Theme 2 Revision

Question 1

Features of land reform

Answer 1

• The Agrarian Reform Law of 1950 gave the CC the legal right to take land from landlords and redistribute it to peasants.
- From December 1951, the CCP began setting up agricultural cooperatives. Between 1950 and 1952, 40 per cent of China’s farmland had been redistributed and 60 per cent of peasants gained more land.
The CCP slogan for land reform was
“land to the tiller. A tiller is the person actually farming the land. Previously, peasants rented land from landlords, which kept them poor and under the landlords’ control.

Question 2

Reasons for land reform- political

Answer 2

landlords were often GMD
supporters and certainly never supported the CCP. Land reform helped get rid of political opponents of the CCP.
Land reform was very popular with
peasants. Peasant support was essential for control of the People’s Republic of China.

Question 3

Reasons for land reform- Ideological:

Answer 3

communists claimed the renting
system exploited peasants and created
inequality, and that communism would lead to
an equal society without exploitation.

Question 4

Reasons for land reform- economic

Answer 4

more land and the four freedoms
gave peasants reasons to improve farming. This was important because China needed to increase farming efficiency in order to promote industrial development and feed the
increasing urban workforce.

Question 5

The Four Freedoms

Answer 5

The freedom to trade (sell products at market), the freedom to buy, sell and rent land, the freedom to lend money to others, the freedom to hire labour. Important as redistributing land because they gave peasants good reasons to improve their land, increase the amount they produced and increase the amount they sold for profit

Question 6

Land reform and terror

Answer 6

Landlords were a
"Black Category
class.
Attacks on landlordism were part of Mao's
use of terror.
Peasants were encouraged by the CCP
to seize land from landlords.
Landlords were forced into humiliating
public confessions of guilt in
'struggle
meetings
Landlords were frequently killed in the
land reform process or lost everything.

Question 7

Features of cooperation

Answer 7

Mao and the CCP saw land reform as a first
step to collectivising agriculture.
Small farms were not as efficient as large
farms, which could afford machinery.
Small farms were not socialist. Marxism
taught that individual farmers were
always drawn towards capitalism.
Small farms would not help
industrialisation. Mao needed control
over food prices so workers
wages did
not need to be high.

Question 8

Agricultural policy, 1950-57

Answer 8

1950 Agrarian Reform
Law, 1951 Mutual Aid Teams
(MATs) introduced, 1953 Agricultural
Producers' Cooperatives
(APCs) introduced, 1955 Advanced
Agricultural Producers'
Cooperatives introduced, 1956 Record harvests achieved, 1957 Almost 90 per cent
of peasants had joined
Advanced APCs.

Question 9

Growth of MATs: key features

Answer 9

Mutual Aid Teams (MATs) were the first step
in encouraging peasants to move to more
cooperative ways of farming.
• MATs were promoted from 1951 to 1952.
• A MAT was a group of peasant households
(between five and ten) that worked as a
team for big farming jobs, like planting and
harvesting.
• The peasants in the MAT shared tools and
equipment, making farming more efficient.
• Peasants still owned their own land.
• MATs were voluntary and peasants could join
or leave at any time.

Question 10

Gradual changes in farming

Answer 10

• Small farms were inefficient while large farms could be worked efficiently by machinery.
• Marxist theory aimed for collective farming so that all farms were equal.
• Peasant support was essential to the CCP so changes were gradual and voluntary.
• In the USSR, Stalin had used terror to
force collectivisation on peasants, causing unrest and famine. This made Mao more cautious.

Question 11

Growth of APCs: key features

Answer 11

• Agricultural Producers’
Cooperatives (APCs)
were promoted in 1953-55.
• APCs involved larger numbers of households
(usually 20-30 households) putting all their
land and resources together.
• This created larger fields, which could be
farmed more efficiently using machinery.
• Each APC member was paid according to
how much work they did. Members were also
paid according to how much land and other
resources they contributed.
• APCs were voluntary and households could
leave them and still keep their land.

