Introduction: China at the beginning of the twentieth Century

- 1900 China based on teaching of Confucius

- 95% of the population were peasants
- However, Chinese Empire was old fashioned
- Continued to be exploited by Western Powers
- As a result the Chinese empire grew weaker

Sun Yat-Sen and the revolution of 1911

- Sun Yat-Sen was a western educated politician who led the Chinese Revolution of 1911 (and had tried to over throw
the Manchu Empire 10 times between 1900 and 1911, with his party the GMD, founded in 1905)
- Put forward ideas in the Three Principals:

- Nationalism - The Chinese people must regain their pride and devotion to their country, and get rid of the foreigners
who had humiliated China
-Democracy - China must have a government elected by the people
-Socialism - The lives of the poor must be improved, industry and transport should be modernized and land must
be given to the tiller
- Sun wanted to give land to the peasants as most land in China was owned by landlords who collected rents from
peasants. Rents could be as high of 80% of crops produced.
-Peasants lived in extreme poverty; they also had no machinery

Why did Sun resign as president in Feb 1912?

- Northern provinces controlled by General Yan Shi-Kai (Imperial Army) (‘Most able General in China’)
- In theory, he was still loyal to Emperor P’u-i
- He could force the emperor to abdicate
- Sun believed the only way for the revolution to succeed was to trust Yuan
- To try to unite the country, he resigned (Feb 12 1912
- He also did this to avoid a civil war between GMD supporters and Yuan’s supporters
- Yuan was to become president and he had to follow the Three Principles

What happen after Yuan became president? (Key Features)

- After P’u-I abdicated in Feb 1912, a republic was set up
- The Three Principles were ignored

- Late 1912; elections were held for a legislative assembly, GMD won
- However, Yuan believed that the government should be responsible to him and not to the parliament

- Yuan wanted absolute power

- e.g. he replaced GMD generals with his own supporters; Parliament and the local governments were eventually
dissolved, made himself President for 10 years, made himself Emperor…etc…

- He also negotiated loans (with the West) without consulting

-GMD declared illegal in 1913

Time Line(i)
1912
- P’u-I abdicated, republic set up, Yuan President
- Elections held for legislative assembly, GMD won
- Yuan believed that the government should be responsible to him, replaced GMD generals with his own.
- Negotiated loans with the West without consultation
- Assassination of GMD leader, short civil war between Yuan and GMD
1913
- GMD declared illegal
- A new constitution; gave Yuan the power to i)declare war ii)raise taxed iii)appoint ministers
- Parliament and provincial assembly dissolved
- Term of his presidency extended from 5 to 10 years
1915
- Yuan made himself emperor (wanted to form a dynasty, going with Chinese ‘tradition’)
- Gave in to21 Demands (from Japan) which gave Japan control over i)ports ii)factories iii)railways in Mongolia and
Manchuria
1916
- Death of Yuan Shi-Kai

Warlords
- In 1916 the central government broke down
- Power given to local rulers; the Warlords
- Most (exception, e.g. Yen Hsi-shan of Shaanxi) were local dictators who took advantage of the situation
- Most connected to a foreign power
- In Northern China, many were connected to Japan
- China divided into two parts
- In Beijing, Japan offered bribes to increase their influence

- Taxation was increased greatly.

-e.g. Kwantung had 30 extra taxes

-Planting of opium increased, in 1924 it had increased by 20%

- Those who refused to plant opium were punished

- Warlords fought regularly to gain more territory and power

-Those who lost lived by raiding defenseless villages
- Fighting meant crops were devastated; area under cultivation fell
- Farmers were forced to join private armies
- Government projects; e.g. dams, roads, irrigation all collapsed
- Modernization of industry stopped

- Political unity suffered

Key features of life under Warlords
Economy
- Warlords only interested in ways to gain more money, power and land for themselves
-e.g. high taxes, opium planting, continuous wars to gain more territory

Political
- Many had connections with foreign powers
-e.g. in North China, many connected to Japan

- There was no political unity

Industrial
- Industry came to a standstill, government projects abandoned
Law and Order
- Law and order broke down
-There was continuous civil war
-The central government (In Beijing) became less effective
- Japan bribed the government in Beijing to increase their influence

Nationalist Movements
- Chaos in China led to development of new movements who wanted to rebuild China
- There was increased support due to Japan’s domination

- New Cultural Movement (Beijing Uni) involved mostly students and published a
May Fourth Movement
- Named after a mass demonstration on May 4th 1919 against the details of the Treaty of Versailles
- Western allies secretly agreed to Japan’s claims of former German possession of Shandong, without consulting China.
- Movement was a protest against Western Imperialism
- University students and school pupils, merchants and workers went on strike
- Government forced to not signed the treaty

