IB History SL: Authoritarian States: Mao's Aim and Results of Policies

This is for IBDP History SL/HL students.

What were the aims domestic economic policies?

• Wanted to make China a superpower and achieve more independence from the USSR

What were the impacts of domestic economic policies?

• There was a period of economic growth after Greap Leap forward but only 1% of steel production could be used as 99% was poor quality

• Drought and famine

What were the aims of domestic political policies?

• Establish and maintain absolute authority of CCP over all aspects of Chinese life

• Eliminate feudal landownership and redistribute land to peasants, collectivizing agriculture

• Transform China from agrarian economy to industrialized socialist state (Five-Year Plans and Great Leap forward)

What were the impacts of domestic political policies?

• The CCP became the central and uncontested power in China

• Land redistribution won support from peasants, but collectivization led to inefficiencies, resistance and contributed to Great Famine

• Some industrial progress was made, Great Leap Forward resulted in economic disarray and severe famine

What were the aims of domestic cultural policies?

• Preserve communist ideology by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, enforce Mao Zedong Thought

What were the impacts of domestic cultural policies?

Caused widespread cultural destruction and severe disruption to education and intellectual life

What were the aims of domestic social policies?

• Eliminate class distinctions and encourage equality

• Promote gender equality and dismantle traditional patriarchal system

• Eliminate bourgeois elements and enforce socialist culture

What were the impacts of domestic social policies?

• Eliminating the four olds lead to widespread social upheaval

• Women were given more rights, but the implementation was inconsistent and deepled ingrained norms persisted

• Traditional culture was suppressed and dismantled

Policies on women

• “Women hold up half the sky”

• Killing unwanted baby girls was abolished, foot binding outlawed, girls expected to go to school and work

• Forbade arranged marriage and child marriage

• Divorce was allowed

• Right to vote

• Same property rights

• Drive to curb prostitution

Policies on minorities

• Five Black Categories

• Non-Han ethnicities were persecuted

• Religious minorities were opressed

To what extent was authoritarian control achieved?

• Was never elected, came to power through civil war

• No room for individual thought, blind submission

• One-party state

• No political or civil rights

• Control over media and army

• Labour camps or prisons for those who did not comply