Social and cultural changes 1949-76

Changes to women’s status

• Confucian society was patriarchal

• 1911 Revolution gave women greater rights but not equality with men & old practices continued, particularly rurally

• Clause 6 of Common Program 1949 promised abolition of restrictions affecting women and affirmed right to equal treatment with men

• Communists committed to destroying concept of family and social unit

  • Family relations embodied Confucian values of obedience

  • Existence of family encouraged bourgeois mindset - too much attachment to personal possessions

Foot binding

• Breaking toes of young girls and folding them back under the foot - tighhtly bound

• Restricted foot growth to three inches

• Small feet = sign of beauty and distinction

• Restricted women’s movement - more control over them

• Challenged in 19th century

• Outlawed in 1911 BUT persisted rurally

Marriage Law 1950

• Communists experimented with new marriage laws in Jiangxi and Yanan in 1930s

• Red Army treated women with respect - contrasts treatment from Japanese invaders

• Marriage Law 1950 changed marriage from contractual arrangement between families to something freely entered by individuals

• Mao personally opposed to arranged marriages

  • Refused his own arranges marriage at 14

  • Wrote series of articles condemning arranged marriages after unhappy bride in Changsha cut her throat and bled to death rather than get married in 1919

• Mao’s interest in women’s rights

  • Idealism and genuine interest

  • Practical considerations - “women hold up half the sky”

• Main clauses

  • Outlawed arrange marriages and dowries

  • Those forced to marry had right to divorce their partners

  • All marriages and divorce had to be registered with local gov

  • Divorce available on equal terms - man could not divorce wife is pregnant or within a year of giving birth

  • Child born out of wedlock had equal rights

  • Women retained right to property already owned when married

  • Concubinage and polygamy outlawed

• Effective enforcement

  • Huge propaganda campaign in press, radio, posters and leaflets

  • Drama troupes sent to perform plays publicising new laws around villages

  • Party cadres urged to check law being applied

• Resistance

  • Traditional resistance, particularly Muslim regions in West

  • Second propaganda campaign launched 1953 - undermined by cadres

  • Patriarchal attitudes deeply entrenched

Impact of collectivisation and the communes of women’s lives 

• Agrarian Land Reform 1950 advanced women’s emancipation - women able to own land for first time

  • But both men and women lost right to property through collectivisation

• Idealistic view of communes in China Pictorial written by women

  • Canteens, laundries and kindergartens - free women from domestic chores and able to work the land or other enterprises

• Inequality

  • Earned fewer work points due to heavy physical labour and lower productive capacity

  • Cadres with traditional attitudes intolerant of requests for absences from pregnant women or during menstruation

• Vulnerability during GF (1958-62)

  • Men claimed more food rations as most productive workers

  • Mothers forced to choose between feeding themselves or their children

  • Starvation drove prostitution, wife selling and divorce

    • Gansu province divorce rate increased by 60% in famine years

Women and the family

• Mao wanted to end the family as it symbolised Confucian and bourgeois values

• The Communes theoretically reduced women’s role as mothers and family raisers

  • Gendered dormitories with conjugal visits further destroyed marriages

• Old and young main victims of the Great Famine 1958-62

  • Orphans, child selling and abandonment

  • Old people who couldn’t work left to fend for themselves

• Family attacked as ‘old’ in CR

  • Children informed on parents - Mao and Party = real parents

• Rustication programme uprooted families

  • 12m teenagers separated from families 1968-1972 = ‘lost generation’

• Population policy impacted the family

  • Mao celebrated population nearly double population growth from 1949-76 = growing China’s power and justified mass mobilisation

  • Mid 1950s, worried over resources for large population + added pressure of Great Famine 1958-62

  • Contraceptives widely available in 1962 and female cadres in Women’s Federation encouraged mothers to restrict number of children

  • 1971 Mao declared birth rate should be reduced to 2% - propaganda campaign pressured women to marry later and restrict to two children

  • 1979 One Child Policy - three years after Mao’s death

The nature and extent of change

• Most change to legal rights

  • 1950-1951 over 1m women used new divorce system to end arranged marriages

• Significant change to patriarchal attitudes

  • Decline of Confucian values, parents replaced by state through women’s work units (historian Dana Mitter)

• Clear economic improvements

  • More opportunities for paid employment (less career progression - male dominated)

  • Same rates of pay as men (despite piece work payment)

  • Women in workforce quadrupled 1949-76 (only 1/3 of workforce)

  • First Five Year Plan saw women take more jobs in heavy industry and opening of services sector opened opportunities in offices and clerical work

  • Opportunities in higher education (lower proportion of women than in employment + higher education not free nor compulsory + women pressured to fulfil domestic roles)

• Women’s needs met?