- Led to desire to create a New China but one without western influence
- Pro-Japanese officials dismissed
- Democratic ideas were spread (through new publications, organizations
- Increased support for CCP

Reorganization of GMD
-1917 Sun became president again
- However, he only ruled Gwangzhow (S.China)

How the GMD changed from 1917 to 1925

i) Three Principles
1. Nationalism – aimed at removing imperial influence from the West and regaining control of industry and trade.
2. Democracy - included a statement of people’s rights e.g. officials being elected by popular vote and a legislative
assembly
3. Socialism - i) a fairer distribution of wealth and land especially to landless peasants and the ii) development of
nationally owned industries.
- Sun was prepared to use extreme measures to achieve these aims
ii) Relations with the Soviet
1. Soviet experts and advisers, such as Abram Joffe, Borodin & General Galen helped to reorganize the GMD’s
military
2. Agents from ComIntern visited China
3. Chiang was sent to Moscow to study the Soviet’s military tactics

iii) Organization
1. Galen sold Sun Soviet Military Riffles
2. An academy at Huang-Pu was set up (with Chiang in charge)
3. GMD was reorganized on Communist lines, e.g. it became a mass party and enforced strict obidence

iv) Relations with the CCP

1. CCP were allowed to join GMD
2. Communist’s influence increased
3. The First United Front was formed in 1923

Time Line
-1918 - Marxist groups set up
-1921 - CCP set up in Shanghai
-1922 - GMD accepted aid from the Soviet, admitted communists into the GMD
-1923 - Soviet advisers arrived to help reorganize the GMD
- First United Front
- Mao appointed (by Sun) to be in charge of propaganda & political agents

- Chiang Kai-Shek was sent to Moscow to study Soviet military organization.

- Chiang became the commander of the GMD military academy
- He was suspicious of the aims of the CCP

1924 - GMD manifesto was published, First GMD National Congress was held
- CCP members accepted authority of GMD

- Northern Warlords invited Sun to meeting in Beijing, however he died on arrival

Changing relations between the CCP and GMD

- Tensions between the two parties appeared after Sun’s death
- In the CCP there were two groups
-1. Supported Marxist idea of basing organization on urban workers
-2. Wanted CCP to be based on peasants (95% of the population)

- Some GMD thought that CCP wanted to bring China under Soviet control

May 30th Incident (1925)

1. Deaths
- death of a Chinese worker in a textile factory triggered the movement
2. Demonstration and protests
- demonstrationagainst British-led international Police force, where 13 Chinese were killed.
- Boycotts of foreign goods
3. GMD & CCP
- Many people joined the GMD and CCP
- CCP gained 150,000 members in two weeks

The Northern Expedition

Timeline
1925 - Chiang appointed as commander of the GMD army
- He wanted to crush the warlords in N. China and unite China

1926 - Campaign began (June)

- Hankow was captured by CCP led GMD army, and a government was set up
1927 - Nanjing captured
- Shanghai workers rebelled against their warlord. Rebellion was led by CCP Zhou En-Lai
- A communist council was set up to run the city

-Shanghai Massacres where Chiang wanted to reduce the CCP’s power

- ‘White Terror’ also spread to Nanjing, Gwangzhou
-CCP retreated

1928 - Expedition continued up North; in June, Beijing was occupied

- In Manchuria Zhang Zuo-Lin was bombed by Japanese officials (on his private train)
- Replaced by his son, Zhang Xue-Liang who surrendered to the GMD
- In order to strengthen the army, Chiang formed alliance with two Warlords in N.China
- Feng Yu-Xiang and Yan Xi-Shan

HOWEVER
- China was not actually united
- Feng, Yan helped him conquer the North; but never accepted Chiang’s authority.
- In 1929 Feng and Yan rebelled and there was a civil war for control
- Even when defeated, Yan was able to retreat into ShanXi and set up his own government there

- Large groups of Bandits existed, and they terrorized whole districts ( ‘ When they capture a person for ransom, the first
pierce his legs with iron wire…[they] left victims to starve…)
- 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria, deprived China of iron, coal

Why was the expedition ‘successful?’

