ruling Flashcards
what were the causes of the 1911 revolution?
- private companies concerned that they would have less influence when the qing would take their railways
- qing built over peasants land and didn’t compensate them in full
- calls for a national assembly from armies and provincial assemblies were ignored
- resentment that the manchy used constitutional monarchy reforms to strengthen power of manchus such as through clan cabinet
- local armiees and secret societies were increasingly loyal to local leaders like yuan shikai
- new revolutionary ideas
- loss in confidence in the qing dynasty as they just kept losing to the west
what happened with the constitutional monarchy reforms under the qing dynasty?
- needed reform. court sent a mission of manchu princes and nobles to investigate foreign princes and nobles in UK, USA, Japan and Europe. they came back advocating for a Japanese style constitution within 5 years with a constitutional monarchy. japan was run well and was becoming stronger
- 1907 some local elections held an local parliaments formed. august 1908 the court issued an outline of the constitution
- cixi ruled that all legislative, judicial and executive power would remain with her and the new constitution could only consider laws
- the court began to curb the powers of provincial Chinese officials and replaced them with directly appointed manchus
- prince chun ordered provincial assemblies to be set up but manchu power was still protected
- 3 times in 1910 representatives of 16 provinces sent to Beijing to petition for a national parliament but each time they were turned away.
- chun organised a royal cabinet - called the clan cabinet as 5/13 were his relatives. 8/15 were manchu
what happened in the 1911 revolution?
- soliders were inspired by sun yatsens nationalst and constitutional monarchist ideas. in wuhan built IP a stash of weapons to overthrow the dynasty with
- double tenth where troops refused to obey orders
- killed qing governors and took over local govt headquarters. secret societies joined in and nearby provinces mutinied
- by November all but 3 provinces declared themselves as independent of Beijing
- yuan shiai was ordered to go and stop the violence. joined sun yatsen on the promise that he would become president
- yuan went to Beijing to tell puyi and his family tat they could either abdicate or be killed
- traditional manchu hairstyle cut off.
What was the government structure under the warlords
- general duan was the natural leader after he emerged as oremier following fighting on the streets of Beijing
- wanted to rule china under a republic government
- republic government was broken up into rival factions that had little power over the rest of the country
- the army was not loyal to duan, they were loyal to their regional army leaders
Who were the warlords?
- model governor wanted to improve working conditions and made reforms to infrastructure
- pigtailed general who was a Manchu warlord
- Christian general who wanted all his followers to be Christian’s and would baptise his troops with a firehose
- dogemeat general would grind his enemies into dogmeat and would smash his opponents heads like watermelons
What was the leadership and impact of the warlords?
- Warlords could secure loans by ensuring there would be customs duties and salt taxes paid to the West.
- They allowed their armies to live off the land, by pillage, looting and mistreating peasants.
- It brought commerce to a standstill and it was a new low in poverty and misery for China.
- Some were very rich and had the biggest pearls, or gambled – one lost $ 1 million in one night. They hired mercenaries, and had multiple wives and Western advisors and inventors.
- They took prisoners and demanded ransoms. The warlord armies increased from 900,000 men in 1916 to 1.5 million by 1925. Peasants had to hand over goods, and they paid departure levies, welcome payments and protection money. Extortion from companies was common and banks had to extend loans. Banditry, gangs and secret societies boomed.
- Some key cities became richer, but as a whole China’s economy declined. The trade deficit rose. Investment was uncoordinated and infrastructure disrupted. Natural disasters, poor flood defences from warlord corruption, and the weather bought about a famine that took 4-6 million lives in 1921-1922.
- Militarism was incredibly destructive. They destroyed the land as they moved through, and China was an agricultural economy. The armies kept recruiting men. People felt that nationalism was needed as regionalism wasn’t working. It was thought that order would arise out of chaos. The Chinese shared grievances which helped nationalism to grow. They realised they had to be united.
what were the causes of teh cuktural revolution?
- THREAT OF CAPITALISM: After the famine Mao withdrew from government. Liu and Deng allowed some private farming and began to reverse collectivisation in a local area. This started to work. Maoists worried that China wasn’t following Maoist principles anymore, and that Maoists would be removed from power. The party began to split.
