Mao Dezong

• Born a peasant → never strayed from common lifestyle

  • No luxury → wanted social equality; hated gentry
  • Valued the farmer over all else

• Learned western thought in Beijing University Library

  • Marxism

• 5-4-1919, protests wanting modernizations

  • Mao published articles that criticized confucianism 

• Was at founding meeting of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Shanghai

  • Mao opened branch in Hunan, used it for strikes
  • Allied with Kuomintang (Sun Yat-sen) to take down warlords
  • Mao became director of Peasant Commissions in KMT and CCP
  • Wanted peasants to be main force of revolution → denied by CCP because it went against Marxism

• Autumn Harvest Uprising = battles of Mao (Red Army) against new KMT under Chiang Kai-sheck (Sun’s successor)

  • Developed new guerilla warfare -> outnumbered
  • Forced KMT into countryside -> harassed by peasants

• 1942, Mao uses Rectification campaign to get rid of CCP members that disagreed with him

• Short ally between KMT and CCP against Japan -> ends when they win

• KMT defeated by Red Army in 1949

• 10-1-1949, Mao declares the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)

  • Mao = top leader
  • Zhou Enlai = prime minister + foreign minister
  • Early CCP member, good diplomatic skill
  • Zhu De = general that helped bring Mao to power
  • Shared power with government + army, but had the most control

• Cult of personality -> Mao became god-like

• Economic change

  • Inflation brought down 
  • Agricultural production improved
  • Highways + railways were repaired/built
  • Increase of production of steel
  • State took control of most of the economy; little private matters

• Social change

  • Wanted to destroy social classes + change values of Chinese
  • Agrarian Reform Act, 1950
  • Maximum land ownership -> land was reformed to the poor
  • Poor began to ignore landlords -> lost their authority
  • Marriage Law, 1950
  • Got rid of filial piety (respect + obedience to parents)
  • Primary loyalty to state, not family
  • Chinese women could get emancipated
  • Counter-revolutionary Suppression Campaign, 1951
  • Spying on relatives, neighbors, etc. to tell on them for dissent
  • Mass public trials -> create hatred against enemies + promote loyalty
    • Sent to labor camps or executed
  • Propaganda against America + west -> missionaries were jailed or expelled
  • Five Anti-Movement, 1951-1952
  • Against business people, exploiters + enemies of working class
    • Imprisoned, executed, or sent to labor camps
    • Property confiscated + paid huge fines
  • Private enterprise eliminated -> all state owned
  • Thought reform, 1951
  • Created Communist doctrines that would be widely accepted
    • Marx + Lenin + Mao
  • Made adults teach children the doctrines as facts
  • Meetings where people would talk about their independent thinking and then be shamed

• Control of the Arts, 1949

  • Had to serve the interest of the revolution + CCP

• Mass Organizations

  • Created groups that everyone could be involved in that would spread Communism
  • Peasant organizations, factory worker organizations, etc.
  • Most important = New Democratic Youth League + the Young Pioneers
  • Each cell (group) would have someone who would send to a CCP official who in which group seemed to have dissent

• Information + thought was controlled using threat + force

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