-Political Agents were sent ahead to stir up support amongst the ordinary people
- Many were sick of warlord rule
- There was little fighting; easier than expected
- Some Warlords had to give in because their armies mutinied and joined the GMD
- Some willingly joined in return for some power later
- Peasants provided information, transport
- The army was trained and there was unified command of the GMD forces
- Co-operations between warlords were poor

-There were large worker & peasant uprisings against the Warlords

Why did support grow for the CCP in the late 1920s?
1. Chaing’s Policies
- He was worried that the GMD was becoming left wing
- Ignored the idea of Land Reform because many landlords supported the GMD
- This was not popular with the peasants

- GMD also seemed to only support the big businesses and in some cases Warlords
2. Soviet Influence
- Soviet’s interest in helping the CCP propelled them along side the GMD
- To some extent, they also led the CCP to concentrate on peasants and workers which the GMD ignored
3. CCP and land reform
- Enforced land reform, and this was popular with peasants
- 1930 Land Law of the Chinese Revolutionary Council = cultivated land was to be distributed equally between all the
population, except that landlords were to have a smaller share
- Attracted mass support from peasants

- Reduced tax
- Schools were set up
- Abolished traditions such as foot-binding and arranged marriages
- 2 000 000 people joined the CCP in 1926-1927
- Bad famines, droughts meant that the peasants turned to CCP because they were unable to pay taxes, CCP were
their ’saviors’
4. Mao’s policies
- Created peasant councils so the peasants could have a say in ‘politics’
- Established the Red Army’s rules of discipline (e.g. ’Replace all doors when you leave a house, return and roll up the
straw matting on which you sleep, be courteous and polite to the people and help them when you can)
- He supported a revolt by peasants in Hunan 1927
- It failed, but peasants saw the CCP as a way of dealing with warlords, unlike the GMD

Key Features of the Long March

1. Chiang’s attack on the Soviet
- 1930 Chiang began a series of Extermination Campaigns 1930-4
- He regarded the Jiang Xi Soviet as a bigger threat than Warlords, bandits or even Japan
- Hence, there were 5 Extermination Campaigns

- However, the 1st 4 were failures

- Zhu De and Mao used guerilla tactics; they lured them into CCP ‘territory’ and attacked each unit separately
- However, GMD were able to capture these villages as they advanced, so peasants were either killed or starved to
death
- Because of this, there was opposition against Mao

2. The 5th Extermination Campaign

- In 1933 under German Military Adviser General Hans von Seeckt, the GMD used block-housing
- They attempted to surround the soviet by building concrete block houses
- At the same time, Otto Braun was appointed to be in charge of the CCP’s tactics, so there was a change in tactics
- Because of this, 60 000 soldiers in the Red Army were killed
- The area under CCp control was shrinking
3. Mao’s break out
- October 1934 100 000 CCP attempted to break out and head West, planning to head for the Hunan-Hubei border
where there was another base
- It took weeks for the RA to break blockhouses down
- When they broke through and reached Xiang River (25 Nov- 5 Dec ), they were forced to fight a major battle, loosing
45, 000 men
- Otto Bruan was suspended (as his orders meant that the RA had been weighted down by the equipment they had
been told to bring with them)
4. Details of the March
- 9 000 km through Gui Zhou, Sichuan in to Shaanxi and Gan su
-Snowy Mountains
- Grass lands

- ’ Main Body’ (with Mao) had 8 000 people

-Groups rejoined with it along the way, most by 1936

- 20 000 survivors, others had been died because of the natural elements (e.g. drowning) or the GMD
- They were also harassed by local warlords and hostile tribal men

- On the other hand 1st Front Army, 2nd Front and 4th Front added up to an 80 000 men army force
5. The New Soviet at Yanan
- It was safe from attacks from the GMD or Japan
- Japan did not see them as a threat, and largelyleft them alone, which gave the CCP and advantage

6. The Spread of Communist ideas

- As the CCP trekked, more people joined
- They were also able to spread propaganda and thus increase support (e.g. by the Red Army’s 8 strict rules)
- They also spread these ideas to new ares
7. Impact on Position of Mao
- Mao emerged as their leader
- Soviet influence declined
- CCP became less international
8. Long March in communist mythology
- Paintings produced later contributed to Mao’s god-like image
- It was largely used as a part of CCP’s propagandaCommunists, nationalists and the Japanese at War

- 1931 Japanese invaded Manchuria

- CCP declared war on Japan immediately
- Mao wanted a United Front
- Increased support for the CCP
- Chiang ignored this, until the Xi’an incident of 1936
- So, to the Chinese, it seemed as if the CCP were doing all they could to get rid of the invaders, whilst the GMD did not
take action
- Chiang ignored the Japanese because he concentrated on trying to eliminate the CCP
- ‘The Japanese are a disease of the skin, but the Communists are a disease of the heart’
- In 1936 Chiang ordered Zhang Xueling to attack the CCP in Yanan, but Zhang refused
- Chiang flew to Xi’an and was arrested, held prisoner
- He was released when Zhou En-Lai stated that a United Front was essential for the fight against Japan, to
which Chiang agreed

