Authoritarian States: MAO

Economic

Conditions

- Great Depression => resulted in Chinese GDP shrinking by 35%

- Heavy taxes on people (70%), widespread poverty

4% of population controlled 50% of the land

- KMT received economic aid from American and British => "not patriotic"

- China was then largely an agricultural nation, lagging behind the West

Social Conditions

- Peasants (80% of population) faced high taxes (up to 70%) under GMT

Warlord Period => even higher taxes, poor working conditions, tough military rule, economic output was shrinking during Warlord Period

- Quality of life much higher in cities, coasts => 20% went to primary school, 1% to secondary school

Land Redistribution in 1924 (allowed peasants to feel like they'd gotten revenge)

- Mao's CCP treated peasants well (under Mao's orders)

Political

Conditions

- Treaty of Versailles and 21 Demands were regarded as unfair and humiliating for China

- Defeat to Japan in Sino-Japanese War was extremely embarrassing

- Qing Dynasty had collapsed, "dynastic" system of rule had proven to be outdated (abdication of PuYi 1911)

- Republic of China failed (YSK bribery, domination of government led to 1915 rebellion against him)

- Defeat of China in Sino-Japanese War led to radical new ideologies (New Culture Movement, May 4th Movement) destroyed Confucian ideals

Personal Factors

- Shrewd and opportunistic conference: used the 1935 Zunyi Conference to deliver blistering attack on Bolsheviks, ousting them from China

- Humble, working-class background. Father was abusive. Would regularly visit farms (propaganda points)

- Adaptive/perceptive visionary: Adopted Marxist-Leninism to suit China, focus on rural population

- Communist ideology appealing to peasants - promised them a better life after years of neglect

Use of Force

- Futian Incident and 1942 Yenan Campaign, Mao killed 10,000 individuals

- Purged 2,000 party members in late 1940s claiming an anti-Bolshevik league had infiltrated Communists

Propaganda

- Turned 6,000 mile long march into a major propaganda victory (even though 90% of CCP was eliminated)

- Used Long March and split following the First United Front to discredit the KMT, assume role of true nationalists of China

- Used events like Luding Bridge Incident to emphasise CCP bravery

- Portrayed as a Father figure, "Uncle/Father Mao" - famous posters of him behind a rural Chinese setting as a god-like figure watching over the peasants

Political Moves

- Political Structure: claimed to have "elections" for each official, when really they were all hand-picked. Politburo was filled with people loyal to Mao, they would just rubber stamp his policies

· Military Commander and Political Commissar for each of the 6 sections China was divided into were always from PLA - giving Mao control, regardless of who the Chairman was, of each region and bureau

- 100 Flowers Campaign (1956)

· Initially, was designed to promote discussion/feedback for Mao. Criticism became too intense, Mao used 100 Flowers Campaign to identify and purge opponents via Anti-Right Campaign (1957-1959)

— 500,000 intellectuals were branded rightists, 1,000 were executed.

— By 1958, 1 million party members had been expelled/sent to re-education camps

Economic Policies

- Businesses were nationalized in 1953 (including banks)

- Collectivization: allowed Mao to have control over richer/poorer groups, and since they were in groups it was easier to track/control them (Ex: Great Leap Forward)

- Anti-movements

· Series of movement launched against the 'remnants of the bourgeois class' whom the CCP regarded as politically or socially suspect

· Chinese people were encouraged to inform on anyone they knew who was unwilling to accept new regime

· Special govt. Department drew up a dangan, a dossier, on every suspected person

— If an individual's dossier was dubious he stood very little chance of obtaining housing or work

- Anti-landlord campaign

The property of landlords was confiscated and redistributed among their former tenants

· Some landlords allowed to keep a portion of their land provided that they become peasants but great majority were put on public trial and denounced enemies of the people

· As many as 1 million landlords killed during PRC's land campaign of early 50s

Forceful

Repression/ Handling Dissent

- Resist America and Aid Korea Campaign (1950), Three Antis (1951), Five Antis (1952)

- Estimated 250,000 "western sources of influence" purged

Extension of previous methods such as Yenan Campaign, to eliminate any new threats

- Labour Camps, Public "trials", Social scrutiny (neighbours policing each-other in the name of Nationalism), Mass Campaigns. Neighbors spied on eachother.

