Mao 6.3 (Mao's Economic and Social Policies)

Command Economy

A command economy is a system where the means of production are publicity owned. There are no private firms and the economy is controlled by a central authority, which ends up deciding what goods are made, where raw materials go, and setting prices.

First Five-Year Plan (1953)

Mao's First Five-Year-Plan targeted the coal, steel, and petrochemicals for industrial production and catching up to the Western world. Developing the transport industry was also incredibly important. The figures were exaggerated, but regardless, the achievements of the program were notable.

Great Leap Forward (1958)

The Great Leap Forward was Mao's second Five-Year-Plan and it failed miserably. He focused on the industrial workers but used unproven, ideological methods in order to maximize outcomes which didn't prove fruitful. It resulted in famine, death, and Mao blamed the peasants for the failure.

Backyard Furnace

The Backyard Furnaces campaign was created to maximize steel production. Families were urged to melt down metal on their own to make steel, but because of the lack of knowledge regarding the steelmaking process, homemade steel from pots and pans was actually useless.

Iron Rice Bowl

The iron rice bowl was a system for guaranteeing jobs and protecting wages for workers. It was an advantage for peasants as a result of state-owned enterprises eliminating the existence of private firms. Peasants had the provision of accommodation as well as medical and health benefits.

Applied Communism

Applied communism was one of the guiding principles of the Great Leap Forward. It constituted planning according to Marxist ideas, which meant the elimination of private ownership and instead, state control of the economy. China didn't have the technical know-how or skills to fully transform the economy based off of just this, however.

The Great Famine (1959-1961)

The Great Famine occurred as a result of Mao's bad agricultural policies and officials overreporting the statistics of harvests. People starved to death due to there not being enough food to eat and Mao continued to blame the peasants, refusing to accept that something was going wrong within China.

Collectivization

Collectivization was state ownership of the land, starting with land redistribution among the peasants, then followed by organization into cooperatives and then arrangement into communes. It forced peasants to give up private, individual farms and join larger state-owned collective farms.

Communes

China's collectives were amassed into a number of large communes across the country. These were organized regions where the collectives were grouped together, allowing the government to control farming, prices of goods, and the sell and distribution of produce as well.

Lysenkoism

Lysenkoism was Mao's agricultural policy, taken from a Soviet researcher who claimed to have come up with techniques to grow super-quantities of crops. His theories were fraudulent however, but Stalin had endorsed him and as a result, Mao did so as well, forcing farmers to follow these practices.

Religious Policies

Mao thought religion was a barrier to party loyalty and as a result, he outlawed most forms of religion. He targeted Buddhism and Christianity, the most common religions in China. A few churches were kept and Mao forced the clergy to declare full loyalty to the party, which led to the Pope's denouncement of these churches and appointments.

Female Infanticide

Female infanticide was the practice of killing female babies when born. Though an age-old tradition as boys were always thought to have brought more honor to a family, the practice soared during the Great Famine, when families were forced to prioritize which children to provide for.

Pinyin

The Chinese language was originally only ideograms, meaning that to write it, you had to learn words separately. This resulted in an incredibly low literacy rate, especially among peasants. Mao's administration introduced the phonetic system of Pinyin to transcribe Mandarin, allowing it to be written properly.

Patriotic Health Movements (1952)

One big issue in China was the lack of access to healthcare. In order to combat this, the CCP introduced patriotic health movements to provide people with basic advice on health and hygiene. There were efforts to eliminate certain insects and drain swaps in order to lower dysentery and malaria rates.

Barefoot Doctors

Barefoot doctors were young new health workers who provided medical care in rural areas. A crash program for training new doctors was introduced, where trainees would undergo months of intensive study and would then go live with peasants to provide them with treatment.

Marriage Reform Law (1950)

The Marriage Reform Law made many changes to traditional Chinese family structures and marriage norms. Concubinage was outlawed, along with arranged marriages. Paying dowries was forbidden, and people who were previously forced to marry were now allowed to divorce. All marriages had to be registered with the state.