Japan’s Invasion/The Manchurian Incident

- Japan wanted to expand (e.g. 21 demands)

- Manchuria was attractive
- 1927, Japan had a stranglehold on Manchuria’s economy
- It kept a large army in Kwantung
- It also had a ‘Friendly agreement’ with Zhang Zuo-lin
- Japan were happy to let him rule Manchuria as it weakened the government in Beijing
- 1928, Chiang set up the National Government and Japan’s control was threatened
- Zhang (Z-l) agreed to recognize Chiang’s authority
- Hence, the Japanese bombed his private train, and he died (2 Japanese Colonels)
- His son, Zhang Xue-Ling (‘drug addict/gambled’) was his successor
- Japan assumed that he would be easy to control

Manchurian Incident 1931

- Acting against orders of the Japanese government, the army in Kwangtung planned a take-over of Manchuria
- September 1931 they occupied Shenyang
- Claimed Chinese Soldiers had tried to blow up the South Manchurian Railway
- Ignored the League of Nations, so 50 000 soldiers occupied the rest of Manchuria
-Zhang Xue-Ling, now cured of his drug addiction, was an effective military governor
- He wanted to fight
- However, Chiang wanted to rely on the LN and told Zhang that neither of them had the strength to fight Japan
- LN did not take military action
- 1932 Manchuria was occupied and re-named Manzhouguo
- Pu-Yi acted as a figure head leader
- This led to the Xi’an incident

How did the Second United front (1937-45) change GMD/CCP relations?

- Communists accepted direction from the GMD government (Nanjing)

- Chinese Soviet Republic abolished
- Red Army was merged with the GMD, becoming the Eighth Route Army
- CCP agreed to stop attacks on landowners
- From 1937 landlords were encouraged to sell their land to the peasants
- Land belonging to collaborators with the Japanese was confiscated
- Peasants were given a voice in political decisions
- Resistance against the Japanese grew as they occupied more of Eastern China and began mass slaughters of the
Chinese in cities such as Shanghai
- Chiang retreated from Nanjing, giving up the capital
- He moved the government to Sichuan
- However in Sichuan, he was cut off from his main power base (the industrialized/westernized areas)
- The GMD couldn’t do much to fight back, so they appeared unwilling
- Whilst the CCP made it clear that its policy was to drive out the Japanese
- The GMD government became corrupt as officials wanted personal power etc…
- Inflation grew
- Power of Warlords increased
- The Japanese concentrated on attacking the GMD and left the CCP alone
- CCP troops advanced into areas vacated by the GMD, and thus controlled must of N.China
- Eighth Route Army acted independently, and won support for the CCP through their behaviour
- Set up a network of command posts in villages across China
- Japan could not guard all the areas they had conquered as they went further South, their army was not large enough
- The Communists could then move in and take control. They called these areas the ‘liberated’ areas
- In these areas, CCP carried on with land reform
- Lowering Rents from 37.5% of a crop to 20%

- American/Foreign involvement
- Because of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, America declared war on Japan
- In 1945 August the 6th America dropped and atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and later, on the 9th
Nagasaki
- 8th August Russian Red Army invaded Manchuria
- The 2nd atomic bomb persuaded the Japanese government to capitulate

Why did the Second United Front increase the popularity of the CCP?

1. Introduction
- GMD’s ‘image’ fell due to Chiang’s unwillingness to declare war on Japan
- He, instead, wanted to get rid of the CCP
- Focused his military power on that instead

2. Chiang’s tactics
- Retreated the government from Nanjing to Sichuan
- Seemed like he was running away
- Lost popularity
- As a further result, he was cut off from his main power base
- GMD could not do much to stop the Japanese
- It appeared to the Chinese that the GMD were doing nothing

3. The GMD government

- Became corrupt
- Allowed inflation
- Warlord’s power increased
-This again lost popularity for the GMD

4. Tactics of the CCP

- They made it clear that they wanted to fight the Japanese
- 8th Route Army’s actions (e.g. network of command posts) won them support
- The Red Army’s 8 strict rules contrasted with the GMD
- For many, Red Army were their saviors whilst the GMD army constantly took food off them and left them to
starve
- In 1940 they began an offensive called the Hundred Regiments Battle
- They attacked Japan’s railway communications
- This stopped Japanese ‘traffic’ to and from the South
- Japan responded in 1941 with the Three All Campaign
- Kill all, burn all, destroy all which attempted to turn the CCP’s supporters against them