  • Emphasised importance of gender equality BUT women’s needs seen as same as men’s

  • Women portrayed as fulfilled in traditionally male occupations BUT no opportunity for women to gain more rights in traditionally female roles

• Impact of CR

  • Worse for all women - class issues deemed more important than gender issues

  • Women’s role in the family attacked as one of ‘four olds’

  • Women in RG accepted only if as violent as male counterparts - loss of female identity

Problem of changing traditional views, especially in the countryside

Most resistance in rural inlands

Greatest resistance in Muslim provinces in far West

• Arranged marriages part of religious culture

Cadres held traditional attitudes less willing to enforce change

• Gov used All-China Women Federation in early 1950s to train cadres in new Marriage Law - partially successful

Attitudes to women’s pay for agricultural work slow to change - especially in northern areas

• Women rarely worked fields before GLF

Female role models

• Deng Yulan in Jehol province

• Work ethic attracted the Women’s Federation - promote suitable role models to promote women’s rights

• Invited to meet Chairman Mao in Beijing

• Not a much recognition as male counterparts

Growth of literacy

Majority peasants illiterate when Communists first in power

By mid 1950s, national primary education set up

• National literacy rate rose from 20% (1949) to 50% (1960) to 64% (1964)

• BUT progress slower after CR - 70% (1976)

Limited government spending on education

• Primary education only 6.4% of total budget in 1952 (focus on Korean War)

• By 1956, less ½ children 7-16 in full-time education

Elitism remained

• ‘Key schools’ attracted best teachers - students had to pass strict entrance exam and places reserved to children of high ranking Party and government officials

Expansion of higher education

• Greater concentration on science and technology - need for more technical experts

• Students studying in Russia before split in 1959 BUT no longer opportunity to study in the West as before 1949

Pinyin

Modernised form of phonetic Mandarin

Officially adopted in 1956 to assist spread of literacy due to lack of standardised form of language

• Pronunciation of Mandarin varied regionally and had no alphabet

Zhou Yougang (economics professor at Shanghai university) asked to introduce standardised system by Ministry of Education - had been discussed for several years

Pinyin = all sounds of Mandarin given a symbol - gradually replaced other forms of written Chinese

• Facilitated communication within China and with other countries

Collapse of education after 1966

Schools and universities closed down from 1966 to 1970 = 130m young people stopped having an education

Young people still lacked education after Red Guards stopped attacking education system due to rustication programme after 1968

Teachers had been attacked and ridiculed, the curriculum dismissed and whole purpose of education undermined = difficult to restore belief in education once reopened

Zhou’s Four Modernisations included rebuilding confidence in education system

After CR, greater focus on practical work and vocational training, with fewer exams

Barefoot doctors

During CR, 1m medical trainees sent to provide rudimentary medical help to rural peasantry

Typically 6 months of intensive study emphasising practical skills then sent to provide free basic healthcare

Promoted hygiene, preventative healthcare and family planning, and treated common diseases

Three purposes:

• Medical - endemic diseases (cholera, typhoid, dysentery, malaria and scarlet fever) and high mortality rates chronic feature of rural China

• Ideological - expose young medical intellectuals to peasant conditions (spent ½ time working in agriculture which helped win local confidence) & practical skills for revolutionary cause rather than learning for its own sake

• Economic - cheap (6 months training and wages ½ of urban doctors paid for by local village government)

Success for health and propaganda

• 90% of villages involved by 1976

• Regime claimed to fulfil its promise of basic health care as a universal right

• Received international attention and inspiration to WHO

Successes and failures of healthcare reform

Success:

From 1952 Patriotic Health Movements - teams of Party workers explained hygiene and link between dirt and disease to peasantry

• Mass mobilisation through street and neighbourhood committees supported by propaganda posters, leaflets and film shows

• Emphasis on prevention over cure - lack of hospital facilities and trained doctors

• Germ warfare scare during Korean War emphasised to get these campaigns going

Reduced death rate from waterborne diseases

• Encouraged digging deeper wells and better disposal of human waste

• Use of human waste (‘night soil’) as fertiliser discouraged - major cause of disease

• Campaign to educate peasantry on controlling snails that spread schistosomiasis - abdominal infection killed many during this period

Life expectancy increased from 41 to 62 (1950 to 1970)

Failure:

‘Four pests’ campaign to eradicate flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows

• Ecological damage of sparrowcide outweighed benefits of campaign

Limited hospital treatment

• Urban workers in large industrial enterprises or SOEs had best access to treatment

• County hospitals understaffed and most care at lower level through out-patient care from village health centres

Limited government spending - not sufficient to fulfil Party hopes

Attacks on traditional culture in towns and countryside

Since May 1919 (May Fourth Movement) intellectuals regarded Confucian values biggest obstacle to progress

