Mao topic 2- agriculture and industry Flashcards
What law was imposed to tackle landlordism?
1950 Agrarian Reform Law
What did the Agrarian Reform Law lay down?
The legal framework under which land reform took place and to eradicate exploitation of peasants by ‘the landlord class’
What was hoped that the legislation would help do?
Restrain overzealous activists from taking the law into their own hands, and that land reform meant redistribution, not lower rents or low interest loans
Some historians suggest that landlords did not dominate society to the point where they became the ‘ruling class’, why did Mao class them as the ‘ruling class’?
To generate hatred towards them in order to rally the peasants to his side and to justify his claim to have successfully adapted Marxism to fit Chinese circumstances
What evidence is there to spport the fact that the landlords were portrayed as the exploitative ruling class?
A study conducted by Nanking University, where it shows that only 6% of farmers were tenants and they were not much poorer than the landlords
How did the army play a role in the land reform process?
By silencing those who might have been hostile to the new government and helping the local Party officials organise work teams
How was tax calculated?
By calculating how much land people owned
How were the landlords targetted?
People who were labelled as ‘landlords’ would be publically humiliated and accused of exploitation, if they were found guilty, their land and possessions were confiscated and divided among the other villagers, the victims were usually beaten up by villagers
By the end of 1951, how many landlords lost their land and how many % of land had changed hands?
10 million lost their lands, 40% of land had changed hands
What were the roles of peasants and middle-ranking peasants in attacking landlordism?
They conducted the ‘speak bitterness’ meetings and passed the sentence against landlords, villagers also carried out the killings themselves
Why did the Party move towards collectivisation quickly after attacks on landlordism?
They never intended for the peasants to become established as the new class of landowners
From 1951, groups of tens or so families were encouraged to unite to form–?
Mutual Aid Teams
What was the point of Mutual Aid Teams and who was it managed by?
To pool their labour, animals and equipments while retaining their rights of private ownership, it was managed by the peasants association
Even though the MAT were voluntary, what was the consequences of the people who were outside the MAT that forced them to join?
People outside the MAT would find it hard to get hold of resources, and villagers who stayed out on their own ran the risk of facing hostility
In 1952, successful MATs were encouraged to combine and form–?
Agricultural Producers’ Co-operatives (APCs) of 40-50 families
Under APC, why will the efficiency increase?
Land was pooled and could therefore be consolidated into larger units and cultivated more efficiently than in traditional strips
How did the system of APC encourage the richer families to join?
Families with larger holdings were still allowed to keep back some land for their personal use while renting the rest to APC
How were profits shared under APC?
According to resources contributed and food produced
How did the failures of the APC lead to the slowdown in 1953?
Since only 14% of rural households were in APCs by March 1955, many local officials wanted to satsify Mao by rushing the creation of APCs, which eventaully led to them being in debt because they had to borrow money to buy equipment
What happened after the slowdown and what led to the halt to APC development?
Peasants started to buy and sell their land and food, reverting back to capitalism, so Mao pressured peasants to join APCs again, but better-off peaants would slaughter their animals instead of giving them to the officials, the harvest was poor in 1954, but Mao met with rural protest against food requisitioning
What policy did Mao call for the halt the APC development, when was it announced?
In Jan 1955, ‘Stop, Contract and Develop’
What happened six month after the halt to APC development?
In july 1955, Mao announced all-out collectivisation
What many households were under APC by Jan 1956?
75 million (from 17 million)
What was the official reason given for the drive towards collectivisation, how did it contrast with Mao’s real reason behind it?
that it was a response to the demands of the peasantry, but in reality, Mao feared that supplies to the cities would continue to be unrealiable as long as the peasants still owned the lands, there was a risk of reverting back to capitalism
What were the new APCs later classed as which drove towards collectivisation?
HPCs, where peasants no longer owned the land or the equipment, and the profits were shared out according to work points earned by the labour contributed
Why was collectivisation a success to Mao? (ideologically)
The state now owned the means of production of food, the land, on which 90% of the population worked
How was collectivisation a success to Mao politically? Name two
The speed in which collectivisation was implemented was a tribute to his authority and he was able to outmanoeuvre powerful conservative opponents like Zhou Enlai, it also helped increase the control of the party over local people
How did collectivisation mark a change in the relationship between the CCP and the peasantry?
