social change 1949-76

Question 1

traditional attitudes to women before 1949

Answer 1

• many baby girls victims of infanticide as they were seen as an economic burden
• arranged marriages were common and wives sharing their husband with concubines was common
• three obediences: to be subservient to father when young, husband when married and sons when a mother
• no educational opportunities e.g. in 1930s rural China only 1% of girls over age of 7 had basic literacy (30% for boys)

Question 2

foot binding

Answer 2

• usually bound at age 6
• small feet considered to be sexually attractive and the smaller feet would gain a higher ‘bride-price’
• officially banned in 1911 but still continued

Question 3

New Marriage Law 1950

Answer 3

• Mao said ‘Women hold up half the sky’ and damned arranged marriages as ‘indirect rape’
• law banned concubinage and arranged marriages
• dowries were banned
• husbands and wives were to have equal status in the home
• advocated for later marriage and childbirth
• a wife could inherit her husband’s property
• divorce was easier

Question 4

success of the New Marriage Law 1950

Answer 4

• 1946-49 18.6% of brides 16-17yrs old, 1958-65 only 2.4%
• late 1940s, 30.6% of marriages arranged by parents -> 0.8% from 1966-76

Question 5

failures of the New Marriage Law 1950

Answer 5

• HOWEVER the law led to increased divorce rates due to husbands losing their financial investment (1.4mil filed 1953), and violent armed mobs tried to reclaim divorced wives
• cadres also did not uphold the law

Question 6

impact of economic policies on women

Answer 6

• many women forced into prostitution to trade sex for food → widespread suicides
• standards of care in kindergartens appalling e.g. diarrhoea and measles spread, high death rates. mothers felt anguished as their role was marginalised. end of GLF → kindergartens collapsed
• abuse and discrimination: expectant mothers forced to work and miscarried, rape and sexual abuse especially from cadres. e.g. in a commune near Guangzhou, 2 party secretaries raped 34 women
• poor quality of food in canteens, long commute, women received less food
• often limited to 8 work points while men could receive 10 (men’s labour more valued)

Question 7

political role for women

Answer 7

• Women’s Association: mobilised and politicised women, 40k staff in 83 cities
  
  • ploughing lessons, classes to improve literacy, financial support to make shoes and uniforms for PLA officers (reinforced gender roles)
• cultural revolution: politicised to same extent as men, same Maoist uniform
  
  • stayed involved: 1958-60 8-12% party = women, 1970-74 16-21%

Question 8

education for women

Answer 8

• families encouraged to send daughters to school. 100% of girls who started primary school finished it in 1959. by 1978 45% of students in primary were girls
• 1949 = PLA enlisted unmarried young educated women to be female companionship in military academies
• Feb 1951 = recruited a female work team to exploit natural resources in Xinjiang. rural women could escape poverty, women could escape from marginalised family background, etc.
  
  • returned to traditional role after

Question 9

problems of changing traditional views

Answer 9

• traditional male attitudes were slow to change
• even in the CCP, women were not treated equally by their fellow Communists (said by Ding Ling) e.g. Soong Ching-ling, a high ranking and prominent member, complained that her views were not treated equally

Question 10

education in china before 1949

Answer 10

• inequality of educational opportunity, peasants had no access, only 1% of girls literate
• elitist system, peasants disliked by teachers
• no practical subjects
• traditional style common (Confucianism)
• 80% of population illiterate

Question 11

literacy (education)

Answer 11

• new form of written language to simplify traditional and complex characters
• but 78% of the population remained illiterate by 1952
• 1955: introduced Pinyin which improved communication. letters based on latin alphabet, still used now
• literacy rate was 64% by 1964

Question 12

primary (education)

Answer 12

• min-pan schools, claimed 42mil attended 1951-52
• 1949-57 primary school children rose from 26million to 64 million
• winter schools ineffective as peasants forgot between winters

Question 13

secondary (education)

Answer 13

• favoured old bourgeoisie and children of party elites
• cities had better schools
• min pan schools extended to secondary later on

Question 14

university (education)

Answer 14

• purges of 1950s = loss of educators
• university enrolments rose by over 300,000; 1953 63% of students on engineering, medicine or agriculture courses
• uni enrolments almost quadrupled (117k→441k)
• many students sent to Russia to study there
• elitism remained
• by 1960, 30k schools and 2.9mil students
  
  • one in each commune

Question 15

education under the cultural revolution

Answer 15

• Red Guards abandoned school and went to attend the 8 rallies in Beijing led by Mao
• students denounced and attacked teachers, intimidated them in struggle meetings
• ‘lost generation’: many young people sent to countryside not back to school after CR (to learn hard labour) → disillusioned by regime, distrusted leader