- Cultural Revolution (1966-76): abolish "traditional China" to get rid of Confucianism. Eliminate intellectuals, further Mao's Cult of Personality.

· 200 artists killed, all music was to be revolution-related, religious sites were destroyed, 1.5 million were killed

- Imposition of military control

· 1950 in a series of 'reunification' campaigns three pLA armies were despatched west and south

· Officially they were sent in order to help improve local conditions and troops did contribute to such schemes as road building

· Main purpose was to impose martial law and repress any sign of an independence movement

— One army sent to Tibet

A second went to Xinjiang

— A third went to southern province of Guangdong

Propaganda

- Portrayed as the saviour of women in China (banned arranged marriages, child marriages, polygamy, gave right to vote, and right to property).

· Enormously popular amongst women, propaganda frequently highlighted his pro-women policies

- 1.5 million propagandists working under Mao to promote his Cult of Personality

- Roadside loud-speakers, posters, all newspapers were controlled, all films were controlled

- LITTLE RED BOOK (everyone had to have one) to expose everyone to his Communist ideals, hugely successful

Aims and results of economic policies

1950 Agrarian Land Reform

Agrarian Reform Land -Redistribution of holdings to middle/low class peasants

1953: 90% agricultural land had changed holdings

First Five Year Plan (1953-57)

Goal:

Follow the Soviet model, with planning highly centralised and focused on heavy industry

1952-56 - coal, steel, automobile, transport

Growth rate → 9%, high relative to USSR in 1930s

Sino Soviet Agreement - 10,000 economic advisors, but China had to pay with reserves and concessions

China had to pay high-interest loans which soured relations between Mao and Stalin - only 5% of the capital sent to China was genuine industrial investment

Result:

Huge new industrial centres were built (e.g. the Anshan steel complex which employed 35,000 workers) and factory management changed from a team-based approach to one-man management.

By Feb 1956 nationalised all Chinese private industry and business.

Boosted urbanisation (Urban population increase from 57 mill in 1949 to 100 million 1957).

Important infrastructure improvements e.g. Yangzi River Rail and Road Bridge linking Northern and Southern China.

Heavy industry output nearly trebled and light industrial output rose 20%

Collectivisation (1950-1959)

Goal:

Increase agricultural output and fulfill their ideological aims

Result:

1958-1960 → grain production fell from 200-143m tonnes, meat production from 4-1m tonnes whilst terrified officials reported huge increases.

Led to great famine and Mao resigning from state chairman in 1959.

This was due to stupid policies such as killing sparrows (Four Pests campaign), planting winter wheat in boggy, frozen ground and planting seeds very close to each other.

Great Leap Forward (GLF - 1958-1961)

Goal:

Aimed to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization. Based on two principle assumptions

Peasants would produce a surplus of food to be sold abroad to raise money for expansion of chinese industry

The workers, largely through the mass production of steel, would create a modern industrial economy, powerful enough to compete with the soviet union and capitalist west

Reasons for:

Slow economy and agricultural growth

Lack of revolutionary enthusiasm

Revolutionary momentum required to avoid capitalism

Re-establish power after failure of Hundred Flowers

Over take Soviet Union

Events:

Teams of peasants mobilised for mass water and irrigation projects

Co-operative and collectives:

End of 1958: 27,000 communes, 11 million tonnes of steel

Destruction of family life - shared hospitals, shops, kitchens, schools etc.

Second Five Year Plan

-Agriculture AND Industry: backyard furnaces

Massive effort to create industrial base, but unrealistic, idealistic goals

Soviet agronomist, Lysenko policies: killing birds to save grain (stupid! mess with food chains), close cropping --> densely planted seeds

State owned enterprises --> centralised industry, failed due to lack of incentives

Result:

Quickly produced farm machinery produced in factories fell to pieces when used.

