Theme 1: Establishing Communist Rule - 1949-57 Flashcards
Why did the Communists Win the Chinese civil war?
-Nationalist ineptitude
-Communist popularity
-Mao able to mobilise the population and exploit nationalist incompetence
-Chiang lacked ruthlessness of Mao
THE COMMUNIST FORCES DID NOT WIN THE CIVIL WAR, RATHER THE NATIONALISTS LOST IT
Why may have peasants been bound together with fear of the communists?
- Russian forces supplied the communits with weapons and soliders
- communist terror was brutal
- took place in low-key rural areas
What were the communists?
people who want to give more equality to the working class* and want to end foreign influence**
- Party members became bourgeiosie
- *Contradicted by russian influence
What did Mao attribute their victory to?
peasant support
claimed victory was a peoples victory which legitamized their view to impose communism on china
What were the problems for the communist regime?
- peasants and mao supporters were uneducated and so were incapable of understanding complex marxist thought
- china was wide and diverse, with different dialects, so getting across communist ideas was difficult (china was not a single unified nation)
- lack of organisation, preparation (due to swift nationalist dimise) and inexperience in ruilling civilians
- peasants were supposed to lead the revoultion, as workers only made up 1% of chinas population, but lacked the education to understand the concept of communism
What is Mao Ze-Dong Thought?
SELF RELIANCE - determine china would not be reliant on other powers
CONTINUING REVOLUTION - new generations involved in revolutionary struggle, to prevent counter revolution
CLASS STRUGGLE - struggle key to maintaining a revolution
LEARNING FROM THE PEOPLE - should be embedded by the people and masses should participate
MASS MOBILISATION - believed chinas people could achieve anything when mobilised
What is significant about class struggle?
explains why a new bourgeioise culture is continually created - so that a constant revolution can take place
What is shown by this Mao Quote - “political power grows out of the power of a gun. our principle is that the party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to control the party”?
shows true democracy in the communist party lay in the obedience of the members to the authority and instructions of the leaders
What methods were used to deal with oppostion (exc. the PLA)?
- mass participation
- self-registration of nationalists
- regional bureaux - 6 regions
What methods were used to by the PLA to deal with opposition?
- struggle meetings
- intimidate opponents - publish list of convicts
- army
- promote communism (reduce oppostion)
- speak to people/help them
- farming - everyone is equal, even PLA
- building - more accepting of new regime
- foot soldiers of communism
- educated in the ways of communism
- part of local government
What were Mao’s reasons for joining the Korean War (1950-53)?
- shows communist strength to the world
- anti-capitalist propaganda in china (to deal with oppostion outisde and inside of china)
- gain resources and land from Korea
- get communist support from Stalin (industrial help)
- help unite the country with a victory
- Mao hoped to rival Stalin as a leader of the communist movement
- gave Mao an excuse to introduce campaigns to deal with oppostion
What was the campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries - October 1950?
- focused on internal threats to chinese revolution/links to GMD
- executions carried out in public to have an impact
What was the Three-Antis campaign - August 1951 to July 1952?
- targets were corruption, waste and obstructionist bureucracy
- involved mass meetings
- party members subject to self-criticism and were given a reminder of the danger of independent thought
What was the Five-Antis campaign - February to May 1952?
- directed against the bourgeiosie
- mass meetings with denunciations of people and confiscation of property
What was the Hundred Flowers campaign - May to June 1957?
-lifted the restrictions imposed on chinese intellectuals and granted freedom of speech