The Third Five Year Plan, 1962-65 Flashcards
How far did Mao accent responsibility for the Great Famine?
Accepted partial responsibility and admitted that backyard furnaces failed but encouraged other leaders to take the blame.
Which position did Mao keep after withdrawing from politics?
Party chairman.
Who replaced Mao as Head of State? Who replaced Mao as General Secretary of the Party?
Liu Shaoqi took the role of Head rural cadres was downgradedof State and Deng Xiaping became General Secretary.
What did Liu Shaoqi say in his speech to 2,000 Party cadre in 1962?
Dismissed Mao’s claims that successes outweighed failures by 9 to 1.
Rejected his argument that weather conditions were the main argument.
Announced that the problems were 30% natural and 70% man-made.
What were the policies of the Third Five Year Plan?
Communes scaled back in favour of greater freedoms for peasants to produce what they wanted on small private plots, although peasants still had to meet food quotas to give the state.
Allowed to trade on free market.
Allowed to claim and cultivate any unclaimed land.
Emergency aid was sent from the factories in the cities to rural areas.
In industry, profitability was emphasised.
Industrial production changed to support agriculture.
Role of low-level rural cadres was downgraded in contrast to urban managers, and provincial regional party bosses.
Those who possessed technical knowledge or administrative expertise to organised an efficient economy were promoted.
Experts, intellectual and party bureaucrats had been purged or ignored because of Mao’s trust in the power of the masses.
Managers were given more control over state-owned enterprises. The production targets set now had a focus on making sure factories were profitable.
Urban party cadres were sent to the countryside to replace Maoist local rural cadres.
Prisoners in labour camps were put to work making cooking utensils to place the one melted in the backyard furnaces.
How successful was the Third Five Year Plan?
By 1965, agricultural production had recovered from the Great Leap Forward back to the same level as 1957.
Private plots provided improved incentives to work harder. By mid-1960s, private production accounted for approximately one third of peasants income.
By the end of 1962, availability of tools, boats and carts resorted to the same levels they had been pre-communes.
Light industry was growing at a rate of 27% and heavy industry by 17%.
Production of consumer goods was double the 1957 level.