Question 12

Successes by 1957

Answer 12

Land reform convinced the majority of peasants that the CCP was on their side: • By the end of 1952, around 40 per cent of peasants had voluntarily joined MATs
• But APCs went too far for most peasants:
only 14 per cent had joined one in 1955.
• Widespread flooding in 1954 caused grain shortages in 1955. The CCP put heavy pressure on peasants to join collectives.
• By 1957, almost 90 per cent of peasants were in Advanced APCs. Food production increased by 40 per cent in 1951-57

Question 13

Advanced APCs: key features

Answer 13

Advanced APCs created large-scale farms that operated in a socialist way:
Advanced APCs were promoted in 1955-56.
• They were large (150-200 households). This often meant combining several villages.
• Now people were only paid according to the amount of work they did rather than how much land was contributed. This equality was
an important principle of socialism.
Advanced APCs were voluntary, too. Households could leave them and keep their property

Question 14

Instead of the gradual, voluntary change in
agriculture (1951-57), in 1958 Mao insisted
on radical change. Reasons for this included:

Answer 14

Mao worried that bureaucratic Party rules were crushing revolutionary spirit, • Mao wanted China to industrialise rapidly. This
required large-scale, modern, efficient farms to produce plenty of food to feed industrial workers.
One slogan of the Great Leap Forward was ‘politics in charge’. Mao believed the Chinese people could achieve anything. In 1958, the CP introduced enforced collectivisation. This meant that collectivisation
became compulsory.

Question 15

Lysenkoism: nature

Answer 15

Trofim Lysenko was an agricultural scientist
from the USSR. He developed new socialist
approaches to farming that, he said, would
rapidly increase crop yields.
Following his ideas was called
*Lysenkoism’
The CCP introduced Lysenkoism for the
communes to follow.
Lysenkoism was based on the idea that
harsh conditions created stronger crops.
To challenge crops to become stronger

Question 16

Lysenko advised that:

Answer 16

seeds should be stored in cold,
damp conditions (instead of cool, dry
conditions)
seeds should be planted very deeply and
close together.
Lysenkoism imagined a perfect world, but
was not based on reliable evidence.

Question 17

How many households did the communes have

Answer 17

around 5000 households.

Question 18

Communal living was compulsory - by the end of 1958, how many people in communes

Answer 18

about 400 million people were
organised into over 26 500 communes:
amazingly rapid change.

Question 19

What showed that people now slaves of party not someone whose support had to be earned

Answer 19

People had to give up all their land and resources to the commune, as private farming was abolished. They worked for the commune now. not for themselves.
• The commune worked in a military way. Families were organised into work teams, and work teams were organised into brigades. Brigades
were given specific jobs to do. Each work team then had its specific role and its own targets to meet.

Question 20

The work in communes

Answer 20

There was a mix of agricultural and industrial
work, not just farming; for example, making
steel in backyard furnaces. Communes also
worked together to build irrigation channels.

Question 21

Features of communal living- Communes were organised so that every aspect of people’s lives was controlled.

Answer 21

Schools, childcare and care for old people
were provided so adults could work.
• Food and healthcare were provided freely to all commune members, as much as they needed:
an important communist principle.
• Everyone between 15 and 50 was in the commune’s militia and had military training.
• The commune’s police (made up from the militia) monitored everyone and punished those who did not do what they were supposed to do for the commune.
• The CCP monitored each commune and Party members made sure all decisions made by the commune were in line with CP policy.

Question 22

When was the famine and how many deaths

Answer 22

1958-62 and 30 million

Question 23

Possible causes of the famine

Answer 23

Consequences of government policy: • Lysenkoism• Four Pests Campaign. Communes: • Disruption caused by
backyard furnaces. Mao’s radical ideology. Impact of bad weather, 1959-61

Question 24

Impacts of the great famine- social

Answer 24

tens of millions of people died
• Social: breakdown in order as peasants
tried to take grain from commune stores.
Those caught were executed without trial

Question 25

Impacts of the great famine- social and political

Answer 25

communes fell apart in
famine regions as people struggled to keep
their families alive.

Question 26

Impacts of the great famine- political

Answer 26

Mao lost authority in the CCP and
his policies were abandoned. Rise of Liu and Deng and their ‘pragmatic’
policies.
Political: loss of faith in the CCP when it denied the famine was happening and did not help.

Question 27

Impacts of the great famine- economic

Answer 27

agricultural production took

decades to recover.

Question 28

Problems with the Communes- Wheat and rice harvests declined every year from
1958 to 1962. Here are three reasons why:

Answer 28

The communes demanded long hours of work, but gave few incentives for hard work. That meant peasants were less productive. 2. Because communes were put together so
rapidly, commune administration was often chaotic and driven by Party slogans.
3 Ordering peasants to make steel in
backyard furnaces meant that there were fewer people farming, and tools were lost as they were melted down for steel.

