Mao Review
Single Party States
China Pre-Mao
• Qing Dynasty
– Economically controlled by British following Opium Wars
– Resentment of foreign domination led to failed Boxer Rebellion 1900
– Primarily agricultural with subsistence farming
• Revolution of 1911
– End of Quing Dynasty (Manchu control)
– Rise of Sun Yat-Sen- advocated Nationalism and improvement of livelihood
through socialism
– 1912 formation of Nationalist Party- Guomindang (GMD)
• World War I- former German colonies given to Japan
• 1925 death of Sun Yat Sen led to Chiang Kai-Shek (Jiang Jieshi)
– Targeted Communists unlike Sun Yat Sen
• Japanese “disease of skin”
• Communist “disease of the heart”
– Aided by western powers like USA to keep communism out of China
– By 1928 Chiang Kai-Shek had taken control of warlords
• Stabilized currency and industrial growth
• Japanese still in Manchuria
Mao leads the Communists
• Russian Comintern est in 1919 in order to spread communism
– encouraged formation of Communist party (CCP)
– Encouraged Chinese communists to join the GMD to expel imperialists
(western Europeans) from China
• Chiang Kai Shek expelled Communists in 1927-Mao created own
brand of Communist in the countryside
– Unlike Russia-Mao believed in the agricultural peasant
– Built Red Army• well disciplined and reliable pay
• Lacked funds for weapons so relied on guerilla warfare
– Ordered land redistribution- poorer peasants encouraged to kill richer
neighbors and landlords
– 1930 ordered 2000 Red Army officers executed for staging revolt
– Long March—1934—5000 of original 100,000 communists survived
the 8000 mile march
– Surviving communists settled in Yan’an Soviet and Mao consolidated
his base
Civil War in China 1946
• During Japanese invasion of WWII GMD and
Communists join forces
– GMD accused post war of being in league with
USA and allies while Mao claimed to be only true
Chinese patriots
• Post WWII
– USA aided Chiang Kai-Shek
– But neither USA nor USSR wanted Civil War in
China- USA negotiated ceasefire which GMD
violated USA withdrew
Why did Mao become ruler of China in 1949?
Origins of Maoist ideology
• Studied under Yang Changi who rejected Chinese, Confucian
past
• Studied western philosophers and decided solution to
China’s future was a military one
• Studied Marxism but believed the peasants were the future
of China
• Encouraged:
– Voluntaryism• individuals willingness to accept and share the same beliefs as those of
the community
• examples: renouncing past evil, re-education and remaking in the
communist image
– mass mobilization- everyone working together to decide on and
carry out policies
– self criticism
Elements of Mao Zedong Thought
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Marxist Revolution-class struggle in which landowners and
bourgeoisie had to be overthrown
– Collective ownership of the means of production
– Promote worldwide communist revolution
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Importance of peasants
Two state revolution
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Mass mobilization and voluntaryism
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Stage 1- private ownership continues
Stage 2- collectivization and nationalization of property and
economic resources and remove remaining elements of
bourgeoisie
Party should learn from the people
Campaigns should be people’s campaigns & people support
voluntarily
Continuous Revolution-constant process of renewal, to avoid
corruption and complacency
Elements of Mao Zedong Thought
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Self-criticism and rectification
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Ruthless determination
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Prevent officials from becoming self satisfied
and elitist
Regular purges of the party to keep it pure
Only through self-criticism would individuals
see the wisdom of the mass campaigns and
rectify false thoughts
Will power and determination sufficient to
bring about change provided everyone has
total commitment
Violence a necessary element of the
revolution
Primacy of Mao Zedong Thought
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Mao always right
People could find solution to any problem if
they studied Mao’s though sufficiently –
Little Red Book
While Mao successfully took power utilizing his