Steel produced by the backyard furnaces were frequently too weak to be of any use and could not be used in construction - its original purpose.

The harvest of 1959 was 170 million tons of grain - well below what China needed.

1960 was 144 million tons, even lower.

Between 1959-1962 estimated 20 million people died of starvation or diseases.

1959-1962: Great Chinese Famine (Mao: 'I see no famine')

80 million lives

Peng sent private letter to Mao about concerns of GLF's shortcomings → Mao turned on Peng and publicly circulated the letter, dismissed Peng of his Minister post and threatened to go to countryside to start another peasant rebellion and overthrow CCP

Great Famine 1958-61

as many as 80 million people died of starvation

parents sold their children and cannibalism was rife, but China's leadership did not act

officials continued to claim that production targets were being met

speaking the truth was too dangerous

Mao's response

Mao eventually came to accept what was happening but didn't accept blame

he blamed:

the peasants for hoarding food

local officials for being incompetent

bad weather, which had affected harvests

his reputation was tarnished and he withdrew from the political frontline

Outcome

Liu and Deng, who confronted Mao, revoked Mao's reforms

allowed private farming to operate again

eventually food supplies improved

Famine came to an end

Mao would later punish both Liu and Deng for going against Marxist ideals

Assigned Power:

CCP gives extensive power to mayors and party secretaries in 700-odd municipalities

System of promotion incentives to keep them responsive to the central government

Led to whatever Beijing needs, Beijing Gets, no matter the costs to environment or human rights

Aims and results of political policies

Hundred Flowers Campaign

WHY did Mao launch the campaign?

April 1956: Mao declares 'Let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend.'

Encouraged critical debate to promote progress in the fields of art, literature and science.

February 1957: speech, Mao encouraged criticism saying the CCP thought it could learn from the people and be rectified.

April 1957: campaign underway

June 1957: campaign was out of hand and CCP criticised all over China for: -poor policies -authoritarianism -corruption -poor living standards

June 1957: Mao ended the campaign

Results - Anti-Rightist Movement

Suppressed all those that spoke out during Hundred Flowers

End of 1957: 300,000 condemned as rightists, including writer Ding Ling

3 Antis Campaign 1951

The Three-anti Campaign was launched in Manchuria at the end of 1951

It was aimed at members within the Communist Party of China, former Kuomintang members and bureaucratic officials who were not party members.

Three antis imposed were:

corruption

waste

bureaucracy

5 Antis Campaign 1952

The Five-anti campaign was launched in January 1952. It was designed to target the capitalist class

The Communist party set a very vague guideline of who could be charged, and it became an all out war against the bourgeoisie in China. Deng Xiaoping warned the people "not to be corrupted by capitalist thinking"

Five antis imposed were:

bribery

theft of state property

tax evasion

cheating on gov't contracts

stealing state economic info

Art

LIN BIAO

Revolutionary art

Uniting/education people

Revolutionary aims -Eliminating bourgeoisie

PLA paintings+posters → featured RED = morality, revolution

Jiang Qing

Model revolutionary operas and ballets

'Three Prominences' = positive characters, heroism, central character

1960s: Opera for revolutionary purposes

Encouraged 'socialist realism' style → utopian vision, spread revolutionary message

Destroying four olds: 'historic culture, Han Chinese, Buddhist Tibetan, Muslims'

Religion:

Marxist ideology against religion: Opium of the masses

Banned religion (religious clothing and practice were illegal), public loudspeakers denounced religion

China = atheist state

Devotion and loyalty to CCP → Maosim=religion

Marxist ideology against religion:

Opium of the masses

Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB)

implicitly and, more often than not, explicitly banned religions

Wall posters, the traditional way by which Chinese governments spread their propaganda and loud speakers at every corner kept up a running condemnation of religion

