The People"s Republic of China: The Maoist Period

Mao Zedong (1893-1976): Early Life

1. Came from a “rich peasant” family in Hunan; father was a successful farmer

and mother illiterate.

2. Made his way thru the school system and attended a teacher’s college.

3. Worked in the library at Beijing University and was involved in Marxist study

groups; also involved in the 1919 May Fourth Movement.

4. Heeded the call by Marxist intellectuals to go to the countryside and organize

the peasants.

5. Acted as the Hunan delegate to the first meeting of Chinese Communist Party

in Shanghai in 1921.

6. At Moscow’s directing, he and other communists served the GMD loyally

when Sun was alive.

7. Early in the White Terror, which Mao survived, he and others flee to the

mountains on the Hunan-Jiangxi border where they form the Jiangxi Soviet.

8. Emerges as CCP leader on the Long March.

9. Transforms the CCP into a peasant-based movement, not under Soviet

domination or urban elites. Viewed the urban communists as having failed.

Little to no interest in “international revolution.” Mao left China only once,

after he was in power.

10. Seeds of Violence: Directed brutal purges of those who disagreed and

suspected enemies at Jiangxi.

Mao and the CCP at Yan’an

1. CCP lived in caves, ate simple food, and worked to help peasants and gain

their support. Also mobilized peasants to fight the Japanese.

2. Generally seen as committed, idealistic revolutionaries who put China’s well-

being first.

3. Mao’s writings glorified the peasants and advocated adoption of the “mass

line”; party leaders had to spend time working under the peasants and learn

from them.

4. Supports land reform.

5. Maintains that struggle, revolution and change are good; compromise,

deference and tradition are bad.

6. Party members were pressured to read Mao’s writings and engage in

“personal confession” of capitalist, imperialist ideas that elevated the

individual over the collective. “Public humiliations” often followed wherein

party members were taught that any deviation from Mao’s thinking and ideas

was due to a defect in their “subjective, liberal, bourgeoisie thought.”

7. Xinao (“mind-cleansing”): Thought reform to correct “individualistic

thinking.” This will come again in the Cultural Revolution.

Civil War (1945-1949)

1. War with Japan ends with the CCP having a broad base of support among the

peasantry, esp. in North China. The Nationalist government of Chiang

regarded by most as corrupt and repressive.

2. U.S. supports Chiang in the name of curtailing international communism but

with little knowledge of conditions in China.

3. The Soviet Union supported Mao and CCP’s People’s Liberation Army.

4. In 1948, the PLA starves the GMD forces out of Changchun; 160,000

civilians die.

5. January 21, 1949: Nationalist forces suffer massive losses to the PLA.

6. On October 1, 1949, the PLA takes Beijing and Mao proclaims birth of the

People’s Republic of China: “China has stood up.”

Chiang and the GMD

1. December 10, 1949: the PLA lays siege to Chengdu; last GMD controlled city

on the mainland.

2. GMD flees to Taiwan (Formosa) with U.S. support.

3. Early indigenous inhabitants viewed as “low-class” and discriminated against

and conducted widespread human rights abuses of suspected enemies and

communist sympathizers.

4. Still the ruling party today.

Consolidating the Revolution

1. Resisting the United States.

a) The Korean War (1950-1953).

b) Expulsion of Western missionaries and businessmen.

2. Support from the Soviet Union.

3. Nationalization of industry.

4. Collectivizing agriculture.

5. Party growth: 2.7 million in 1947 to 17 million in 1961.

6. Social reform: The 1950 Marriage Reform Law.

7. From empire to “multi-national state”: Tibet and Xinjiang

Maoism’s Mixed Legacy: Crushing Dissent

1. The Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956)

a) “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, Let a Hundred Voices Contend”

b) Journalists, intellectuals and scholars were invited to criticize and make

suggestions.

c) Lavish praise initially fostered great participation.

