Chinese Rev AOS2

National People's Congress

A parliamentary-like body responsible for enacting and amending laws in China during the period of consolidating power (1949-1953)

Marriage Laws

Laws introduced in 1950 that enforced gender equality, allowing women to choose spouses, implementing no-fault divorce, banning polygamy, foot binding, and child marriage, abolishing feudal marriage, and ensuring equal pay and maternity benefits for women.

Agrarian Reforms

Land redistribution from wealthy landlords to impoverished peasantry, aiming to overturn traditional power structures in villages.

• Radical

• ‘Fanshen’ or turning over

• Speak Bitterness Campaigns

• 800,000 to 5 million killed

• ‘wedded’ peasants to the revolution by actively involving them

Mass Campaigns 1950

Social, political, and economic movements aimed at eliminating "enemies" of the revolution and promoting active participation and coercion.

• Thought Reform Campaigns

• Sanfan

• Wufan

Chengfen

A classification system that categorized people into "good, middle, and bad" classes based on background, occupation, and commitment to revolution.

Health & Welfare Campaigns

Life expectancy increases from 36 to 57 by 1957

• Campaigns for public cleanliness

• Opium addicts forced into rehab

• Sterile birthing techniques thought to midwives

• Campaigns against spitting drop tuberculosis (TB) cases

First Five-Year Plan

An economic policy from 1953-1957 focusing on infrastructure, heavy industries, and development, but leading to economic imbalances.

• USSR grants China $300 million loan

• China produced its own trucks, aeroplanes etc for the first time

• Soviet loan conditions meant China paid back more than it earned

• Mao declared all private enterprise would be nationalised by 1957

Staged Collectivisation

Gradual collective farming

• Mutual Aid Teams: 6-10 families sharing tools and animals

• Lower Agricultural Cooperatives: 20-40 families working together, peasants retained land ownership but earned more if they had more land

• Higher Agricultural Cooperatives: 100-300 families worked together, ownership of land became collective, peasants paid only for their labour

Stagnation

Gradual collective farming led to resistance due to perceived exploitation, resulting in stagnation in agricultural production

• More food shortages and hunger

• Peasants only kept 5% of land

• Debates ensue between Mao and Liu Shaoqi

The Gao Gang Affair

Key supporter of Mao during debates. Mao shared his frustrations with Gao who mistook it to plot against Shaoqi

• Mao turns on Gao once this is revealed, accusing him of creating division in the CCP

• Gao is arrested and imprisoned

• Gao is purged from the CCP

• Gao kills himself

• Demonstrates Mao’s leadership style and showed that following him was dangerous, but strengthened his authority

Collectivisation Debates

• Internal disagreements on collectivization, leading to tension within the CCP.

• Zedong's authority strengthened after the Gao Gang affair and the High Tide of 1955

Eight Party Congress

Limited Zedong's cult of personality, leading to a new leadership team headed by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping

Hundred Flowers Campaign

A campaign encouraging freedom of expression that ultimately led to the Anti-Rightist Campaign, silencing critics and intellectuals.

• Left Mao’s position unchallenged and silenced criticism of the regime

Great Leap Forward

An ambitious attempt from 1958-1961 to boost China's economy and shift to a collectivized society, resulting in economic disasters, famines, and millions of deaths.

• Implementation of communes, failed steel production, Lysenkoism in agriculture, and the Four Pests Campaign.

• Mao wanted China to overtake British steel production and catch up with the West

Peoples Communes

Communes averaged 5,000 households

• Private property confiscated

• Land plots, tools, buildings relinquished to the government

• Wages paid in ‘work points’

• Large nurseries for children

• Education was the responsibility of communes

Steel Production

• An effort to create 750,000 'backyard' steel furnaces involving around 100 million workers resulted in the abandonment of fields.

• They melted farming tools and woks to make 'crude steel'.

• Peasants were motivated with unlimited food and entertainment while producing steel

• Regrettably, the campaign failed. The smelting process turned the tools into low-grade and unusable steel scraps. Also, crop planting decreased by 9% during this period

Lysenkoism

• Soviet Scientist Lysenko claimed crops could grow anywhere if looked after correctly.

• The CCP sought to boost yields without relying on expensive imported fertilisers or tractors and encouraged farmers to use methods based on Lysenko’s theories.

• Deep ploughing - peasants ploughed up to 3m deep to encourage stronger roots and supposedly bring up new fertile soil to the surface.

• This made topsoil infertile by mixing it w/ sand and clay, making this a failed method Close planting - crops of the same type would not compete so could be planted in much higher concentrations.

• However, this ruined countless rice crops

Four Pests Campaign

Chinese people were mobilised in great numbers to kill mosquitos, flies, rats and sparrows.

• An unintended consequence was that while there were less sparrows to cause crop damage, locusts and others increased multiplied and attacked crops. Grain production fell further by 25%

GLF consequences

• Presidency of Liu Shaoqi

• Fact finding missions

• Lushan Plenum

• 3 years bad famine

• Soviet Split

Fact Finding Missions

Mao travelled to the country wanting to know why GLF failed

• Mao visited his Hunan village, hearing minor complaints and affirming GLF needed minor adjustments.

• Peng Duhai, not from Hunan, witnessed severe poverty, starvation, and dire conditions in his home village.

