Changes under Mao 1949-63: Agriculture

Why did Mao modernise agriculture in China?

So fewer people could produce more foodstuffs

• people were needed to work in factories to make China economically productive

What was his main strategy to achieve this?

Collectivisation of farming

What did the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950 state?

• The property of large landlords should be taken away from them and given to the peasants

• The property of enemies of state (e.g. Chiang Kai Shek) and foreign nationals was confiscated

Positives of Agrarian Reform Law for Mao

• Won over many peasants to communism as they detested the landlords

• Fulfils their aim to rid China of foreign presence

• Destruction of elite

• Rids China of landlords

Negatives of Agrarian Reform Law for Mao

• Many people took this as an opportunity to settle old disputes

  • villages held ‘struggle meetings’ denouncing landlords and violence ensued (over 1 million landlords were killed)

What happened once the landlord class had been removed?

• Land was redistributed

• Peasants encouraged to share equipment & animals and to work in mutual aid teams

  • consisted of up to 10 households each

• Despite this, each piece of land continued to belong to one individual peasant

Positives of this for Mao

• Encourages people to live by communist values

• By the end of 1952, 40% of peasants are in Mutual Aid Teams

• Individual peasants own the land so they are more likely to take care of the land and keep it productive

Negatives of this for Mao

• Individual peasants still own the land so collectivisation has not been fully achieved

What does APC stand for?

Agricultural Producers Cooperatives

What happened under APCs?

• Peasants still continued to individually own land, but it was managed centrally

• APCs consisted of 3-5 Mutual Aid Teams (30-50 households)

What did Mao believe APCs would do?

Increase food production because larger farmers with shared equipment should be more efficient

Positives of APCs for Mao

• Successful in areas that already had Mutual Aid Teams established

Negatives of APCs for Mao

• In some areas, richer peasants took them as an opportunity to buy up lots of land and hire labour

  • undermines communist values, basically mini-landlords

• Richer peasants burned their crops and killed their animals in order to not cooperate

What did Mao call for in Jan 1955?

A brief halt in the creation of APCs, which he soon changed his mind about

What did Mao do to agriculture in 1956?

Sped up collectivisation by introducing the ‘Great Leap Forward’

What did the ‘Great Leap Forward’ do?

• Created collectives (communal farms) of 2000-3000 households

• Land, animals and equipment belonged to the collectives, not individuals

Why was Mao so keen to push forward with the collectivisation initiative?

He believed peasants were harming his effort to industrialise China by over-eating instead of sending extra food to towns.

How would the creation of collectives solve this?

The produce would not be the property of the peasants, allowing the CCP to redirect it.

Positive outcomes of this

• collectives become more communist in principle

• agriculture has become more productive and efficient

Negative outcomes of this

• May be opposition from the peasants as they feel they’re being deprived