Foreign nuns and priests were expelled from China

Priests and monks were not allowed to wear their traditional dress

Cases of police encouraging the public to strip the clothes off the clergy who dared to walk abroad in their traditional distinctive clothing

Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity all condemned and denounced in mass propaganda

Priests, monks, temples, shrines, monasteries all forbidden/destroyed

Religious/superstitious rituals/customs replaced by political discussions held by the CCP

Patriotic churches = allowed to stay open if they professed support for CCP and had no other authority

Sparked clash with Vatican + Pope in Rome

Impact of Cultural Revolution

Attacked as one of the 'four olds'

No religious practiced permitted

Monasteries, churches, mosques, temples destroyed

Priests rounded up and imprisoned

Cemeteries attacked and destroyed, vandalised

Mao worship created as form of religion: -'Asking for guidance, thanking for kindness and reporting back'

Bowing 3 times, reading passages from 'Little Red Book', wishing Mao 'ten thousand years'

Loyalty dance - honouring his portrait

Aims and results of cultural policies

Art

LIN BIAO

Revolutionary art

Uniting/education people

Revolutionary aims -Eliminating bourgeoisie

PLA paintings+posters → featured RED = morality, revolution

Jiang Qing

Model revolutionary operas and ballets

'Three Prominences' = positive characters, heroism, central character

1960s: Opera for revolutionary purposes

Encouraged 'socialist realism' style → utopian vision, spread revolutionary message

Destroying four olds: 'historic culture, Han Chinese, Buddhist Tibetan, Muslims'

Religion:

Marxist ideology against religion: Opium of the masses

Banned religion (religious clothing and practice were illegal), public loudspeakers denounced religion

China = atheist state

Devotion and loyalty to CCP → Maosim=religion

Marxist ideology against religion:

Opium of the masses

Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB)

implicitly and, more often than not, explicitly banned religions

Wall posters, the traditional way by which Chinese governments spread their propaganda and loud speakers at every corner kept up a running condemnation of religion

Foreign nuns and priests were expelled from China

Priests and monks were not allowed to wear their traditional dress

Cases of police encouraging the public to strip the clothes off the clergy who dared to walk abroad in their traditional distinctive clothing

Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity all condemned and denounced in mass propaganda

Priests, monks, temples, shrines, monasteries all forbidden/destroyed

Religious/superstitious rituals/customs replaced by political discussions held by the CCP

Patriotic churches = allowed to stay open if they professed support for CCP and had no other authority

Sparked clash with Vatican + Pope in Rome

Impact of Cultural Revolution

Attacked as one of the 'four olds'

No religious practiced permitted

Monasteries, churches, mosques, temples destroyed

Priests rounded up and imprisoned

Cemeteries attacked and destroyed, vandalised

Mao worship created as form of religion: -'Asking for guidance, thanking for kindness and reporting back'

Bowing 3 times, reading passages from 'Little Red Book', wishing Mao 'ten thousand years'

Loyalty dance - honouring his portrait

Aims and results of social policies

Family

Constitution: upheld traditional values BUT Maoist policies contradicted:

Split families up via communes

Undermined filial piety → communal living

'Loyalty to state and party' = children encouraged to speak out against parents, youth told to take revolutionary action against older generation

Health

Life Expectancy - 1957: 57 → 1958: 68

Infant Mortality - 1954: 139/1000 → 1980: 20/1000

Hospitals in communes, barefoot doctors had 3-5 months training

Education of epidemic diseases

The Four Pests: 'rats, flies, mosquitoes, mice'

Education

Mao's view on education

Condemned old-style education through books, Western influence on curriculum

Believed in education through experience

Education: vital for building of socialist state, economic development

Mass literacy required for political indoctrination

Primary Education

1956: Less than half of children 7-16 attending school → 1976: 96% attending

Only 6.4% of national budget spent

Cultural Revolution undermined progress

Literacy

'key schools' → best teachers, difficult examinations for students (supposedly meritocratic), though children of high ranking officials got most places

