THEME 2 - Agriculture Policies Flashcards
What was the Agrarian Land Reform?
Work teams encouraged peasants to be violent towards their landlords.
Removed legal protection for landlords and supposedly put land ownership “to the peasants”
When did the Agrarian Land Reform pass?
1950
What were the 1951 MATs?
Mutual Aid Teams
= Pooled teams of 10 or fewer households together. They shared resources and split profits and harvest.
Were the MATS efficient?
They were efficient and popular as selling and buying was still permitted.
What were the APCs in 1952?
The next level of MATS.
Agriculture Producers Co-operative = Pooled teams of 40-50 households together. Some land was still kept privately owned and profits were shared according to contribution.
How did the peasants react to the APCs?
They were more disliked as they did not want to give up their resources.
What were HAPCS?
Higher Agricultural Producers Co-operatives = formed with 200-300 households.
What was the “Stop, Control and Develop” policy?
A campaign by Mao that halted APC development for 18 months in 1954 after the APCs went into debt.
In July 1955, he resumed his collectivisation plans with full force, bringing on the HAPCs and completely removing any privately owned land.
What were the Communes?
The collective farms merged into larger units that went beyond farming; they included institutes for education, welfare and defense.
Made of approximately 9000 households.
What was the brigade system?
The people were divided into production Brigades including tractor stations, industry enterprises and brick works and tool repairs.
How was the government involved in Communes?
Communes were units of local government that were responsible for health, police, military as well as education, childcare and elderly “happy homes”.
What were Mao’s aims for agriculture?
- Mao needed to increase food supplies to cities to be able to feed the new influx of workers in factories. However, he was also aware of how unpopular the Soviet’s had gotten from forced requisitioning. This made Mao focus on increasing supplies and maintaining popularity.
How did the peasants react to the Agrarian Reform Law?
Violence often escalated beyond what was enforced by the work teams. Peasants took the opportunity to seize land and settle family feuds.H
How was land redistributed in the Agrarian Reform law?
By 1952, 43% of land was redistributed from the land-owners to peasants. Rural production boomed as a result and 1 - 2 million landlords were executed.
Why did Mao introduce the Communes?
He wanted to increase inputs in both agriculture and industry simultaneously. He called this policy “walking on two legs”.
Why did communal living fail?
Créches were badly organised with under-qualified staff which were required whilst parents worked long hours.
Food in food halls were bad quality and diets worsened.
Women were expected to take on harsh labour so they could not do work without putting their children in poor quality créches.
What was the four pests campaign?
Mao believed that the reason for less agricultural output in communes was due to vermin. He organised the campaign to compel peasants to kill sparrows, rats, flies and mosquitos.W
Why did the four pests campaign fail>
Removing the pests meant that other animals/insects would eat the plants.
Peasants were encouraged to bang pans to scare away the crows, causing them to die. However, this lead to an increase in locusts on the fields that would eat the harvest instead.
Who was Lysenko?
A Soviet scientist whos ideas had been supported by Stalin in the 1930s.
What was Lysenkoism?
Mao adopted many of Lysenko’s ideas and made them policy. However, these ideas never worked and instead damaged the agriculture further.
For example, Lysenko advised to sow seeds close together which ultimately caused them to fail.
What were the impacts of the Communes?
- less incentives to work hard as conditions were bad for little profit
- Limited to 6 hours of sleep every 2 days.
- Military run = Everyone between 15-50 had to be military trained. Forced to keep rifles whilst they worked to maintain revolutionary drive.