2. Anti-Rightist Campaign

a) What followed was the stigmatization and punishment of those who spoke

out.

b) Labeled as “Rightists” for being against the revolution and therefore the

people, almost three million were accused and not allowed to work any

longer.

c) Over half a million were sent to work camps in the countryside for “re-

education” and manual labor.

d) Many of them were replaced by party officials who had little professional

training or Western education. Over half of China’s “old guard”

intellectuals were wiped out and replaced by state servants. The rest were

silenced from fear and intimidation.

e) Reminiscent of the Qin Emperor

The Great Leap Forward

1. In late 1957, Mao announced that China would mobilize its masses, surpass

Great Britain’s industrial output in 15 years and export grain abroad.

2. Peasant men were mobilized into industrial communes to engage in work

projects such as the construction of “backyard steel furnaces” to double steel

production; women were organized to increase agricultural production.

3. Results:

a) Little technical know-how, hasty construction and crude materials meant

most of the steel was useless and the projects unsafe. Pots, pans, door

frames and even household pipes were thrown into the furnaces.

b) Steel Production: 5.3 million tons in 1957; doubles to 10.7 in 1958, but 1/3

was useless scrap.

c) Agriculture: Corruption + government planning = catastrophe.

i. Corruption: Party appointed officials unaccountable to the people

vastly over-reported harvests, leading to over-procurement by the

state. Before, the most productive fields produced about 1.5

tons/acres. A year later, most officials were claiming 5 tons/acre, a

wild exaggeration.

ii. Government planning: “Kill the sparrows.”

iii. Catastrophe: Between 1959 and 1962, 30 million dead of famine.

c) The Wenzhou Bullet Train Crash (2011).

On July 23rd, 2011, when two high speed trains collided over an

aqueduct near Wenzhou, forty people were killed and nearly 200 injured:

some seriously. The wrecked cars were hastily buried on site and

government had restored service in 24 hours. Beijing tried to restrict

media coverage: “Do not question, do not elaborate.” Ten million

messages erupted on Weibo demanding an investigation and an

explanation. P.M. Wen Jiabao was pressured to investigate. Within days,

a state-owned company apologized for making fault signal boxes which

caused the crash, but it exposed a larger problem of corruption and moral

disregard for life. Faulty, cheap materials were found to have been used in

other aspects of the train lines.

The Cultural Revolution

1. Mao: “Starting to feel like a dead ancestor.”

a) Convinced that he was being pushed aside by younger party elites, esp. in

the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward.

b) Mao’s third wife, Jiang Qing, organized a Cultural Revolution Small

Group in 1966 in response to a Beijing play perceived to be critical of

Mao.

c) Mao ordered students to organize themselves into “Red Guards.”

d) July 16, 1966: Mao swims across the Yangzhe River in Wuhan.

Thousands of Red Guards join him and drink the “unbelievably sweet”

water around him!

e) Destroy the “Four Olds”

i. Old Customs

ii. Old Culture

iii. Old Habits

iv. Old Ideas

2. The Red Guards

a) Spreads quickly beyond control.

b) Mao closes middle schools and universities so students can devote their

full attention to promoting Mao Zedong Thought and uncovering

“revisionists.”

c) More than 11 million Red Guards, often carrying their Little Red Book

(“The Sayings of Chairman Mao”), terrorized teachers, public officials,

artists, business owners and even family members. Public transport was

made free so they could worship the “reddest of red suns.”

d) Police were ordered to stand aside.

e) Mao: “This man Hitler was ferocious. The more ferocious the better, don’t

you think? The more people you kill, the more revolutionary you are.”

f) Rampant torture, persecutions, suicides and killings.

3. Effects

a) 36 million persecuted.

b) 3 million died.

c) 1.5 million permanently injured.

d) A backlog of over 16 million students had suspended their education and

wanted to return. Fearing they would become of destabilizing for, Mao

said, “Let educated youth go to the countryside.”

4. Ends when Mao dies in 1976.