5. The Policies of the CCP

- ‘Chinese do not fight Chinese’ – contrasted with what Chiang said
- Allowed peasants to have a voice in political decisions
- Mao was the one who asked for a United Front (leading to the Xi’an Incident)
- In areas which they controlled (Liberation areas), rents were lowered by 17.5%

Civil War, why the CCP won (1945-1949)

- At the end of the war with Japan, both CCP tried to gain as much territory as possible
-GMD occupied southern China
- CCP had the North, and Manchuria (Soviet allowed them to move in)
- In early 1946 the two sides signed a truce
- However, attacks began in spring and full-scale hostilities broke out in Nov 1946
- GMD controlled railways and major cities and even captured Yanan
- CCP still had the countryside where they continued with land reform

Why did the CCP win the Civil war?

CCP

i) Strengths
- CCP appeared to be honest; disciplined
- Kept increasing support
ii) Tactics (as well as Tactics to win support)
- In 1946 the Red Army was renamed the ‘People’s Liberation Army’
- Could be seen as propaganda as this army ‘liberated’ the people
- Liberation areas
- Life in liberated areas were comparably better for the peasants
- E.g. the CCP continued with land reform
- The army kept increasing in size
- 1945 1 000 000 men, due to peasant support
- 1949 claimed to have 4 000 000
- Their guerrilla tactics were developed during the war against Japan

GMD

- Chiang wanted to modernize China

- He wanted to create a sense of national unity
i) Weaknesses
- However, there was a lack of social welfare
- E.g. Medical care was poor, etc..
- The government was corrupt
- There was a lack of support from the peasants
- Inflation
- GMD forces were increasingly stretched out, even with aid from the US
- They were isolated, and many with no way to escape, deserted to the CCP
- This left large amounts of equipment in the hands of the CCP

Battle of Huai-Hai 1948

-PLA were finally large enough to abandon guerilla tactics and fight head-on
- GMD lost half-a-million men and vast amounts of equipment
- Thus the CCP advanced
- E.g. Beijing 1st April
- Shanghai May
- Guangzhou October
- Chiang retreated and fled to the island of Formosa with GMD troops and set up the Republic of Taiwan
st
- 1 October 1949, People’s Republic of China was established

PART TWO
The aims and changing policies of Mao after 1949

Land Reform
- 1950 Mao began to eliminate all landlords
- Believed that they had to be destroyed all together
- Landlords forced to give up their property
- CCP redistributed this among peasants
- Many were tried by village courts, and were executed
- As many as 1 000 000 could have died
- Agrarian Reform Law (30 June 1950)
- CCP went to the countryside to teach poor peasants how to work out the social class of their community
- Landlords; ‘rich’ peasants (those who hired other peasants to work for them); middle/poor peasants.
- Poor peasants were encouraged to hold mass meetings where they could ‘speak bitterness’ about their
poverty and denounce landlords (Speak Bitterness Campaign)
- Between 1950-2 47 million hectares were taken away from landlords and rich peasants and given to roughly
300 million peasants
- However, even this did not live up to every peasant’s expectations
- Sometimes they found they had no equipment or any money to buy it to cultivate their land
- Hence mutual aid teams (10 households) pooled together

Political Changes
- 1949 China became a one party state
- All other parties were suppressed in a series of purges from 1950-1952
- Those who showed any opposition to the party were labeled as counter-revolutionary or imperialist
- Chinese people began to accuse others to prove their loyalty
- Mao was determined to gain control of the cities
- 65 000 people were killed in Guangzhou
- 28 000 in Shanghai
- Organizations apart from Party-run interest groups (that the Chinese were encouraged to join) were all closed
- Churches were closed
- Religions were attacked
- Possible rivals were dismissed
- e.g. Gao Gang who committed suicide
- Because the Party controlled various organizations, such as the Woman’s League for Democracy, they were able to
organize the Chinese people
-e.g. the ‘Swat the Fly’ campaign where in the 1950s the Chinese was asked to kill at least ten flies per day,
which resulted in their extinction in some parts of the country

The First Five Year Plan

Why did Mao begin the First Five Year Plan in 1952?