- THREAT OF DECREASE OF MAOISM: In Russia Khrushchev replaced Stalin and denounced Stalin in a speech. Khrushchev was more moderate, and also wanted to introduce some market principles to improve the economy, and criticised Stalin for sticking to the extreme left. Maoists were worried this criticism would encourage reformists to criticise Mao. Khrushchev also criticised the Stalin’s Cult of Personality, which Mao saw as a criticism of his own propaganda.
- CONSOLIDATE COMMUNISM: Mao knew that he would die soon as he was in his seventies, and he worried that after he died China may not follow the path to true Communism without his leadership.
- The Maoists felt that a permanent revolution needed to begin, where capitalist elements are constantly searched for and eliminated to prevent the revolution from failing, as the capitalists would always try and stop the revolution and revert it back again. Mao worried that the CCP had become bourgeoisie and moved the party away from its peasantry origins. Mao and his followers also wanted the younger generation to have a formative experience which would make them committed Communists – like his generation did in the Long March.
- CULT OF MAO: Mao was celebrated in posters, statues, paintings and more across China. Lin, the propaganda minister started to turn Mao into a cult. His remoteness from public life helped this. He launched the Little Red Book, which the PLA were strongly influenced by.
Some delegates were sent to investigate the ‘reactionary elements’ that caused the failure of the Great Leap Forward. They said that corruption and collusion between local party bosses and the officials sent to implement them had made the Great Leap Forward worse. Mao summoned Liu to a meeting where he berated him for undermining the CCP and ignoring ‘peasant capitalists’ who he accused of causing the famine. The Maoists and left of the party became more aggressive towards reformists, Liu and Deng.
Wu wrote a play called The Dismissal of Hai Rui from Office’. It showed Hai a court official being demoted and punished after courageously defying the orders of a tyrannical emperor. Hai Rui was supposed to represent Peng at the end of the Great Leap Forward, and the tyrannical emperor represented Mao. The Maoists criminally charged Wu.
what happened in the cultural revolution?
- Mao announced that the Central Cultural Revolution Group would be leading a party purge of anyone who was rightist in the party. Kang Sheng was promoted to organise this in 1966 and 1967. He obliterated he upper ranks of the party.
- 90% of the CCP were purged over the next 10 years. They were sent to Laoghis and 7 May Cadre Schools for ‘re-education’, where they had to self-denunciate to survive. 25 million prisoners died. Deng and Liu was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Maoists pushed Deng’s son out of a window and he was paralysed. Deng survived the imprisonment, Liu did not.
- Mao swam across the Yangzi River in July 1966 to show that he had returned to power. In August Mao called a special meeting of the CCP’s Central Committee where he condemned the revisionists. He demoted Liu and promoted Lin.
- The August Rally in 1966 was organised by Lin and Chen. Mao appeared occasionally. He stirred up the young, called the red guards, most youngsters were members. Mao was idolised by them - ‘Mao Zedong is the red sun rising in the East’. Waving Little Red Books – organised by Lin who also led the PRC – the PRC also had to learn the Little Red Books, and they were presented in marriage. Mao presented students with banner in his handwriting saying ‘bombard the headquarters’ on officials who were seen to be less Maoist. They carried out loudspeaker barrages. Lin’s speech told them to attack the ‘old ideas, old customs, old culture and old habits’. They obeyed him. He gave them speeches on which officials to target. There were 8 more rallies over the next 4 months. They were used to excite the crowds.
Once Mao started the Cultural Revolution he then retreated.
- Lin organised a university wall poster campaign promoting a permanent revolution. Some of the red guards attacked any teachers that they felt were counter-revolutionary. The red guards started to take to the streets and attack anyone they felt was counter-revolutionary. Deng and Liu sent work teams to university campuses to try and contain the trouble – the Red Guards just attacked them. Chaos was presented as more virtuous than order due to permanent revolution.
- The Red Guard didn’t go to school, instead they roamed around attacking the four olds. Education seen as worthless unless it helped the revolution. Education at all levels was damaged. Only 2% went to university and only 1/3 of people got a primary education.