Land Reform 1950 attacked traditional values - Communist propaganda stressed 1949 was fresh start

• Power of landowners broken and peasantry working collectively for brighter future, with interests safeguarded by the state

CR intensive attack on cultural values - main aim to undermine traditional peasant customs and discredit Confucianism

Collectives and communes gave Party greater control over peasantry’s time - stopped customs and rituals

• Peasants attended political meetings and watched shows and propaganda films by agit-prop touring groups in leisure time

1966 Chen Boda’s editorial in the People’s Daily urged RG to “sweep away monsters and demons” = anyone whose occupation or attitudes reflected privilege

Role of Jiang Qing

“Chairman Mao’s dog - whoever he asked me to bite, I bit”

Believed previous career as actress gave her special insight into performing arts and support from CCRG allowed her to ‘purify’ Chinese culture

Introduced rigid censorship - all work had to satisfy her criteria before appearing in public

Strict control but inconsistencies for Jiang’s own preferences

• Most Western cultural influences banned for bourgeois origins BUT piano music and oil paintings allowed because she liked them

Only works related to contemporary Chinese themes permitted - traditional stories updated into modern context

Creative artists unwilling to produce such work were either unemployed or sent to re-education camps

Pursued her personal vendettas against her past enemies - e.g. actresses who won roles ahead of her in 1930s and those who knew compromising details or her career

Stifled creativity - commissioned 8 opera ballets = only theatrical entertainment available

Imposition of revolutionary art and culture

8 opera ballets - each symbolised the triumph of the heroic workers over their class oppressors

• Most reworked traditional stories into modern setting

• Very well known beyond Beijing - broadcast frequently over radio and used in schools

• President Nixon was pleasantly surprised by the ‘Red Detachment of Women’ during his visit in 1972

• Deng Xiaoping less complimentary - argued people wanted entertainment and variety - Jiang had revenge when he was purged twice

• By 1974, the film of the opera ‘Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy’ had received 7.3bn viewings = seven viewings per person

  • More lack of choice than popularity - foreign films banned

Painting - peasant women in Huxian, Shaanxi province, trained by Party to produce wall paintings promoting GLF

• During CR, ex-professional artists sent to coach them

• Attracted international attention as work sent to Paris exhibit in 1975

Quality and quantity of creative output fell as result of Jiang Qing’s control - lack of freedom meant lack of creativity

No substantial body of proletarian art developed

• Literature almost disappeared - only 124 novels published = writers feared censors

• Poet Yan Yen - cultural trademark of his generation was the lack of culture due to Jiang’s control

Attacks on Buddhism

Practiced in China for over 1,000 years - significant influence on culture and philosophy

Most lived in Tibet - self-governing since 1913

Buddhism shared common ground with Communism - atheistic and against material possessions

• Dalai Lama showed initial sympathy until brutal oppression began

Contemplative nature of Buddhism + pacifist outlook = more difficult to mobilise mass activity

Communists did not want such potentially vulnerable buffer zone outside their control - feared religion and nationalism may be dangerous

Chinese reunification campaign in 1950 followed by systematic destruction of Tibetan religion and culture - Han settlers

Lamaism banned and Tibetan language replaced by Mandarin

Resistance pushed underground → 1959 mass uprising against Chinese rule

• PLA sent to suppress demonstrations, arrest and execute protesters and leaders

• Buddhist priests and nuns taken from monasteries and beaten - monasteries made into barracks or administrative buildings or come under control of Chinese Buddhist Association

• Dalai Lama fled to northern India - continues to publicise plight of Tibetan people

Total restructuring of farming system in GLF - Chinese gov deliberately extended famine into Tibet

• ¼ population starved to death - highest proportion

CR 6,000 monasteries destroyed in Tibet and thousands killed by RG from 1966-68

Politically successful as Tibet has been preserved as buffer zone

Limitations due to continued need for clampdowns and Buddhism remains most widely practiced religion in China today

Attacks on Confucianism

Confucianism dominated Chinese philosophy for 2,500 years

Aims to make society as harmonious as possible - showing respect to legitimate authority

Since 20th century, attacked by intellectuals for weakening China - stepped up by Communists

Not a religion (no god, church, clergy or afterlife)

Stress on traditional authority (e.g. family) clashed with Communist values

Propaganda denounced Confucian attitudes - everything that was bad about China’s past

During CR, students ransacked Confucius’s home town Qufu

‘Confucius and Co’ = label for undesirable remnant of Chinese culture used during CR

Lin Biao discredited in 1973 in anti-Confucius campaign - portrayed Lin as modern Confucius

Confucianism easy target = widely attacked since 1911 & blamed for lack of modernisation