- By 1952 the Chinese economy had been brought under control

Reasons for the Plan:

- Inflation was down from 1000% to 15%

- This was because the People’s Bank replaced all the private banks and complete control of financial
transactions as well as the supply and distribution of money
- The yuan was introduced
- The population of China’s cities was growing rapidly
- The First Five Year Plan was aimed at moving China from having a largely agricultural economy to an industrial
economy

Industries
- Hence, it gave priority to heavy industry
- Steel, coal, machinery
- There were nearly 700 new production plants
- On the other hand, light industry was neglected
- There was a slow growth in living standards and in the ability of consumer goods

Successes and Failures

- Coal, pig-iron, steel, and chemical fertilizer all exceeded the planned output
- Only oil and cement produced lower than expected
- Further more, National Expenditure rose from 6 810 million to 29 020 million yuan in 1957
- Economic growth was at 9% per annum

Soviet help
- Talks between Mao and Stalin gave a Treaty of Frenship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance
- Provided China with financial aid
- It also provided 10 000 engineers to help develop China’s economy
Cooperative Farms

- The Plan also aimed to increase the output of food to feed its growing population
- However, many of the peasant’s farms were too small to be farmed efficiently
- In 1953 the government and the Party tried to persuade peasants to join lower-stage cooperatives
- 30–50 families, usually the people of one village, pooled their land and labor to make one, bigger, more
efficient farm
- The families legally owned the land, but it was on permanent loan to the cooperative, which paid rents for its
use
- There were higher-stage cooperatives which were much bigger
- 200-300 families, usually the people of a group of villages
- They were not paid rent, and were instead paid wages
- They had to surrender their land, equipment and animals to the cooperative
- They were allowed to keep a few square meters, eg. For growing vegetables
- By the end of 1956 95 out of every 100 had joined higher-stage cooperatives

Hundred Flowers Campaign

- The Plan put the Chinese under a huge strain

- Food and housing were in short supply and there was a lot of criticism of the First Five Year Plan
- The CCP was losing some of its early popularity
- As a result, in 1956 Mao decided to allow the people to ‘let off steam’ by saying what they wanted about the
CCP and its leaders
- ‘It is only by using discussion, criticism and reasoning that we can really foster correct ideas, over come wrong
ideas and really settle issues’

Why did Mao begin the Hundred Flowers campaign?

- He appeared to have believed that it was now possible to allow greater freedom of expression
- Mao had also heard that local CCP officials had been accused of acting heavy-handedly and wanted to hear
other opinions
- Hence, he was calling for a great debate on the Five Year Plan
- The alternative is that the campaign could have been an attempt to discover any potential opponents
- In 1954 President Liu Shao-Qi had delivered a report (to the Congress) that mentioned Mao’s name 104
times whilst in 1956 it was only mentioned 4 times and the constitution of 1956 did not include the idea that
the CCP should be guided by the ‘Thought of Mao Zedong’

What were the results of the Hundred Flowers?

- Many openly critised the Plan, especially university lectures, artists, writers and teachers
- Party individuals and policed were attacked as being corrupt, inefficient or unrealistic
- Even Mao was included
- Mao called an end and began the anti-rightist movement
- Most of the critics were arrested, lost their jobs, and were re-educated in labor camps
- Some leading figures in the CCP were purged

The Second Five Year Plan

Key Facts of life in Communes/Collectivization

1. The Great Leap Forward aimed to

- Develop agriculture and industry at the same time
2. Mao wanted to use the ‘energy of the masses’
3. People were reorganized in to Communes
- Mao ordered the creation of 25 000 communes
- People who had moved in to towns during the First Five Year Plan were sent back to work in communes
- Most contained about 5-6000 people, but large ones had several hundred thousand
4. The idea was that ‘family’ would be less important
- Dormitories were set up
- Workers ate in mess halls
- Daycares & schools took care of children whilst their parents worked
- ‘Houses of Happiness’ were set up for old and infirm people
- This was so those who could work would not be distracted
5. Communes controlled almost every activity in a person’s life
- It was a unit of local government with a committee made up of peasants where Party member and soldiers
ran schools, clinics, public services.
- It was also a unit of work organization with the work divided up
- It was a unit of the CCP, and had a Party committee that made sure the commune always followed Party
decisions
6. By the end of 1958 about 700 million people (90% of the population) had been placed into 26 578 communes
7. Propaganda was a key element in the Great Leap Forward
- Posters, slogans and newspaper articles urged the Chinese to work long hours, whatever the weather or
conditions
- Revolutionary music and speeches were played to encourage workers to exceed the Plan’s targets
- Construction projects were completed in record time
- e.g. the dam near Beijing was built largely by bare hands
8. Back-yard steel campaign
- ‘Back-yard steel furnaces’ were set up all over China
- People were enthusiastic, and often spent time working on these furnaces rather than tending to their fields
- It turned out 11 million tones of steel
- However, much of this was of poor quality and unusable

Failures/ Why did the Great Leap Forward Fail?

