unit 1 - establishing thr communist rule Flashcards

Question

reunification campaigns in Guangdong - success or not?

Answer 1

-group of people who lived there - pro nationalists and spies -reasons why CCP needed to control this region - it was a coastal region. the capital canton was a great trading region. it was also full of anti - communist propaganda. -methods they used - 28,000 executed in the ‘Supress the Counter revolutionaries’ campaign. success or not? - they caused fear so yes a success. there were still some nationalists to deal with though.

Answer 2

-group of people who lived there - rival nation in Taiwan called the Republic of China (ROC). -reasons why CCP needed to control this region - the nation claimed to be the ‘official’ China and quickly set about preparing to re-invade the communist controlled mainland. -methods they used - they sent spies and agents to attack and sabotage the new regime. the communists wanted to invade back but their involvement in the Korean war prevented this. -success or not? - if Mao’s forces attacked Taiwan, they would have been easily defeated by the US, so no this campaign was not a success; China would be forced to accept the presence of nationalist Taiwan.

Answer 3

-a Laogai, inspired by Stalin’s gulag, was a network created by the CCP of labour camps to imprison it’s enemies. They were called Laogai, meaning ‘reform through labour’. -people like thieves, drug dealers and bandits were put in a laogai. most were political prisoners, including 300,000 doctors, engineers etc. - people imprisoned were forced into back-breaking work like digging reservoirs or building roads. some helped prepare land for cultivation. they were useful for dangerous work too such as digging uranium mines. -the living conditions were appalling and diarrhea and dysentery were common. -it’s estimated that 27 million people died in prisons and labour camps during mao’s rule. -the Laojiao abandoned all pretense of judicial procedure. Now inmates can be held indefinitely until it was decided by the police that they had been fully ‘re-educated’. -around 10 million people were imprisoned in any one year during Mao’s dictatorship. -they were a means to intimidate and terrorize the population. they were also a way of converting former opponents by forcing them to attend study lessons where they would be bombarded with communist propaganda.

Answer 4

-PLA -propaganda -police -The Courts -support of the public -Laogais -reunification campaigns

Answer 5

-Land reform was the essential means by which the CCP had gained the support of the peasants. -land belonging to the rich like landlords confiscated and given to the poor. Mao made sure it was only the rich and not the poor, who were on his side. The poor had to revolt against the rich for land. -the peasants would respect and support Mao due to the fact they will now not be exploited by the rich for their labour have enough land to live peacefully.

Answer 6

-women had no rights and had to listen to their husband or father before 1949. If her husband was to die, they had to listen to their sons. -New Marriage Law 1950 - outlawed arranged marriages and the payment of dowries to a husband or his family. divorced or widowed women were given the same rights to own property as men. -Mao would have gained the support of the women, as now they have the same rights that men have.

Answer 7

-before 1949, entry of schools and unis was very restricted due to high costs. only 5% of students actually passed in any one year. -the CCP rejected traditional Chinese form of education for elitism. he said learning should come from experience. he also opposed western influence in Chinese schools - cultural imperialism. -children started learning communist propaganda from early years. -by 1956, less than half of children between 7-16 were in full time education.

Answer 8

-before 1949, healthcare was very uneven. Western medicine was brought to China. the effects resulted in buildings of hospitals in some of China’s biggest cities - began to show significant improvements. -the CCP started campaigns such as the Patriotic Health campaign to improve sanitation and hygiene. They wanted to improve quality of drinking water by digging deep weeks. Especially people in rural areas who use waste as fertilizer - had to store away from home to boost hygiene. i’m rural areas, a 3 tier system of healthcare was adopted. each township was to have a health centre provided. -before Mao took control, the healthcare system the GMD created did not cater to the peasants, causing many to die of illness. Map created new systems so healthcare was for everyone and created campaigns to keep hygiene up to prevent any bad diseases.

Answer 9

in June 1950, the CCP could not afford to go to war. they were still recovering from the civil war and ww2 before that. they desperately needed some years of peace and stability to establish the new regime. instead, Mao brought China into the Korean war. theories: -USA (1950) believed it was to consolidate communist world domination; following Stalin’s orders. -Jung Chang (2008) believed Mao used the war to persuade Stalin to provide China with technology and industrial equipment. -Alexander Pantsov (2013) believes the USSR manipulated China into joining the Korean war.

Answer 10

-getting rid of opposition - purging his enemies - 800,000 were executed. he launched the ‘Resist America, Aid Korea’ campaign. -show China as a strong country - able to use the war to show that China is no longer a nation to be exploited and bullied by the West. -show Mao as a strong leader - prepared to go to war to defend China and her allies against the most powerful country in the world. -impress Stalin - show Stalin China is just like them - communist. get ideas to grow economy, industry etc. - Stalin as an ally. -greater industrial output - able to use patriotic pride to encourage greater industrial output in coal, steel and iron industries. -unify the country - Korean war offered communists an opportunity to promote unity through creating antipathy to the USA and a sense of collective endeavor which promoted the idea of a PLA soldier hero. -encourage more support for the regime - patriotic campaigns brought nee supporters of the regime who had not yet embraced communism ‘preserve our homes, defend the nation’ urged press and gov broadcasts. -develop a sense of national pride - created propaganda campaigns - sense of national unity in a fragmented nation not yet fully unified.