Question 29

Bad weather, 1959-61

Answer 29

The government did not admit there was a
famine in China, as this would suggest its
policies had gone disastrously wrong. However,
it did say bad weather was affecting harvests.
• There were droughts in 1959 and 1960 in
important farming areas, such as Sichuan.
• There was heavy rain and flooding in Guangxi
in 1959.
However, there was also famine in regions not
affected by bad weather.

Question 30

Government policy

Answer 30

Following Lysenko, communes planted seeds up to ten times closer together than they should be and up to 1.5 metres deep instead of just
below the surface. As a result, 90 per cent of the seeds failed to grow.
The Four Pests Campaign (1957) aimed to eliminate four threats to crops: flies, rats, mosquitoes and sparrows, but killed so many sparrows that there was a boom in the crop-eating insects that sparrows usually ate. This then impacted on harvests.

Question 31

Private farming restored

Answer 31

In 1960, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping
brought in emergency reforms to tackle the famine. This was
‘economic pragmatism’. Small private farms were allowed; peasants could trade spare food.
Students, soldiers and the unemployed were sent to villages to work on farms.
Communes were reduced in size, priority was given to growing food and hard work was rewarded with pay.
The emergency reforms were successful. Grain production increased by over 60 million tonnes from 1961 to 1966

Question 32

Economic reform after it all

Answer 32

Mao used the Lushan Conference of 1959 to persecute anyone criticising the Great Leap Forward.
However; by the end of 1959, Mao realised his policy had failed and allowed others to lead reforms.

Question 33

The Lushan Conference, 1959

Answer 33

Peng Dehuai, a military hero, had reported problems with the Great Leap Forward to Mao before the Lushan conference.
• Mao responded by publicly humiliating Peng at the conference and forced him to resign. The conference showed everyone that Mao would not tolerate any criticism.
• The conference led to the ‘Anti-Right
Opportunist Campaign: this persecuted anyone criticising the Great Leap Forward.
• Mao also promoted a ‘second Leap’: pushing up production targets still higher.
• As a result, the CCP continued to lie about the terrible economic consequences of the Great Leap Forward, and the start of the
great famine. This meant nothing was done to try to reduce the damage.

Question 34

Economic reforms from 1960experts

Answer 34

In 1960, pragmatists took control of the
CC’s economic policy, led by Deng Xiaoping
and Liv Shaoqi.
• Their policies abandoned the Great Leap
Forward. For example, in agriculture, private
farming was restored. This was less socialist
than communes.
• The reforms brought back experts. Experts
designed a food rationing system and
developed a new variety of rice that
increased food supplies. Experts were put in
charge of factories.
• Pay was changed so that hard work was
rewarded. Discipline was made tougher
in factories and farms. This increased
production and meant more food supplies.

Question 35

Economic reforms from 1960 2

Answer 35

Small-scale factories were closed so that resources could be used more efficiently. Backyard furnaces were phased out. • A ‘return to the village’ campaign encouraged workers from closed factories to go back to farming, to help improve China’s food supply.
• Targets were lowered. This made targets more achievable and reduced the need to forge false statistics.

Question 36

Reasons for failure

Answer 36

• Mao’s faith in the peasants over experts:
peasants had no experience in making steel
and were not trained to do it.
Mao’s faith in mass mobilisation: 90 million
peasants took up the policy, but they lacked
the expertise to make it succeed.
• Mao’s quarrel with the USSR: Mao disliked
Khrushchev’s criticisms of Stalin. Once China
and the USSR had split, Soviet funding was
cut off and Soviet experts left China.
a
• Targets were set high, but there was no
support for how to meet those targets.
• Fear: no one dared to report failures to
meet the targets or criticise the policy

Question 37

Consequences of failure

Answer 37

Mao's loss of authority allowed Li and
Deng to take control of the economy
and introduce reforms. Mao withdrew
from government.
People wanted effective policies to end
the famine and raise wages. People lost
faith in utopian propaganda.
Some historians estimate up to 40 million
died due to officials' fear of purges and
Mao's refusal to accept criticism.
The CCP faced growing lawlessness in
famine-struck areas, especially Sichuan
and Tibet. Bandits had to be controlled.

Question 38

Economic recovery to 1965

Answer 38

By the end of 1962, the economy was
starting to recover. From 1962 to 1965, industry grew at 11 per cent each year. Farming began to recover. Grain production increased by over 60 million tonnes between 1961 and 1966. Urban workers had higher standards of living than peasants. Also, a few peasants became richer while most remained poor.
This was not socialism