Mao's China 1949-1976 Flashcards
Backyard Furnaces
Small furnaces that Mao demanded the peasants build during the Great Leap Forward. Mao ordered the peasants to melt down their belongings including cooking utensils and farm tools to make steel. He believed that this would radically increase China’s steel production and aid his plan to modernise the economy. However, the steel created in the small furnaces was of such poor quality that it was of no use.
Bourgeois feudal class
A term used by the Communists to denounce opponents as counter-revolutionaries. The Bourgeois were property owners and therefore a class enemy.
Bourgeoisie
In Marxist thought, the Bourgeoisie are a wealthy class of property owners who are dedicated to retaining their economic power and influence.
Bureaucratic
A bureaucracy is a very hierarchical system of government administration acting according to set rules.
Cadres
Dedicated and ideologically committed Communists who were given the task of putting Mao’s policies into practice.
Capitalism
Economic system that advocated free markets and competition for profit between private owned businesses. Derided as inherently unequal by the Communists because it led to some people earning great wealth whilst others, they believed, were exploited and paid low wages.
Capitalist Roader
A believer in capitalism. Often a convenient label used by the Communists to identify anyone as an opponent who did not agree with the regime.
Christian missionaries
Christians who travelled to China to spread the message of the Bible.
Clans
Social organisation made of people with shared ancestors and surnames, sometimes living in the same house. The CCP needed to break down the kinship ties and traditionally close loyalties within these clans to impose its class based ideology.
Class-consciousness
According to Marx, before revolution could take place, the people had to acquire a sense that they belonged to a social class. Instead of identifying themselves according to racial, regional or ethnic group, they need to see themselves as suffering the same kind of exploitation as other members of their class.
Common Program for China
Interim Constitution approved by the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in 1949. It set out the structure of the new government and acted as the constitution of China until a permanent constitution was written in 1954.
Concubines
Women kept as mistresses by married Chinese men. Emperors of China kept thousands of concubines for their sexual pleasure. The practice was banned by the Communists.
Confucian
The beliefs of the Chinese philosopher, Confucius, who was born in 551BC. His ideas about ethics, family loyalty and respect for authority were hugely influential in China.
Conscripted
Being forced to join the army, as opposed to volunteering to join. A conscription law was officially introduced in China in 1955, recruiting approximately 800,000 people a year.
Constitution
Written document that sets out powers of the government and the rights of people. First introduced in China in 1954.
Aftermath of Civil War 1946-1949
The war between the Nationalists and Communists had killed millions, destroyed infrastructure and spread poverty and malnutrition. Refugees clogged up what remained of transport networks and filled the streets of the cities. China’s economy was devastated.
Co-operative farms
Farms where peasants pooled their labour and resources such as animals, tools and fertiliser.
Counter-revolutionaries
A label used to identify opponents of the Communist revolution.
Chinese People’s Consultative Conference (CPPCC)
Meeting organised in 1949 after the Communist victory in the Civil War. Representatives from 15 parties were invited to discuss the creation of the new Chinese state. It acted as the provisional parliament until 1954 and was responsible for passing essential legislation to set up the new China.
Cult of Personality
An idealised propaganda image created to convince the masses that a leader has near super-human and divine powers. Mao’s Cult of Personality, which described Mao as ‘The Great Helmsman’ who would steer China to a utopian future reached absurd heights during the Cultural Revolution.
The state of China’s industry in 1949
China’s industry had been badly damaged by the years of war and much of China’s industrial equipment had been destroyed. In places, retreating Nationalist forces had attempted to sabotage industrial sites to prevent them falling into the hands of the Communists. Areas where local power stations had been bombed or where coal stocks were low had no electricity.
Democratic Centralism
System of government created by Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, and adopted by the CCP. It was a mixture of democracy and central government authority. Elections for representative bodies such as local people’s congresses were meant to provide an opportunity for democratic debate and discussion. However, in practice decisions were made at central government level and all party members had to stick to those decisions.
Dowry
Payment or gifts given by the family of the bride to the family of the groom when a marriage takes place.
Emancipation
The awarding of political and economic rights or legal equality to a social group who had previously been exploited or disenfranchised.
The state of China’s agriculture in 1949
Agricultural tools and livestock were in short supply and the most common fertiliser used by the peasants remained human waste, which spread disease. During the Civil War, many peasants had been forcibly conscripted into the Nationalist forces - these farmers were dragged from their fields. With the farms left unattended, the crops wilted and died. This reduced food supplies to dangerously low levels.
Barefoot Doctors
Doctors who received basic first-aid training and were sent out to remote rural areas where there were no trained doctors in order to provide health care to the peasants.
Feudal
Society based on feudal power structure with a dominant baron or landlord demanding loyalty from poor peasants who paid them in food or taxation in return for rights to live on and work the land.
The state of China’s infrastructure in 1949
Transport networks were badly damaged - an estimated half of he railway network had been destroyed. Blowing up railway tracks had been a key tactic of the Communists during the Civil War because it disrupted the Nationalists’ ability to move their troops into battle, but now it created a major problem for the new government.
Filial piety
A concept from Confucian philosophy that argued that all people should be loyal to their fathers, elders and ancestors.
Forbidden City
The traditional home of the Chinese emperors in Beijing.
GMD
The Kuomintang (KMT), the official name of the Chinese Nationalist Party who fought against Mao’s Communist Party in the Civil War.
Gradualists
Members of the Communist Party who argued that China should take the transition to Communism in a careful and thoughtfully planned out manner.
Grain requisitioning
The process by which the regime forcibly took food from the peasants to give to the industrial workers in the cities or to sell as exports.
Great Leap Forward
Introduced in 1958. Mao sought to increase agricultural and industrial production at the same time (‘walking on two legs’). The people were over-worked and exhausted and crops were left rotting in the fields. Led to the largest man-made famine in human history.
Han Chinese
The dominant ethnic group in the People’s Republic of China.
Heavy industry
Large scale factory production such as steel, coal and electric power. China had little heavy industry in 1949 and Mao desperately wanted to change this, believing that industrial production was the key to making China modern.
Centrally planned economy
An economy where the government makes decisions such as what and how much to produce, rather than letting consumers and businesses decide.
Hyperinflation
Out of control inflation whereby the value of currency falls at such a spectacular rate to render it practically worthless.
Industrial labourers
Workers in the cities who laboured in factories.
Industrial revolution
The rapid move from an economy based on agricultural production to one dominated by use of machines and large-scale factory production. This took place during the 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe. China was very slow to adopt advanced manufacturing production techniques and therefore the economy lagged far behind that of its rivals.
Infanticide
The intentional killing of babies.
Kindergarten
A pre-school educational facility for young children.
Kuomintang
Nationalist enemies of the Communists, lead by Chiang Kai-Shek. Fought the Civil War against the Communists before being defeated and fleeing to Taiwan.
Labour camp
Camp set up to imprison opponents of the regime and force them to undertake harsh physical labour and undergo ‘re-education’ to teach them that their opposition to the regime was a mistake. In China they provided valuable slave labour for Mao’s economic plans.
Legislature
Institution of government responsible for making laws.
Liberal arts
Education in the liberal arts includes the learning of literature, philosophy, history and music. Damned by the Communists as irrelevant, they advocated education in more vocational subjects that were economically productive.
Light industry
Small scale machine based production.
Central Cultural Revolution Group (CCRG)
An organisation created in 1966 that was filled with Mao’s supporters who wanted to take a radical path towards creating Communism. During the Cultural Revolution, it became more important than the Politburo as the main decision-making organisation of government.
