Mass Campaigns Against Corruption and the Bourgeoisie

Question 1

What provoked the change from cautious to extreme measures?

Answer 1

• end of 1950 korean war engendered a sense of national unity and feeling that China’s revolution was under threat from internal and external forces
• this atmosphere was deliberately encouraged by mao and the party to justify more extreme measures against ‘counter-revolutionary elements’
• allowing mao to move faster to establish a dictatorship

Question 2

What machinery of repression was used by the State?

Answer 2

1. propaganda campaigns (to isolate and shame the chosen targets)
2. the police
3. the courts (although these were increasingly replaced with communist committees)
4. imprisonment
5. execution
6. forced labour camps
7. nationwide network of work units, street and neighbourhood committees was established to assist the CPC to identify and punish those suspected of counter revolutionary crimes and to exert control over the whole population

Question 3

what is the meaning of la-gai?

Answer 3

reform through labour

Question 4

What evidence is there to demonstrate the extent of terror and repression in the PRC?

Answer 4

1. 1951 all citizens over the age of 15 had to acquire official residence permits from the police and obtain permission to move to another area
2. every citizen came under the scrutiny of their neighbours and workmates. people were encouraged to inform on each other
3. by 1953 prostitution was stamped out by the surveillance of brothels by street committees. prostitutes and pimps sent to re-education camps
4. drug dealers shot and addicts had their supplies withdrawn tobscco production placed under a government monopoly and the population was encouraged to smoke ciggarettes

Question 5

What were the four mass campaigns in the years 1950-2 through which mao and the CPC pressed down on chinese society?

Answer 5

The resist america and aid korea campaign

the supression of the counter-revolutionaries campaign the three-antis campaign

the five antis campaign

Question 6

Describe the The Resist America and Aid Korea Campaign 1950?

Answer 6

• foreigners (americans) enemies of PRC after korean war
• foreigners (missionaries) arrested and accussed of spying
• christian churches closed
• priests and nuns expelled from PRC
• institutions (businesses, universities) with western links under scrutiny
• police searches, confiscations (radios, weapons)
• mass rallies encourage suspiscion

Question 7

Describe the The Supression of Counter-Revoltionaries Campaign October 1950-51:

Answer 7

• focused on internal threats to the chinese revoluiton
• targeted those linked with GMD regime, bandits, memebrs of religious sects
• denunciations
• investigations
• punishment
• Shanghai 40,000 people persecuted
• Guangdong 52,620 ‘bandits’ , 89,701 criminals , 28,332 public executions

Question 8

How do the mass campaigns demonstrate the extent of terror and repression in the PRC?

Answer 8

killings intended for most of the population to witness= scare and brutalise more than stalin or hitler who kept their foulest crimes out of sight

Question 9

Describe the The Three-Antis Campaign 1951:

Answer 9

• targeted corruption (bribery, influence), waste, obstructionist bureacracy (managers, state official, party members), independant thought
• started in manchuria and then on natiowide scale
• mass meetings
• denunciations
• investigations by party committees
• humiliation
• , subjected to self-criticism
• rectification of thought or deed

Question 10

Describe the The Five-Antis Campaign 1952:

Answer 10

• launched in janury
• targeted bourgeoisie (bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts, economic espionage)
• workers organisations investigated employers business affairs
• group criticism sessions
• public denunciations
• 3000 mass meetings in Feb in Shanghai
• fines
• confiscations of property
• labour camps
• 2-3 million suicides (as result of humiliation)

Question 11

What was thought reform and how effective was it?

Answer 11

the party’s intrusion into people’s lives

mao wanted external discipline and total subjection of alll thoughts

meetings for thought examination consisting of self criticism

meetings were an important means of communist control

they left people no free time and eliminated private thoughts