Question 16

healthcare in 1949

Answer 16

• rudimentary health provision
• traditional medical techniques such as acupunture, herbalism
• practically non-existent in rural China
• 6-8% women died during childbirth due to complications from lack of calcium and vitamin D
• lack of sanitation
• only 2.6% of state budget = healthcare up to 1956

Question 17

CCP’s health policy

Answer 17

• prioritised prevention of disease rather than expensive cures
• cadres trained to show peasants how to prevent spread of disease through improved sanitation and public hygiene
• Patriotic Health Campaigns: Party workers to educate illiterate peasants
  
  • successful as they used lectures to educate them
• diseases like smallpox, cholera, typhus, etc. practically eliminated. TB and parasitic diseases reduced
• under GLF → communes had medical clinics
• investment created 800 new Western-type hospitals
• doctors trained in modern techniques = 40k 1949, 150k 1965
• life expectancy = 36 years 1949, 57 years 1957

Question 18

barefoot doctors

Answer 18

• work of doctors disrupted by Antis campaign in 1950s and Cultural Revolution → denounced and purged
• Western hospitals centered in cities → inequality clear
• barefoot doctors: young people sent by villages to receive medical training and then returned to work in village clinics
• only 6 months training, little equipment and medicine in village clinics
• adequate to treat common problems of peasants and could spread modern medical knowledge
• by 1973, 1mil+ new doctors trained

Question 19

Women’s Federation

Answer 19

• improve midwifery and infant childcare
• new techniques based on scientific techniques → handwashing, pre-natal checkups, etc.
• midwifery stations
• fertility increased and infant mortality decreased

Question 20

buddhism

Answer 20

• began as less organised than Islam and Christianity → easy to attack
• monks sent back to homes, forcibly enlisted, deemed counter-revolutionary (all when communists came to power)
• ‘Resist America, Aid Korea’: Buddhist Association members to undergo thought reform, Buddhist landholdings redistributed under 1950 Land Reform Law
• government control under 1953 Chinese Buddhist Association
• Tibet most important Buddhist community
• targeted by propaganda (Anti Rightist Campaign)
• GLF: monks forced to labour, Lamas stripped of trad. sources of income
• 1959 Dalai Lama targeted by officials, had to be smuggled to India
• Buddhism denounced as one of ‘Four Olds’ in CR → entire generation of monks, nuns and followers wiped out

Question 21

confucianism (ancestor worship)

Answer 21

• was dominant in 1949
• in 1949, all ceremonies ended, shrines given to museums (at first)
• CR - became dangerous to worship, Confucius birth temple attacked, used as precedent to attack opponents
• traditional New Year festival ended, offerings deemed superstitious
• many other festivals made communist e.g. Ch’ing Ming (day of the dead) replaced by National Memorial Day to celebrate communists
• generational faith remained e.g. when Zhou Enlai died, people conducted traditional events. Cadres carried holy symbols

Question 22

islam

Answer 22

• in 1949, Muslim leaders had influence on women and education. islam was a minority religion, mainly in Xinjiang (W. China, bordered many Muslim countries like Pakistan)
• mosques repurposed and became halls for struggle meetings, schools became barns
• many Muslims fought back e.g. in Gansu, 1000 killed fighting
• Islamic Association of China: more cooperation between Muslims and Party
• Xinjiang named as an Autonomous Region in Oct 1955 but this did not mean independence → Quran replaced with Marxism on curriculum, Zakat removed and mosque lands redistributed, etc.
• CR: Muslims forced to eat pig, leaders tortured, men forced to shave, etc.
• Muslim culture remains to this day

Question 23

christianity

Answer 23

• believed Church represented Western ideology, but 4 mil Christians in 1949 (minority)
• Protestant Church forced into ‘Patriotic Church Movement’ and should be self-ruling, self-propagating, self-supporting
• reality: meant complete obedience to gov, pressured to cut ties w/ West
• 1949 3000 Protestant missionaries → 100 1953
• Vatican (Catholic) refused to accept ‘Patriotic Church’ but Party expelled Vatican
• smear campaigns against Catholic Church e.g. Catholic hospitals accused of using patients as human guinea pigs to test medicines, an exhibition in Shanghai showed ‘Catholic espionage activities’
• 1951 3222 churches, 1953 364 churches
• clergymen forced into labour, leaders sent to laogai
• public worship effectively ended