- All over China, Party workers urged people to produce more faster
- However, machines were old and overworked and they fell apart
- Factory workers were exhausted and suffered accidences because of their exhaustion
- Back-yard Steel furnaces produced impure steel
- It also took people away from fields
- This reduced the amount of food that could be grown
- The furnaces also used so much coal that the trains had no fuel to tun on
- There were also not enough trains to take all the extra steel to the industrial centers
- Mao admitted in 1959 that it had failed ‘Coal and iron cannot walk by themselves. They need vehicles to
transport them. This I did not for see…’
- The Farming Crisis
- So many peasants were working in industry that there were too few people to harvest crops properly
- Peasants were told to use Lysenko’s ideas (Soviet scientist)
- Deep ploughing ruined the top soil
- Chasing away the birds meant that pests flourished
- Party officials falsely claimed that the grain harvest had been 260 million tonnes (Even though in 1960, it
had fallen from 200 million to 143.5 million)
- As a result, food stocks were used up due to the idea that there was more food to go around
- The conditions in 1959 were very bad
- There were droughts and floods
- There was a harvest of only 170 million tonnes
- People were going hungry and some began to starve
- 1960 saw even worse conditions
- Harvest was reduced to 144 million tones
- This led to a major famine (The three bitter years of 1959-1961)
- 9 million people died in 1960
- The death toll continued to rise, even though rationing was put into place
- Between 1959-1962 20/30 million Chinese died of starvation and related diseases
- However, CCP officials did not report this to Mao
- Eventually Peng Dehuai, the Defence Minister attempted to reveal the truth in 1959
- He was condemned and dismissed
- Mao, in the end, admitted to the failures of collectivization

Why else did the Great Leap Forward fail?

- It was nonsensical
- Major industrial development needed capital investment, technology and planning
- Mao was paranoid of the creation of a class of experts
- It was, largely, an experiment
- The disaster was ‘seventy percent man-made and thirty percent due to natural causes’ – Liu Shaoqi
- As a result, inflation rose from 0.2% to 16.2, income fell by 29%
Why did Mao lose power in the early 1960s?

- Some Party Leaders blamed Mao personally for what happened and demanded that he resigned
- However, due to his popularity with the Chinese, they persuaded him to hand over the post of Head of State to Liu
Shao-qi and that he remain Party Chairman
- In 1958 Mao resigned as the President of the PRC and in 1962 Liu and General Secretary Deng Xiao Ping was
given the responsibility for the economy
- Liu and Deng were both moderate
- Late 1960 they abandoned the Great Leap Forward
- Communes were reduced in size so they were more manageable
- Peasants who were working in the back-yard steel furnaces were sent back to the fields
- They were also allowed their own private plots
- From the advice of Chen Yun, the leading Chinese expert in agriculture, free markets were set up
 - This allowed the peasants to sell their produce freely
- It was a means of combating the famine
- Wages for the town workers were increased
- Mao still remained, by most Chinese, a revolutionary hero
- He also continued to have great influence over the masses
- In 1966 he used this to get rid of the moderates in the Cultural Revolution

Terms (define the meanings)

Landlordism – The system by which land under ownership is rented for a fixed sum to tenants
Land Reform – A change in the system of land ownership, especially when it involves giving land to those who work
it
Counter-revolutionary – Activities against the previous revolution
Five Year Plan – Plan to increase industrial success, based on Stalin’s 5 year plan in the Soviet
Hundred Flowers – The campaign that encouraged people to ‘let off steam’ about the CCP, and resulted in a
crackdown
Anti-Rightist – Those against the CCP (CCP were left wing so rightists were right wing)
Collectivization – Where farms (or factories) are brought together under state-ownership and produce as one larger
unit
Commune – where (in this case) large numbers of families lived together and shared working responsibilities (look
above for a full definition)
Great Leap Forward – The Second Five Year Plan, wanting to increase output even more for both agricultural and
industrial economies which failed
Backyard Furnaces – literally, backyard steel furnaces where peasants were encouraged to create raw steel. It was
largely a failure, and kept peasants away from their crops
Revisionist – Those who reject traditionally held ideas about a particular historic event(s)
Free Markets – The markets where peasants could go sell their produce (introduce after Mao resigned); a way to
combat the famine
Peasant Plots – The land that the peasants individually owned which was allowed in China once again after Mao
resigned (disappeared during collectivization)

Economic, Social and Political Changes; the changing role of Woman

How did life get better?

- 1950s unemployment fell dramatically

- Insurance introduced
- 8 hour, 6 day working week introduced
- Workers received one week paid holiday and up to three weeks ‘family visiting’ holiday
- Retirement was introduced
-50-55 for woman
- 55-60 for men
- Pensions were 60%-80% of income
- Health and education were free for all
- Education became a right and was made compulsory
- Housing, water, electricity etc…were all subsidized

How did life get worse?