Too deeply ingrained to completely eradicate (e.g. family and social harmony)

Attacks on Christianity

Incompatible with Marxism

Established in China in 19th century - Catholic and Protestant missionaries

Attacked before civil war over by Communists

After 1949, most Protestants missionaries left the country = fear of arrest and accusations of espionage

Some Catholic lefts BUT Pope insisted they stay

• Zhang Yinxian (nun in Yannan) recalled church closure in 1951

Church buildings closed down and property confiscated

Propaganda attacked Church as an institution

‘Patriotic churches’ set up = Communists appear tolerant without sacrificing power

• Lost all independence - state appointed clergy and dictated doctrine

Protestant Church under control of Three Self Patriotic Movements in 1953

Some Catholics reluctantly followed suit in 1957 - Vatican condemned initiative and threatened to ex-communicate clergymen appointed by Chinese state

Catholic and Protestant churches greatly reduced and weakened by persecution

Escalated during CR, religion identified as one of ‘four olds’

• Wave of arrests of clergy and ban on public worship

Attacks on Islam

Incompatible with Marxism

Persecuted ideologically and strategically

Islamic values countered atheistic communist state - particularly conservative Muslims resisting gender equality

North-western provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu and Qinghai (most Muslims lived) security risk - near powerful Muslim states and Soviet Union (interested in oil and gas reserves)

Xinjiang home to Uighur, Kazakh, Hui and Kirghiz peoples = resented Chinese rule

• Reason for special attention in reunification campaigns 1950

• Settling of Han Chinese settlers attempted to dilute local identity and reduce separatist movement

Set up national association - Chinese Islamic Association

Many mosques closed down

During CR, mosques vandalised and Muslim leaders humiliated and subjected to struggle sessions

Modest revival of Islam since 1976 BUT Uighur Muslims still suffer restrictions due to geographical location

Attacks on ancestor worship

Deeply rooted in China - believed in reciprocal relationship between living and dead

Duty of living to sustain spirits of the dead - maintain graves and set up ancestral temples = dead would bring good fortune

Neglecting dead = ‘hungry ghosts’ who seek vengeance on living

Key aspect of Confucianism

Communists condemned ancestor worship as superstition

Part of reducing influence of family and making people look to future not past

Communes made easier to control BUT never completely eradicated and many communes dismantled in 1960s

Harsh reaction to outpouring of grief after Zhou Enlai’s death in 1976 = fear of return of ancestor worship

Ancestor worship deeply entrenched and many practices associated continue

Conclusion

Central Committee applauded Mao’s contribution to Chinese revolution but acknowledged grave mistakes during CR

Deng careful not to disrespect Mao - fear of doubts of his own legitimacy

2007 monument at Changsha portrays Mao as young man of 32 not elder statesman of traditional propaganda = revisionist view which portrays revolution in positive light - memory of suffering fades

Successful political power:

• Mao ensured Party power remained unchallenged - new constitution and loyal army

• Democratic centralism entrenched basis of gov & Politburo at centre of power - guaranteed Party leaders control

• Alternative political views tolerated in initial years but silenced by 1950-51 terror and anti-Rightist campaigns

• China became organised political unit under strong government in Beijing - no longer weakened by warring factions or foreign invaders

• Political stability due to rapid economic growth in Mao years and beyond

• China’s international standing improved - China independent from Russia by 1960

• China frontiers secured - matched American forces in Korean War and crushed Tibetan dissent & acknowledged as Great Power becoming part of UNSC in 1971

Limitations of political power:

• Lack of freedom and respect for human rights

• Opponents killed or imprisoned

• Deng’s crushing of pro-democracy movement in 1989 reminder political opposition not tolerated - continued today

• Cadres responsible to those above them in hierarchy = lack of issues being addressed

  • e.g. Lushan Conference 1959 - denying reality = leadership able to delude themselves about what is achievable

• Mao fatally damaged his credibility

• Young people deprived of education and rusticated - disillusioned with Mao

Successful economic transformation:

• Five Year Plans propelled China in industrialisation earlier than expected

• National interest always came first = occasionally pragmatic compromise

  • E.g. dismantle Communes to end famine & PLA to crush RG

• Pragmatists Zhou and Deng valuable for stabilising influence of radicals

Limitations of economic transformation:

• Large human suffering and wasted resources

• If Deng and Liu had not reversed GLF in 1960 - consequences may have been worse

• CR and GLF - more destructive than constructive

Successful social change:

• Sped up emancipation of women

• Improved levels of health care

Limitations of social change:

• Egalitarian society not achieved

• Traditional society too deeply entrenched - would take generations

• Policies got in the way of social change - Korean War, failure of communes and disruption of CR