The peasants now became servants of the Party rather than loyal allies, it also made Mao overconfident since he now didn’t care about the obstacles that stood in the way of change, which was one of the main reasons for the failure of the Great Leap Forward of 1958
Did collectivisation help the economy or worsen it? (5)
Worsen
- under the First FYP, food production was still insufficient to sustain the growing industrial workforce, even though it increased by 3.8% per annum
- amount of cultivated land per head of the population was so low
- yields per hectare were quite high but labour productivity was so low and it would have been hard for peasants to produce a surplus
- there was also lack of state investment in agriculture
- demotivating effect due to the fact that people no longer owned their own land
Why did the idea of forming communes appeal to Mao?
Since they would be bigger collectives, it would enable the pooling of even larger resources of equipment and labour, which meant higher food yields and more peasants being freed up to work on construction schemes
Why did Mao want to modernise China so quickly?
Mao wanted to overtake Britain as an industrial power
Who supported the idea of People’s Communes?
Liu Shaoqi (vice chairman of the CCP) Deng Xiaoping (CCP secretary general)
What were some ideological reasons for launching the People’s Communes?
To prevent bureaucratisation of the revolution if collectives were simply allowed to evolve at their own pace
What was announced at the 8th CCP Congress of May 1958?
Great Leap Forward
What would the Great Leap Forward involve?
developing industry and agriculture at the same time, the People’s Communes were to be expanded and the labour force was to be mobilised on water conservancy and other civil engineering schemes
What were the two main prioritized production materials and how were the production of these two linked?
The farmers were to produce the grain to feed the workers, who would make the steel
How did Mao plan to achieve the production of steel and grain at the same time?
By decentralising economic planning, so that enthusiastic local officials could push changes forward without being restrained by government technical experts
Where was the first People’s Commune located in and when was it established?
In Henan province in April 1958. It was called Sputnik.
Despite not having any significant changes to the villagers’ lives, what changes were made under the commune system?
There were communal canteens where peasants ate together and slept in communal dormitories despite being in the same houses and being around the same people
How were the peasants’ working lives managed, and where would they receive their resources?
a new management team was set up which divided peasants into production brigades, they would have a tractor station to provide tractors
What did the communes also organise in terms of industrial enterprises?
They would organise whatever industrial enterprises feasible locally, like flour mills, brick works, tool repair workshops and backyard furnaces
In what ways are the communes different from a huge collective farm?
They were a unit of local government that provded local services like education, public health, policing and the militia, there was also childcare and canteen facilities to free up women from work
How did freeing people up from domestic responsibilities help mobilisation?
So that people could work on civil engineering projects like water conservancy and irrigation schemes or building new roads and bridges
What was Mao’s next plans regarding the People’s Communes?
To transform the cities after the countryside had been transformed
How were the communes an act of abolishing private farming?
The villagers were forced to live in the commune and had to abolish all of their private property, land, agricultural equipment, livestock and household possessions without compensation
How did the communes differ from the collectives?
The membership of the collectives were voluntary, and peasants were rewarded with work points for the work they contributed
What was the result of abolishing private farming?
The loss of motivation since the rewards were the same, and due to the loss of personal possessions
How was there a loss of personal freedom except for the loss of personal possession?
Everyone between the ages of 15 and 50 had to be militia members and periodically train with weapons
Who was Lysenko?
a Ukranian agricultural scientist that Stalin relied upon after the Great Famine
What policies did Mao implement based on Lysenkoism?
development of new farm tools, use of breeds and seeds, improved field management, increased irrigation, close planting, deep ploughing increased fertilisation and pest control- potentially dangerous
What did peasants do to control pest and how was it problematic?
peasants would waste hours banging pots and pans to prevent birds from landing, which meant the that insects and small creatures the birds usually ate multiplied a lot, which destroyed the plants
What was the result of the increased fertilisation of soil?
destruction of thousands of peasants’ homes, which were ploughed to the ground with animal dung
How many communes were in place by December 1958?
26,000