- In the name of destroying the 4 olds, the Red Guard smashed temples, shrines, works of art, burnt books, defaced graves, destroyed paintings, and the Forbidden Palace only just survived as it was defended by the PLC (this showed could use the PLC to bring them into line but Mao never did).
- The Red Guards seized public transport – this contributed to the 13% decline in industrial output. They also took over TV and radio.
- They humiliated anyone connected to the West. They denounced teachers, writers and doctors as bad elements. Their victims had to keep confessing to ‘crimes’ until they were good enough.
- They Publicly clubbed many people to death – we have records of them clubbing 500,000 CCP officials to death – although there were probably many more.
- There was censorship and Western culture was banned. Traditional Chinese opera was replaced by Communist themes. AGIT-PROP Everything had to be the triumph of the proletariat over its class enemies. There was Cultural destruction – inane plays and films, musicians fingers destroyed. No public worship was allowed. Mao’s wife Jiang led the cultural destruction.
Eventually it was felt that the Red Guards had gone too far so they were sent up to the mountains and down to the villages, or became barefooted doctors. The PLA had around 350,000 Red Guard members arrested, and 50,000 were killed. Mao stepped in and said the excesses must be checked – which stopped the arrests and killing as people feared Mao’s criticism.
- The laoghis held 10 million citizens at a time. Over 25 million died during the Cultural Revolution. People were sent to Cadre Schools for re-education but really they were very similar to laogis. The laogis and cadre schools got stronger as the Cultural Revolution continued. Industry ground to a halt. Schools and universities closed. Financial resources dried up. Living standards fell.
- Mao was worried Lin was getting too powerful, and he began to consider removing him. Lin knew he was a marked man. he reluctantly got involved in a plot to assassinate Mao in 1976.
- Mao found out. Lin tried to escape to the USSR, but his plane crashed in Outer Mongolia, there is no evidence it was shot down, it was probably that they left in such a hurry they didn’t fill it with enough fuel.
- However, rumours circulated that maybe Mao had something to do with the crash. This led many to question Mao’s actions, as how had the second most powerful man in China gone from a hero to villain of the party? Was the Cultural Revolution disingenuous?
what happened in the end of the cultural revolution?
- Tiananmen Square Incident 1976. Zhou died – he followed moderate policies. An official order said there should be no public displays of mourning. There was a large demonstration for him – which suggested they liked his moderate policies – speeches praised Zhou, then eventually attacked the government for corruption. Riot police removed flowers and dispersed the crowds. Protesters and the riot police fought.
- Deng had managed to get released from prison and was back in the party. Politburo said this was the work of rightist agitators and blamed Deng. Deng was dismissed as party secretary, he left Beijing to wait it out in Guangdong. Mao was in a coma some of the time from 1976, and couldn’t respond to Tiananmen Incident. People began to either not act as they were worried Mao may punish them when he was conscious, or they made some moves to try and take power after he died.
In September 1976 Mao died. The Gang of Four wanted to carry on the Cultural Revolution. They assumed they would now take power and carry it on. However, Mao named Hua Guofeng as his successor, he was a loyal Maoist but could realistically rule China as he didn’t have that many enemies (unlike the Gang of Four). Mao couldn’t name Lin or Zhou as they’d died, and Deng had been demoted again, he couldn’t name the Gang of Four as everyone hated them. Hua had a good relationship with army generals, so Mao hoped Hua would keep power from this. The military disliked the Gang of Four. The Gang of Four left the Politiburo, and the Politburo organised for to Hua deliver the eulogy as Mao’s funeral. The military organised to take control around China, to stop the Gang of Four trying to take power using what little influence they had in local leaders and the military.
Hua invited the Gang of Four to a rearranged Politburo meeting on 6 October 1976. He gave them separate times. They were all arrested on arrival, apart from Jiang who was arrested at her house. The main leaders of the Cultural Revolution were now all dead or arrested. The Gang of Four were eventually put on trial from 1980-1981 – they were accused of betraying Mao and the Chinese revolution, and being collectively responsible for 35,000 people, and framing and persecuting a further 750,000 people. It was thought to have a positive impact in some ways as the Cultural Revolution enabled the CCP to secure Communism, so that later they could carry out moderate economic reforms without concern that China would lose its Communist political ideals
