime, to be targeted?
12 months
Which groups of ‘criminals’ were particularly targeted in the initial crackdown on crime?
Beggars; prostitutes
In the short-term, how were the police ordered to clean up the cities initially?
By relocating criminals and ‘nuisances’ to the countryside or locking them up
Why was the initial crackdown on crime popular among many urban residents?
Longed to see order restored after so many years of war and chaos
Why was the initial crackdown on crime not as effective as hoped?
Many of those rounded up and sent away simply drifted back as soon as they could; ‘re-education’ camps were quickly full
Where were the triads particularly notorious for their influence on underworld crime?
Guangzhou; Shanghai
How many criminals were arrested in the initial crackdown on crime?
150,000
How many criminals were executed in the initial crackdown on crime?
Over 1/2 of those arrested
When was the Great Terror?
1950-51
Who were the most significant figures in orchestrating the Great Terror?
Tao Zhu; Luo Ruiqing; Rao Shushi
Tao Zhu
Dispatched to orchestrate the clampdown in Guangxi province on the Vietnam border- here, particularly brutal treatment was required because of its lingering nationalist sympathies
What was Tao Zhu known as?
‘The tank’
Luo Ruiqing
Head of security in Beijing; responsible for transmitting Mao’s wishes to provincial leaders
What did Mao suggest as the killings in the Great Terror threatened to get out of hand?
Killing roughly 1/1000 of the local population as an acceptable target, which could be adjusted according to local circumstances
What did Mao’s suggestion of slowing down the killings in the Great Terror do?
Allowed him to pose as the voice of moderation; made sure that the officials below him took the actual decisions and were inextricably implicated in the terror
During the Great Terror, when was it proposed that the killings be extended to the enemies inside the CCP itself?
March 1951
Who proposed that the Great Terror should be extended to the CCP itself?
Rao Shushi
What was the Great Terror designed to do?
Remove opponents; deter others
Why did the Terror initially claim fewer lives in the cities?
Partly due to fears of adverse publicity; partly because urban professionals were still needed
When was a top-ranking military officer shot dead at a concert in Jinan?
March 1951
What did the Jinan shooting result in?
Coordinated raid in 16 cities and the arrests of nearly 17,000 people
When was the post-Jinan shooting raid?
28 April 1951
What were young Party activists forced to do during the Terror to immerse them in the revolutionary experience?
Watch mass executions
What was the official figure for the number of people killed during the Terror, stated at a Party convention in 1954?
710,000
When did the Great Terror calm down?
October 1951
What did the ‘three antis’ movement target?
Corruption, waste and delay in the government and Party
What was the catalyst of the ‘three antis’ movement?
Arrest in November 1951 of Zhang Zishan and Liu Qingshan, charged with embezzling large sums from the Party
Who were Zhang Zishan and Liu Qingshan?
2 leading members of the CCP hierarchy in Tianjan
How were Zhang Zishan and Liu Qingshan punished?
Executed
Who was put in charge of the ‘three antis’ movement?
Bo Yibo, minister of finance
What were suspects accused of small-scale embezzlement referred to as in the ‘three antis’ movement?
‘Flies’
What were suspects accused of larger-scale corruption referred to as in the ‘three antis’ movement?
‘Tigers’
When was the ‘five antis’ campaign launched?
January 1952
What were the ‘five antis’?
Bribery; tax evasion; theft of state property; fraud; economic espionage
When were Gao Gang and Rao Shushi purged?
Late 1953
Gao Gang
Rose to favour as a force in economic planning but had over-reached himself and began plotting to replace Zhou Enlai as vice-chairman of the Party
What were Gao Gang and Rao Shushi accused of doing?
Infringing the ban on factions and building up their own empires within the Party
What happened to Gao Gang and Rao Shushi?
Gao committed suicide, rather than face humiliation; Rao was arrested and died in jail in 1975
What did the Gao Gang and Rao Shushi affair do for Mao?
Reinforced his position at the top; made the cadres lower down realise that it was dangerous to take opposition too far
What was the official explanation of the laogai camps?
Places of re-education rather than of punishment
How many prisoners were in the laogai by 1953?
2 million
How were the laogai of economic value?
Contributed some 700 million yuan in industrial products and 350,000 tonnes of grain to the state each year by 1955
How were the laogai prisoners used during the GLP?
Convenient means of getting the most hazardous jobs done, such as mining and clearing malaria-infested swamps
How many of prisoners in the laogai were there for political reasons?
9/10
Thought reform
Form of mental torture where laogai prisoners had to demonstrate that they had totally changed their way of thinking
When did the prison population bloom, due to a further purge of counter-revolutionaries?
1955
How many people are thought to have died in the prisons?
25 million
Guanzhi
Placing people under public supervision
When was the Hundred Flowers Campaign?
1957
When did Mao surprise everyone by calling for open debate about the results of the 1FYP?
1956
When did Mao first call on CCP delegates to ‘let a hundred flowers bloom’?
April 1956
What Russian event caused Mao to call for open debate with the Hundred Flowers campaign?
De-Stalinisation
Which European event affected Mao’s change of heart with the Hundred Flowers campaign?
Hungarian uprising October 1956
What did Mao think of the intellectuals?
Didn’t trust them but he knew that they had a valuable contribution to make to the economy
When did Mao unsuccessfully attempt to launch the Hundred Flowers campaign for the second time?
CCP Congress in November 1956
Where was the Hundred Flowers campaign launched?
In a major speech of Mao’s in February 1957
What had led to the arrest of roughly a hundred intellectuals two years before the Hundred Flowers campaign?
Media campaign against Hu Feng
Which newspaper was ordered to give coverage to the debate of the Hundred Flowers campaign?
People’s Daily
How many people were put into the ‘re-education camps’ as a result of the Hundred Flowers campaign?
1/2 million