- Urban workers had no right to choose where they worked
- Assigned jobs by state labor offices, with little regard to their abilities
- Usually for life
- Residence permits prevented people moving
- Impossible for peasants to move into the cities

How did the lives of woman change under Mao?

1. Equality
- Before, women had few rights e.g. they were second-class citizens
- GMD had made some progress, but only in the cities
- In 1950 equality of the sexes in education, employment and pay was made the law

2. Property
- Women were given the right to own property

3. Marriage
- 1950 Marriage Law banned arranged marriages, polygamy, child betrothal and concubinage
- Divorce was allowed

4. Maternity benefits
- Introduced in 1951
- Including feeding time and nurseries

5. Employment
- By the 1970s 50% of China’s doctors were women
- 30% were engineers and scientists
- Only 2/29 of ministers, and 1/12 of the vice-premiers were women

The Cultural Revolution and its effects

- 1963 Mao was becoming concerned at the changes that were taking place
- The growing dominance of the economy by an educated ‘elite’
- He began by building up support in the PLA and his supporters occupied key posts in the government
- He also gained control of the Central Cultural Revolution Committee

Why did Mao launch the Cultural Revolution?

1. The reason Mao gave was that the revolution was becoming too remote from the people
2. He criticized the growing number of experts, specialists in the economy and the party
- The education system gave preference to children of urban families and members of the Party hierarchy
- This created a privileged middle class which Mao was against
3. It was an attempt for Mao to regain his dominant position
- Undermine the positions of Liu and Deng
- He believed that they were betraying the revolution from within
4. He also believed in permanent revolution and wanted to continue the process of change
5. It was an attempt to appeal to the masses over the heads of the Party
- Jiang Qing, his wife, wanted to destroy all Chinese traditional culture and replace it with socialist ideas

How did the Cultural Revolution begin?

- Liu and Deng were dismissed

- Liu died in prison in 1973
- Deng faced public humiliation and his son was thrown from a window, breaking his spine
- In 1966 the Red Guards were set up:
-They were students
- At the same time, schools, colleges were shut down so the curriculum could be rewritten
- Their first aim was to get rid of capitalist and bourgeois influences from schools in colleges
- Began with a ‘Four-Olds’ campaign (18 Aug, 1966 mass rally in Tiananmen Square) against:
- Old ideas
- Old culture
- Old customs
- Old habits
- Put up posters throughout the country, praising the thoughts of Chairman Mao
- These thoughts were published in ‘the little Red Book’
-The cult of Mao Zedong
- The Red Guards read and memorized the Little Red Book of which 740 million copies were printed between
1966-69
- Pictures, busts and statues of Mao were put up in every street and workplace
- Many bowed to his picture after getting up in the morning and before getting into bet at night
- Used violence to achieve their aims
- e.g. smashed windows of shops selling ‘bourgeois’ luxuries
- Attacked teachers, intellectuals, scientists, civil servants and doctors
- They were humiliated
- Tied up, forced to recite from Mao’s book
- All forms of traditional Chinese culture were ridiculed
- All forms of foreign influences were also attacked
- e.g. ripped off western-styled clothes
- shaved off the hair of girls with western hair-styles
- Temples, Shrines, works of art and gardens were destroyed
- Burnt down bookshops, libraries
- Closed museums, art galleries, churches, temples and theaters
- New operas, poems, music and paintings were produced that glorified the revolution and the people of China
- Those who had been in the ‘middle class’ or were considered to be bourgeois were sent away into the countryside for
re-education

What effects did the Cultural Revolution have?

- All forms of authority were undermined
- Schools and colleges were closed for two years
- Rival groups of Red Guards began to clash in an effort to prove their loyalty
- PLA gave the Red Guards enthusiastic support
- Groups of workers ‘competed’ with the students to hunt out counter-revolutionaries
- In the PLA, all ranks were abolished
- Mao’s opponents in the Party were accused of ‘revisionism’, capitalist ideas and were arrested and dismissed
- Red Army took over
- Public transport
- Radio
- Television Networks
- Industrial production was at a standstill
- Local organizations were destroyed
- Country was in complete chaos
- Mao was forced to order the Red Guards to stop their attacks
- In 1969 the PLA were told to restore order
- However, they continued the attacks
- Lasted until 1971, although by 1969 order had been restored to most areas; there were dire consequences:
- e.g. However, the young people had missed so much of their education, that by 1981, it was estimated that
120 million people under the age of 45 were illiterate
- Art and culture remained under Jiang Qing until Mao’s death in 1976