• Peng vowed to report the suffering to Beijing and criticized the GLF publicly during a diplomatic visit to Khrushchev.

Lushan Plenum

• Duhai attempted to meet Zedong before the plenum but resorted to writing a letter.

• Zedong, feeling personally insulted by Duhai's letter, took it negatively due to their friendship.

• Duhai's 'Statement of Opinions' challenged Zedong's ideology, risking Zedong losing face.

• Zedong threatened government overthrow, labeled Duhai 'anti-party,' and purged him, replaced by Lin Biao

The 3 Bad Years Famine

• Communes and Lysenkoism revived

• Grain targets set at 270 million tonnes

• The fact the GLF continued a year after the plenum was the main cause of the man made famine

• Cannibalism widespread

• 300 million died

• Husbands sold wives and daughters into prostitution

CCP famine concealment

• though food supply dwindled China continued to export grain overseas

• China turned down red cross support

• Movement out of affected regions banned

• CCP propaganda continued showing the GLF as good with healthy peasants and thriving fields

Soviet Split

• In June 1959, the Soviets withdrew support from China's nuclear program, leading to a strained relationship

• Public insults were exchanged between Mao Zedong and Khrushchev, each accusing the other of deviating from revolutionary Marxist ideals.

• Zedong accused the Soviets of following a revisionist line, betraying socialist ideals, which he later suggested occurred in China during the mid-1960s.

• The conflict reached its peak in July 1964 when China formally ended diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union

Liu Shaoqi’s Presidency

President in 1959 following Wuhan plenum. He:

• He reduced the size of communes

• allowed private plots

• closed communal kitchens permanently

• mobilised PLA for famine relief

Shaoqi’s economic reform

Shaoqi and Xiaoping engineered China’s recovery from the GLF because

• Crops were redirected to famine regions

• Peasant marketplaces were reintroduced

• Grain exports halted and grain imported

• Backyard steel furnaces scrapped

• 12% of collectivised land given back to families

• Domestic grain production increased from 193 million tonnes

7000 Cadres Conference

Central committee endorses the ‘3 privates and one guarantee’

• It was decided the famine was 70% human-made and 30% natural

• Under the 3 privates peasants could farm small plots, produce handicrafts and sell their products at markets

• Shaoqi denounced Mao’s methods and the GLF

• Mao offered self-criticism but stressed that the policies and actions of the CCP were a collective responsibility

• Shaoqi assumed de facto leadership of the CCP

Mao’s concern with Cadres

• Noted increasing confidence and bureaucratic manner of provincial cadres.

• Warned of corruption and negligence undermining revolutionary values.

Socialist Education Movement

• Campaign to stamp out corruption and promote socialist values.

• Focus on the 'four cleanups' (political, economic, ideology, and organizational fields).

• Mao wanted to unleash a mass campaign as he believed the CCP and Shaoqi were heading down the ‘capitalist road’

Lin Biao

Strong supporter of Zedong, instrumental in strengthening Zedong’s cult of personality and PLA.

• Compiled the ‘little red book’ a compilation of Mao’s sayings for soldiers, they were later known as weapons of mass indoctrination

Emulation Campaigns

Introduced 'learn from' propaganda, encouraging emulation of socialist values

Cultural Revolution

Initiated by Mao and Jing Qing from 1966-1976 to combat capitalist tendencies, involving the Red Guard movement and targeting intellectuals, CCP cadres, and leaders.

Hai Rui

A 16th century play gained traction in China. Though Mao initially enjoyed it, the play was later pointed out as an allegory for fall of Peng Duhai

The Four Olds

• Old Ideas

• Old Customs

• Old Habits

• Old Culture

Red Guard Movement

• Emerged as an expression of teenage rebellion and political activism.

• Engaged in attacks on perceived threats and the 'Four Olds'.

• Big Character posters went up in Beijing University urging students to rebel against teachers

• Quickly became violent

• Mobilised

• ‘Die fighting for Chairman Mao’

• Wore Kakhi uniforms in support of Mao

Mao’s Good Swim in the Yangtze River

Symbolic display of strength and health, reinforcing his cult of personality

The 16 Points

Shaoqi’s authority diminished and Mao ordered the party teams to withdraw from universities and allow the RGs to continue with violent activities

• Outlined the goals of the Cultural Revolution, targeting those taking the capitalist road

• Shaoqi demoted and Lin Biao promoted to second in charge

Bombard the headquarters!

Mao’s support for the Red Guards’ activities in attacking 'old' elements

• Shaoqi and Xiapoing denounced

• RGs push Xiaoping’s son out of a window and attack Shaoqi’s wife

• RGs urged by Jing Qing and Lin Biao to target CCP figures

Key Targets of the GPCR

• Intellectuals

• CCP Cadres and Leaders

January Storm

• Rival rebel groups caused chaos, resulting in the Shanghai Peoples Commune's formation.

• The conflict led to widespread confusion among rebel groups and party authorities.

• To manage the situation, a directive established three-in-one revolutionary committees to take over leadership when existing authorities were ousted.

• Zhou Enlai and Mao restricted travel for RGs

Fall of Lin Biao

Despite early support, Mao turned against Lin Biao

• Him and his family died in a plane crash trying to flee to the USSR

• Denunciations of Biao continued even after his death