3.3 Mao's economic and social policies

effect of CCP economic policies

inflation rate dropped from 1000% in 1949 to 15% in 1951, achieved through cuts in public spending, increased taxation on urban residents, new yuan currency

First Five-Year Plan (1952-1957)

introduced in order for China to become a command economy

• Sino-Soviet agreement of 1950 - USSR agreed to provide China with economic assistance (provision of resources, advisors), paid through high-interest loans

• industrial production targeting coal, steel, petrochemicals

• prioritization of development of transport industry, civil engineering projects undertaken

• immense pressure to reach industrial targets, figures likely exaggerated

command economy

economic system where means of production are publicly owned and economic activity is controlled by central authority (decides which goods are produced, allocating raw materials, fixing quotas for each enterprise, set prices)

Great Leap Forward (1958-1962)

second Five-Year Plan, aimed to transform China into a modern industrial power, general grain and general steel

• ideally, collectivized peasants produced a surplus of food, profits were injected into China’s industry

• enormous construction projects, propaganda

• backyard furnaces campaign

backyard furnaces campaign

small blast furnaces build in backyards of each family to make steel, lack of knowledge on steelmaking process led to unsatisfactory and unusable results

state-owned enterprises

private firms and companies became state-owned enterprises with fixed wages, prices, production targets, creating little incentive to be efficient or highly productive

iron rice bowl

result of state-owned enterprises, systems for guaranteeing jobs and protecting wages; possible provision of accommodation and health benefits by state-owned enterprises

guiding principles of CCP economic policy

• quality control

• applied communism - planning according to Marxist principles (ending of private ownership, state control of economy)

hindrances to CCP economic policy

• lack of managerial know-how and technical skills

• lack of USSR technical assistance 1960-onward

• ideologically driven reform: political slogans over common sense

• Mao’s lack of acceptance for responsibility for failure

• Mao’s lack of scientific expertise, intuition and blind faith

The Great Famine (1958-1962)

• collectivization

• commune - organized region where collectives were grouped together

• effect of Lysenkoism

• ~45 million died of starvation; children sold, cannibalism

collectivization

• landlords were wiped out

• land redistributed among peasants

• peasants were organized into cooperatives

• household registration system limited movement

• forcible arrangement of communes, state-owned collective farms

Lysenkoism (became official policy 1958)

fraudulent and unscientific techniques of growing enormous yields

• techniques based in communist ideology were not backed by science and were grossly inferior to traditional farming methods

• eradication of sparrows and birds led to increased pest and vermin population

religious policies

• viewed religion as capitalist invention to be replaced by loyalty to the party

• condemnation of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, open practice banned, ancestor worship ruled out

• agitprop - agitation propaganda, imposition of political ideas through entertainment

• patriotic churches for appearance of tolerance

• religion as one of the four olds to be destroyed in the Cultural Revolution

• fear of religious separatism in Xinjiang and Tibet → control through invasion and repression

Marriage Reform Law (1950)

• abolition of concubinage

• arranged marriage ended

• paying of dowries forbidden

• those previously forced to marry were permitted divorce

• all marriages had to be registered with the state

ultimate lack of gains for women

• collectivization of land led to neither men nor women owning land

• expected to work, heavy physical labor

• continuation of female infanticide as boys were believed to bring honor and economic benefits while girls were perceived to be a drain on resources

• only 13% of membership of CCP was women

• suffering during famine

• deliberate attacks on family during Cultural Revolution in favor of loyalty to the party

media and censorship

• censorship and propaganda, book burning, creatives’ purpose was to serve people

• Jiang Qing as the cultural purifier of the nation

literacy, language, and education

• establishment of national system of primary education (mid 1950s) - literacy rates rose from 20% in 1949 to 70% in 1976

• Pinyin - standard phonetic system for transcribing Mandarin, literacy more accessible

health reform

• patriotic health movements (1949 onwards) - campaigns to provide people with basic health and hygiene advice, eradication of insects and spread of disease, more professional medical training

• Cultural Revolution targeted doctors and bourgeois lifestyles

• barefoot doctors - health workers who provided medical care in rural areas

  • millions trained in crash programs in late 1960s, moths of intensive practical study before living with peasants