LIVING THE REVOLUTION:
CITY AND COUNTRYSIDE
HI 168: Lecture 12
Dr. Howard Chiang
OVERVIEW
- Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference
- Mass Political Campaigns
A. Suppressing Counter-Revolutionaries
B. Three-Anti Campaign
C. Five-Anti Campaign
- Constitution of 1954
- Building a Planned Economy:
A. The First Five Year Plan
B. Land Reform
C. Collectivization
CPPCC
- Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference: September 21-30, 1949
- Common Program: 1st statement of
national policy under the new CCP govt.
- 2 Organic Laws: National and Standing
Committee & the People’s Government
- Common Program: 60 clauses
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1949-ccp-program.html
- Mao, “On the Dictatorship of People’s
Democracy” (Jun 30) – lean to one side
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XIyb1NMZaQ
Mass Political Campaigns
- 3 most important political campaigns
that were launched to control and win
over the urban population:
1. Movement for the Suppression of
Counter-Revolutionaries
2. Three-Anti Campaign
3. Five-Anti Campaign
COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES
- Counter-revolutionaries:
leading members of the GMD and senior
officers of its army as well as the
highest ranking police officers and
secret agents who had worked for the
former regime
- Jan-Oct 1950: 13,812 arrests
- Eliminate Counter-Revolutionary
Elements
COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES
- “Regulations on the Suppression of
Counter-Revolutionaries”
- Also targeted leaders of traditional
Buddhist and Daoist secret societies
- Mass meetings
- 500,000 to 800,000 deaths (Mao, 1957)
- Suicides – difficult to assess
THREE-ANTI CAMPAIGN
- Corruption, waste, and the culture of
bureaucracy
- Trial basis in Northeast by Gao Gang
- Similar to the earlier New Life Movement
under GMD, but targeted govt. officials
- “mass struggle movement”
- Individuals singled out, humiliated, and
denounced
- Served as a template for future mass
campaigns
FIVE-ANTI CAMPAIGN
- Jan 1952: bribery, tax evasion, fraud,
theft of government property, and the
leakage of state secrets
- directed at “national bourgeoisie”
(industrialist & traders)
- allow activists in workers’ organizations
to examine employer’s finances
- Outcome: the Party gained
understanding about the workings of
private sector in towns & cities
1954 CONSTITUTION
- Adopted by National People’s Congress
on September 20, 1954
- Standing Committee
- Chairman of the PRC
- State Council
- Local people’s congresses
- National flag & national emblem
- Democratic?
FIRST FIVE YEAR PLAN
- Industrial developments had been
patchy – Northeast (Jap. Occupation)
- “Decisions on the Unification of the
Nation’s Financial and Economic Work”:
centralize finance and taxation
accompanied by restrictions on the
circulation of foreign currency
- 1952: State of Statistical Bureau & State
Planning Commission
- expand industry; rid of private sector
LAND REFORM
- Policy of confiscating land from the
landowning classes and redistributing it
to the poorest peasants
- History:
- Jiangxi Soviet period (1929-35)
- United Front (1937-45) – relaxed
- Civil War (1945-49) – harsher
- By 1949, CCP already quite experienced
LAND REFORM
- 1950 Agrarian Reform Law:
“land ownership system…should be
abolished and the system of peasant
landownership should be introduced”
- Criteria for classifying were complex
- Work Teams: 3-30 people
1. collecting taxes
2. peasant associations – “speaking
bitterness” meetings
- a new elite of village cadres emerged
COLLECTIVIZATION
- Or cooperation began in 1952
- 1952-55: Mutual Aid Teams
- 1955: Agricultural Producers’
Cooperatives (APCs) – 30-40 families
- 1956-58: High Agricultural Producers’
Cooperatives (HPCs) – 100-300 families
- What did collectivization mean for the
families involved?