ideology maintenance of power proved more difficult
• Mao clashed with other leaders• esp Liu Shaoqi who wanted more planning and
development of specialist skills
• Deng Xiaoping
– Believed the peasant massess, if they just were
committed enough could make up for lack of
technology and capital
– yet it was not enough as evidenced by Great
Leap Forward
– China lacked experts, and wasted natural and
human resources during his mismanagementGreat Leap Forward
– Would not believe the evidence of the famine
• Mao believed in self criticism for all but
himself
While Mao successfully took power utilizing his
ideology maintenance of power proved more difficult
– 1959 Stepped down from Chairman of PRC but returned
1966 when he believed China returning to elitism
• Return heralded rectification of communist thought
• Remold the souls of Chinese through need of ruthlessness and
violence to cleanse the state—Cultural Revolution—effect
turmoil and destruction of his people
Mao established power 1949-54
• Temporary Constitution of 1949
– Multi party system of those who had opposed the GMD but dominated by
Communists
– Some excluded from suffrage-country landlords, big business & prominent antiGMD
– Bourgeoisie did have right to vote to use their expertise
– China divided into six regions all under the military
– Most bureaucrats under GMD retained-but gradually removed with
communists
• Constitution of 1954
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Single party state-communist party led by Mao-made decisions of state
Party administration mirrored state administration
If bureaucrats not communists then aided by one—but most communists
Everyone required to meet regularly to hear about and comment on policies
Mao established power 1949-54
• Living standards improved
– Crime lowered
– Job security
– Public health—
• water and sanitation improved
• Prevention of diseases taught in city
and countryside
• Health officials trained—though
doctors replaced with those trained
in six months to give just basic
services
Mao established power 1949-54
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Mass Mobilization Campaigns– While bourgeoisie kept to maintain their expertise, self criticism and
rectification campaigns were used to stamp out individualism
– Encouraged to inform on others
– By 1951 6500 intellectuals made to study communism and artists who did not
follow were imprisoned
– Landlords denounced by peasants and removed after struggle sessions-2
millions landlords died often beaten by peasants
1.
Resist America and aid Korea campaign, 1950
– Suspicion of foreigners and arrested esp missionaries
– Christian churches closed
– By end of year, China closed to all foreigners except Russians
2.
Suppression of counter-revolutionaries campaign, 1950-51
– Links to GMD, criminal gangs and religious sects
– Denunciations and public executions
3.
Three antis campaign, 1951
– Against waste, corruption and obstruction
– Struggle sessions, humiliation and group pressure to bring into line
4.
Five Antis Campaign 1952
– Against bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating and economic
espionage
– Workers encouraged to investigate employers-forcing employers into self
criticism and thought reform
– Many committed suicide due to humiliation
Purges of leading officials, 1954
• Following debate of 5 Year Plans for
industry
– Gao Gang- had backed Mao against Liu
Shaoqi
– Rao Shushi- supported Gao Gang to
replace Zhou Enlai as vice chairman of
CCP
– Mao accused both of underground
activities
• Gao Gang committed suicide
• Rao Shushi imprisoned until death in 1974
Mao’s maintenance of power from 1954-1976
• By 1953– production had increased
– Communist party membership increased so no
longer needed previous bureaucrats
– One party state established in Constitution
• Mao felt it was time for state 2 of the
revolution– full communism
– Mao felt he was criticized and continued to
consolidate power
100 Flowers Campaign, 1956-57
• Mao lifted censorship and encouraged open criticism
• Letters, articles, posters, rallies, Democratic Wall all
complained of political corruption, Russian influence, low
living standards, censorship, privileged party members
• Mao claimed beyond healthy criticism and reinstated
censorship
– List of critics?
– Misjudge criticism?
