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