Answer 11

-relations with the West - West thought of Chinese of figures of hatred, accomplices in Stalin’s evil communist empire. Chinese intervention reinforced the US’ mistaken belief in the existence of a monolithic communist plan for global conquest. -loss of Taiwan - Truman sent the US seventh fleet to patrol the Taiwan Strait. if Mao’s forces attacked Taiwan, they would easily be defeated by the US - great blow to national pride and they had to accept nationalist Taiwan. -financial cost - Stalin made sure the USSR benefited from Chinese involvement in Korea, charging high interest. the war cost $10 billion. -personal loss - Mao’s som was killed by an attack on PLA headquarters. Mao urged him to go to Korea and fight. -loss of soldiers - of the 3 million Chinese soldiers sent to the front, 400,000 died. -relations with USSR - Mao did succeed in impressing Stalin. the most damaging impact of the war was that it left China securely on the Russian side of the cold war. Mao helped to extricate more economic and military support from Stalin.

Answer 12

1. at the end of ww2 Korea was divided along the 38th parallel, the North was communist and allied to USSR and the South was capitalist and allied to the USA. 2. on 25th June 1950, North Korea, led by Kim II Sung launched an attack on South Korea in an attempt to unify Korea under one communist gov. 3. the USA and the UN (which included the forces of 16 nations) launched military action to defend South Korea. this UN/US force was led by General MacArthur. 4. at first the North Korean attack was successful and UN/US/SK forces were pushed into a small area around Pusan. 5. in September 1950, US/UN/SK forces launched a massive attack on Inchon, which was behind enemy lines. they began to push NK behind the 38th parallel. 6. Even though the NK army was behind the 38th parallel, the US/UN/SK army continued to fight NK, pushing them right up to the Yalu River, along the border with China. 7. MacArthur wanted to keep pushing the US/UN/SK forces into China and use nuclear weapons to liberate China from communism. Truman removed him from command. 8. at the end of October 1950, Chinese forces enter the war, preventing US/UN/SK advance. by March 1951, Chinese/NK forces had pushed US/UN/SK back to the 38th parallel. 9. a stalemate between the two sides continued until July 1953 when an armistice was signed, premarital dividing North and South Korea along the 38th parallel.

Answer 13

- Hundred Flowers campaignwas a campaign that allowed citizens to offer criticism and advice to the government and the party hence it was intended to serve an antibureaucratic purpose, at least on the Maoists' part. -the campaign resulted in a groundswell of criticism aimed at the Party and its policies by those outside its rank and represented a brief period of relaxation in ideological and cultural control. -criticism quickly grew out of hand and posed a threat to the communist regime. the liberation was short-lived. afterwards, a crackdown continued through 1957 and 1959, developing into an Anti-Rightist Campaign against those who were critical of the regime and its ideology. citizens were rounded up in waves by the hundreds of thousands, publicly criticized during struggle sessions, and condemned to prison camps for re-education through labor or execution.

Answer 14

1. international concerns - Mao was very fearful of the intellectuals denouncing him, just like Khrushchev denounced previous soviet leader, Stalin. 2. economic growth - catching up rapidly to the West is a big success and Mao thought that his campaign would do exactly that. 3. intellectuals leaving would bring the industry and the economy down. Mao needed them on his side. 5. internal debates - intellectuals being on Mao’s side would give him much more power within the CCP and China. removing officials standing in his way would make it much easier for him to keep power. 6. confidence - by 1956, Mao was confident that he and the CCP were firmly in control of China. Mao travelled extensively in China during the early 1950s. the rapturous reception he received wherever he went convinced them that he was in touch with people. the reunification campaigns, the Korean war, and land reforms were popular. Mao did not expect the intellectuals to criticize him.

Answer 15

-USSR - Stalin was denounced and lots of people said that Stalin and Mao were similar. Mao wanted to differentiate himself from Stalin so people did not catch on and try to denounce him aswell. -political fighting - Mao was criticized for not having more political parties so he launched the campaign to seek out all opposition -the economy - he was all for the peasants but he needed intellectuals on his side to keep the economy going. -confidence - Mao was overconfident and thought he was superior. - at first, most intellectuals were wary of openly criticizing the regime. however, once they overcome this initial fear and the campaign got started (February 1957), it unleashed a flood of criticisms that attacked the CPC and the communist system. -by early June, Mao was ready to abandon the campaign, and in july, he began a full-scale counter attack on intellectuals. this became known as the ‘Anti-Rightist campaign’. -500,000 intellectuals were branded ‘rightists’ and persecuted and forced to make ‘confessions’. some were sent to labour camps, others were ‘re-educated’. many were driven to suicide and some were shot in public. anyone with a suspect past was likely to be denounced and persecuted.