• Followed by crackdown on intellectuals---Anti Rightist
campaign, 1957
– 500,000 send to labor camps, country re-education, or executions
Mao disappears from public life
• 1959 when Great Leap Forward
a huge failure
– Though stepped down from PRC
chairman still had power
– Purged Peng Dehuai who had
criticized Great Leap Forward and
split with USSR
• Mao concerned by Liu Shaoqi
and Deng Xiaoping but would
not return to power until 1966
and launch of Cultural
Revolution
Control during Cultural Revolution 1966-76
• Another purge of Mao’s rivals
– Red Guards mobilized to
• attack the Four Olds: thought, culture, practices,
and customs
• Remove bad elements among the party, teachers,
intellectuals and former bourgeoisie
– Mao purged his rivals and retook complete
control
• May 1966-purged the Group of Five- supporters of
Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi
• 1976 Replaced with Gang of Four who included
Mao’s wife Jiang Qing
• Launched the criticize Deng and oppose the
rehabilitation of right-leaning elements campaign
– Replaced Deng as prime minister
– Deng demoted but saved by Mao’s death in 1976
Main influences on economic policy in Mao’s China
• Goals
– Collective ownership of production
• Nationalization of industry
• Collective farming
– Desire to make China a world power
• Surpass USSR
• End foreign dependence
– Immediate need for recovery after the damage caused
by war
• Implementation
– Increase industrial investment
• Reduce foreign imports
• boost exports especially agriculture
– Rather than new technology, relied on shear manpower
Agriculture & Land Reform, 1950
• Mao wanted peasants to lead the reform
– Party stirred up peasants in speak bitterness campaigns- “dig the bitter root,
vomit the better waters”
– Encouraged peasants to turn on landlords• many executed on the spot
– estimated 2 million killed
– Party policy to select at least one landlord in each village for public execution
• or held trial in which landlords lost their civil rights, land, household goods which were
redistributed to the peasants
– Ownership of land remained private but plots too small for efficient farming
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Party encouraged cooperative farming, but not required
By 1952 grain production up 10% from 1936
By 1953, 40% of peasants farming cooperatively
But larger landowners started buying up land and consolidating farms
– By 1955, Mao encouraged Agricultural Producing cooperatives (APCs)-rich
peasants excluded from profits, could not get bank loans or buy seed
• By 1956 most villages formed collectives and by 1957 90% of families in APC
• state only purchaser of grain
• CCP had greatest control of countryside in Chinese history—”modern serfdom under
party control” J K Fairbank
Agriculture & Great Leap Forward, 1958
• Though production increased 5% in 1957, Mao thought
consolidation of APC’s into larger communes was
necessary
– Like a small city of homes, hospital, schools
– No private possessions, slept in unisex dormitories,
communal teams dealt with cleaning & food preparation
• Great Leap Forward 1958
– 70,000 communes
– No more private farming—everything directed party
– Series of Maoist popular campaigns like Four Pests campaign
which outlawed flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows
Effect of Great Leap Forward
• Peasants lacked knowledge to farm on large
scale
• Peasants turn to industry and neglect
agriculture
• Some, following propaganda that grain
production was a huge success, left the fields
Mao and Industry
• Phase 1- Soviet Model—5 Year Plans 1953-57
– All private industry and businesses nationalized
• But managers stated on and received bonuses
– Heavy industry (iron, steel, energy), transportation,
communication prioritized and decrease in consumer goods
• New RR across Gobi desert to get to oil, coal and iron deposits
• Roads built
• Manchuria industrialized, recondition former Japanese factories &
mines
– Soviet loans and money gained from low prices to peasants for
grain-produced money for investment
– Results-officially, overall targets exceeded 20%
• Heavy industry tripled
• First time China produced its own cars, tractors, airplanes, cargo ships,
machine tools, penicillin
• Population grew from 57 million (1949) to 100 million (1957)
Mao & Industry
• Phase 2- Great Leap Forward, 1958
– Leave Soviet model in favor of mass campaign
combining agriculture and industry to rival USA and
USSR
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Independence from USSR
Chinese take responsibility for future-willpower
Speed the pace of industrialization
Make up for failed “100 Flowers Campaign”
China “walk on two legs” agriculture & industry
Class distinctions rising and Mao wanted to reassert equality
Continuous revolution- do away with increasing bureaucracy
and influence of central planning ministry
Mao & Industry- Great Leap Forward 1958
– Improvements in industry
• Urban–
– unrealizable goals too-target of 10.7 million tons steel/ year 1959
to 60 million tons/year 1960
» Slogan “twenty years in a day”
» Song “Produce more faster, better—Three years of bitter
struggle! ---Ten thousand years of joy!”
– party leaders in charge of factories
– Everyone working-even kids during school day were made to
produce bricks or concrete
• State-owned Enterprises (SOE’s)- state controlled factories a
lot like country communes—no more profits/bonuses to
managers
• By 1958 90 million peasants producing steel in backyard
furnaces
– Collected metals including pots, pans, tools, bicycles to melt
– 99% of metal produce unusable
Great Leap Forward—Successful?