Higher education expanded, universities remodelled

Students sent to USSR universities in 1950s

1949-1966: Peasants taught to read, simplified characters, 1500 basic characters

1962-66: Socialist Education Movement sent students to countryside to organise party administration → 3 -isms 'collectivism, patriotism, socialism' and 4 clean ups 'politics, economy, CCP ideology and organisation'

1966: only 10% under 45 illiterate

Cultural revolution Impact

1965: 'The more books you read, the more stupid you become' ~1966-1970: 130 million stopped attending school/university

Progress undermined by new policy that all education had to be centred around Mao and revolution

1966: Beijing University (and others), teachers dragged out of classes, beaten, made to wear dunce hats, abused by students. All universities closed for 2 years.

1966-1976: 12 million young people sent to countryside to experience peasant work, instead of attending school

Manual labour rather than formal education - harmed long term success of young people, unable to graduate ~Scholars, writers, intellectuals, teachers - all imprisoned/killed.

Impact of social policies on women

Marriage Act of 1950:

arranged marriages were discontinued

concubinage was abolished

the paying of the bride-price was forbidden

women and men who had previously been forced to marry were entitled to divorce their partners

husbands could not insist on their wives having bound feet

all marriages had to be officially recorded and registered

Women were legally allowed to sell land and property

however, undermined by the collectivization program in which ended the private holding of land by either men or women and required people to live in communes

Results:

many women used their new freedom to divorce and remarry

Disruptive to society: some women had four husbands in four year

Pros for Women

1950-51: upsurge in divorces initiated by women

1954: Equal pay, education, work opportunities

1958-59: 3.2 → 8m - Women working in industry

1976: 45% female primary school students, 41% middle school, 24% university

Cons for Women

First 5 year plan:

Communes: Women now worked, ate in masses therefore no need to cook at home

80% field work done by women, but paid 25% less

Less than 13% CCP members were women

Prejudice within society still prevalent (female babies)

Famine on Women:

Wife/teenage daughter selling

Mothers had to sacrifice daughters for sons

When mothers were sold, children left abandoned → sold as slaves

Girl infants dumped at hospitals, railway stations etc.

Prostitution became widespread — sex for food

Impact of social policies on minorities

Minorities:

Tibetans

Uighurs

Hui Muslims

Mongols

Impacts:

No authority over themselves, Communist party firmly believed that they knew what was best for the minorities

Promised independence during the revolution but were given "autonomy" in the end

Given rights to develop/express culture and representation politically, with limits

Followed Stalin's guidelines on treatment of minority

Cultural Revolution

6,000 monasteries destroyed in Tibet

790,000 people persecuted in Inner Mongolia

Schools destroyed, books burned

Shadian Incident

1,000 Hui killed by PLA

Tibet

1950 PLA Reunification Campaigns → Xinjiang and Tibet.

Mao claimed that Tibet was originally part of China (but they were actually separate in culture, race etc.)

1950: Within 6 months, despite 60,000 Tibetans resisting, CCP gained control over Tibet

1951: CCP control over Xinjiang (Mao feared their independence/association with S.U.)

Reconstruction of Tibert

17 point agreement: No socialist land reform to be carried out

Wiping out Tibetan identity:

Renamed 'Xizang'

Tibetan language, history and teachings of Dalai Lama prohibited → Mandarin Chinese official language

Those who resisted were imprisoned

Mass migration of Chinese to Tibet → many Tibetans ended up in Sichuan after reorganisation of provincial boundaries

1955: Tibetans in Sichuan sparked open fighting in resistance to land reform

1959: Revolt and Genocide -PLA sent to suppress demonstrations → destroyed their religion: priests, nuns, monasteries -March 1959: Dalai Lama fled -4 million died as a result of the Genocidal Famine (purposely extended to Tibet by Mao)

Tibetan Government in Exile

Still learning (1)

You've started learning these terms. Keep it up!