Survey Flashcards
Legacy 1949: Political
The CCP became the only official party in China -> control over the PLA.
Created Mao Zedong as the paramount leader -> positions as chairman & president of the party
Facilitated political ties with the USSR -> treaty of friendship 1950
PLA involvement in the Korean war 1950
Legacy 1949: Social
Food distribution, work load & housing all controlled by the state.
Establishment of commune -> collectivization approx 50,000
Equality for women: Maos’ slogan “women hold up half the sky” -> highlights push for equality for women.
Legacy 1949: Economic
Fulfilled promise of land reforms: 1950 Agrarian Law reform -> retribution of land & abolishment of private ownership (collectivisation)
Excess grain used for international trade and supply urban workers through ‘grain requisition’
Goals and features of GLF
Forced urbanisation & industrialization using the mass line
First five year plan, aim to increase in steel production - 5000 backyard furnaces.
Collectivisation of agriculture to supplement industrial urbanisation
Problems and features of GLF
Stated owned enterprises were inefficient, long hours and high quotes, led to substandard protects (Steel)
Grain production fell due to labor shortages & bad weather i.e drought (north and centre China) and floods (south China).
- 30 million deaths Jung chang stated Mao “knowingly starved these people”
Figures distorted by party officials, reported outrageously high numbers -> export of grain while the population starved.
Results and legacies of GLF
Famine led to the Three bitter years - “Victims of Mao’s wilful utopianism and cruelty” Rose Terril
Failure of GLF led to the denouncination of Mao Zedong & tensions within the party over further economic reforms, in the Lushan conference. 1961 - economy declined by 17%
Decline in relationship with the Soviets -> CCP blames Soviet advisors for the GLF failure.
State of Sino-Soviet relations
Treaty of Friendship, alliance and Mutual Assistance signed in 1950 -> Soviet loans/advisers enabled the industrialization of China through the GLF. 60 million dollar loan + 1956 210 projects supported by Soviets
Breakdown of tensions: 1959 Khrushchev visit to China & 1957
Mao/Deng Xiaoping visit to Moscow.
1966 clear division, fostered by different interpretations of Marxism & China developed the hydrogen bomb in 1964. - Mao “stand on its own two feet”
Border classes 1969 -> complete collapse of relations, very close to all-out war.
Internal party (tensions within party)
Division between rightists and leftists, failure of GLF (17% decline in industralisation output) pushed further division.
Peng Dehuai “30% of the fault of natural disasters, 70% man-made fault of Mao” Lushan conference 1959,
-> leading Mao to purged the right opposition, inwhich replaced Peng with a loyal Mao supporters.
Criticism of Mao’s policies
Mao wanted to; maintain his legacy and not let the revolution become ‘revisionist’
Deng Xiaoping given control of the economy - 1965 Chinese agriculture output returned to 1957 level while doubling of industrial output in from 1957
Projects and intentions of the GLF were reduced or scrap; skilled labour returned, grain requisition was cut, hukou system reinforced (government permission in-order to gain residency) →return of urban workers to countryside
Impact of Mao leadership
His beliefs of permanent revolution, the mass line and class struggle underpinned the push for cultural revolution.
Mao’s reputation remained intact, using a personality cult to stabilise the party.
After the Lushan conference 1959, Mao gave up position as president of the party.
With limited influence in economic or central decision making Mao focused on influencing education→SEM
MOD Hobsbawm: “These cataclysmic plunges [GLF and CR] were, due largely to Mao himself”