– Industry
• Huge increase in production
• 99% of steel produced unusable
• no more bonuses left little incentive to produce
more
• USSR thought unwise and withdrew technical
support
– Agriculture
• 1957 gov took 17% of grain, 1959 took 28% but
prices remain low so many farmers switch to
industry
• Worst drought in of 20th century in northern &
central China combined with flooding in south
produced famine
– Between 1959-61, 20-50 million died
» ¼ to 1/5 of Tibetans died
» Urban dwellers lived on 1200 calories/day
(compared to 1300-1700 calories/day at
Auschwitz)
– Mao did not acknowledge famine
– Mao resigned from head of state leaving Liu
Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping in to deal with
crisis
Great Leap Forward-aftermath
• Imported grain from Australia & Canada
• Reset different wages for skilled & unskilled workers-paid based on
output
• Backyard furnaces abandoned
• Sent urban workers back to countryside
– By 1961-reorganized communes—smaller, less regimented (no more
unisex dorms)
– Family lands/operated lands returned
• Five years to recoup from Great Leap Forward
Cultural Revolution— did not officially change economic policy—chaos
affected output
– RRs used to move Red Guards left shortage for goods
– Higher educated engineers and managers criticized by Red Guards
– 1967 14% decline in production
Women in Maoist China
• Equality of men and women– “Women hold up half the
sky” –Mao
• 1950
– Female infanticide ended, footbinding outlawed, girls go to
work and school
– 1950 Marriage Law forbid arranged marriages, payment of
dowries and concubinage
– Divorce permissible by either part –those in arranged
marriages could sue for divorce
• 1953 Election law gave women right to vote,
encouraged to train for jobs traditionally held by men
• 1958—communes-women freed from many domestic
duties since unisex dormitories, towns had nurseries so
could work outside the home
Effect on Women
• Huge increase in number of divorces
• Women still took care of children and worked
• In Muslim areas, arranged marriages continued (in
USSR- retaliation against women post Stalin’s
reforms for women)
• Still only made up 13% of party between 1954-1975
• Mao worked against family unit
– Schools taught love for Mao more important for family
– Four Olds Campaign 1966 children encouraged to
speak/inform on parents
– Many youth sent far from home for rural work
Education
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1949- only 10% could read, 20% went to primary school, 1% secondary school
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set up schools except for “black categories” (Those same who could not vote in original government)
Little Teacher Program where children taught adult peasants
By 1964-Simplified Chinese characters to make easier
Secondary school expanded,
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aided by teachers and textbooks from USSR, scholarships to soviet universities
Post Sino-Soviet split—Chinese textbooks stripped of foreign influences and kids only studied Maoist ideology
Emphasized practical learning
Results:
– Literacy to 70% by 1976
– By 1957 most villages had some sort of school, and secondary schools tripled
– By 1976, 96% of children aged 7-16 in school
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However:
– Education neither compulsory nor free
– Quality varied by town
– Emphasis on practical, anti-intellectualism, and political nature of advancement to better schools held
back many Chinese
– Children of Party leaders received best education
– Schools centers for Maoist indoctrination, encouraging cult of leader
– During Cultural Revolution, most schools closed
Relationship between church and state
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Communists believed churches were capitalist invention used to keep lower classes in checkMao called church “poison”
Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity equally condemned
– Closed churches
– Expelled missionaries
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Religious toleration guaranteed by the Constitution, but state defined “religion” and
“superstition” differently-campaign against “superstition” began 1950
– Ancestor worship condemned along with traditional religious rituals
– Could become patriotic churches and operate under government control
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During Cultural Revolution religion denounced as one of the “four olds”
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Clergy had to profess support of communism
No foreign allegiance
Allow government to ok appointments
No public worship or ceremonies
Clergy rounded up and imprisoned
Temples, churches, shrines destroyed
Confucianism denounced as worst part of Chinese history
1950 Tibet captured--Targeted Tibetan culture
– Forced to grow wheat and maize which was not edible, changed herding of yak which depleted milk and
production
– Caused famine killing ¼ of Tibetan population
– Yet-Tibetan continued to reject Mao
Arts and Culture
• Replace traditional with communist
culture which embraced the common man
• Art functioned as means to educate the
masses
• Following 100 Flowers Campaign 1956-57,
repression in Anti-rightist campaign
• Persecution at height during Cultural
Revolution 1966-76
– Jiang Qing- (Mao’s wife and part of Gang of
Four) censorship at height when she was
“cultural purifier of the nation”
– Foreign literature punishable
– Libraries and museums closed
– For two years only Mao’s Red Book was
published