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 Nationalism
 Cultural
Revolution
 Long March
 Great Leap Forward
 Chiang Kai-Shek
 Republic of China (ROC, Tiawan)
 People’s Republic of China (PRC)
 Communist Party of China (CPC)
•
Mao Zedong
(December
26, 1893 – September 9, 1976) was a
• Chinese military
and political leader,
• led Communist Party
of China (CPC) to
victory in the Chinese
Civil War
• leader of People’s
Republic of China
(PRC).
• Very respected in China even
though his leadership resulted in
the deaths of millions of people

Nationalism led to the overthrow of the Qing
Dynasty in 1912. The Republic of China was
created, however, the new government led by the
Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) was unable to
prevent crime and other hardships on the
people. Many were murdered by thieves and
criminals and agriculture slowed which resulted
in famine. In addition, many were upset that the
new government gave into European pressure to
allow Japan to control parts of Chinese territory.
Slowly the new republic slid into chaos and civil
war.
 Mao
was born to a peasant
family in Shaoshan, a village in Hunan
Province. He was still a student when the
revolution of 1911-1912 overthrew the Manchu
government and made China a republic.
While he was employed as a library worker at
the National
University in
Beijing (Peking) in 1918, Mao
became attracted to the ideas
of Communism. In 1921, Mao and 11
other people founded the Chinese
Communist Party in Shanghai.
 Young
Chinese were disillusioned with
western style democracy and looked to the
communists as an alternative. In 1921, young
intellectuals gathered to form the Chinese
Communist Party.
 Karl
Marx (1818-1883),
German political
philosopher and revolutionary,
the creator of a system of
thought called Marxism. With
political economist Friedrich
Engels, he founded scientific
socialism (now known as
communism).
 Communism Video
 Vladimir
Lenin (18701924), Russian
revolutionary leader
and theorist. Lenin was
the leader of the radical
socialist Bolshevik Party
(later renamed the
Communist Party), which
seized power in the
Russian Revolution of
1917.
 Think-Pair-Share
• Why do you think Mao chose
communism over other forms of
government?
University
Student
Peasant
Family
Mao
Zedong

Overtime China fell into a civil war between groups
supporting democracy, monarchy, and communism.
Eventually, two groups formed the main struggled for power.
At first the Kuomintang (Nationalist/Democratic) and the
Communists tried to work together to make China a better
place. However, the Kuomintang decided to attack the
communists and attempted to kill most of their followers.
 Mao
Zedong survived the attack on the
communists and decided to lead the few
remaining communists to the countryside to
gather additional support from the peasants.

Nationalist China (Kuomintang)
leader Chiang Kai-shek
In 1928, became head of the
Nationalist Government
Democratic Leader, US supported.
In 1934, Mao led the Communists in what is called The Long
March. The 6,000-mile (9,700-kilometer) march lasted over a year
and welded the survivors into a tightly-knit group under
Mao's leadership.
University
Student
Peasant
Family
Mao
Zedong
Violent
Revolution
Theory
The Long
March
 Think-Pair-Share
(Pick one to answer)
• Which side did the U.S. support
and why?
• How did the Long March solidify
Mao’s reputation in China?
 In
the middle of the
Chinese Civil War, Japan
invaded China causing
the start of WWII.
Chiang Kai-shek and
Mao Zedong were forced
to work together, along
with the U.S., against the
Japanese.

Unit 731
University
Student
Peasant
Family
Mao
Zedong
Violent
Revolution
Theory
The Long
March
Fought against
Nationalist
Chinese
 After
the end of World War II, the U.S. continued to
support Chiang Kai-shek, openly against the Communist Red Army
(led by Mao Zedong) in the civil war for control of China. The U.S. support was part of its view
to contain and defeat world communism. Likewise, the Soviet Union gave quasi-support to
Mao and gave large supplies of arms to the Communist Party of China.

Chiang Kai-shek’s forces suffered massive losses
against Mao's Red Army and evacuated from the mainland to
Taiwan (Formosa).
On December 10, 1949,
•
Mao’s first political
goals were land
reform and the
suppression of
counterrevolutionaries, which
centered on mass executions, often
before organized crowds. These
campaigns of mass repression
targeted former KMT officials,
businessmen, former employees of
Western companies, and
intellectuals whose loyalty was
suspect. The U.S. State department
in 1976 estimated that there may
have been a million killed in the
land reform, and another 800,000
killed in the counterrevolutionary
campaign. Mao himself claimed a
total of 700,000 killed during these
early years (1949–53).
Land
Reform
Mao
Zedong
Mass
Executions


After firmly establishing
himself as the leader of
China, Mao decided the
country should target
industrial and agricultural
growth in an attempt to
become a world power. This
plan was called the Great
Leap Forward.
Mao believed that both industry and
agriculture had to grow to allow the
other to grow. Industry could only
prosper if the work force was well fed,
while the agricultural workers needed
industry to produce the modern tools
needed for modernization.


To allow for this, China was reformed into a series of
communes.
The geographical size of a commune varied but most contained about 5000
families. People in a commune gave up ownership of tools, animals etc so that
everything was owned by the commune. People now worked for the commune
and not for themselves. The life of an individual was controlled by the commune.
Schools and nurseries were provided by the communes so that all adults could
work. Health care was provided and the elderly were moved into "houses of
happiness" so that they could be looked after and also so that families could work
and not have to worry about leaving their elderly relatives at home.

The commune provided all that was needed – including entertainment. Soldiers
worked alongside people. The population in a commune was sub-divided.
Twelve families formed a work team. Twelve work terms formed a brigade. Each
sub-division was given specific work to do. Party members oversaw the work of a
commune to ensure that decisions followed the correct party line.
 Think-Pair-Share
• What do you think would be the drawbacks to
living in a Commune?

By the end of 1958, 700 million people had been placed into 26,578
communes. The government did all that it could to whip up enthusiasm
for the communes. Propaganda was everywhere – including in the fields
where the workers could listen to political speeches as they worked as
the communes provided public address systems. Everybody involved in
communes was urged not only to meet set targets but to beat them. If the
communes lacked machinery, the workers used their bare hands.

However, in 1959, things started to go wrong. Political decisions/beliefs
took precedence over commonsense and communes faced the task of
doing things which they were incapable of achieving. Party officials would
order the impossible and commune leaders, who knew what their
commune was capable of doing or not, could be charged with being a
"bourgeois reactionary" if he complained. Such a charge would lead to
prison.

Quickly produced farm machinery produced in factories fell to pieces when
used. Many thousands of workers were injured after working long hours and
falling asleep at their jobs. Steel produced by the backyard furnaces was
frequently too weak to be of any use and could not be used in construction – it’s
original purpose. Buildings constructed by this substandard steel did not last
long.
 The
excellent growing weather of 1958 was
followed by a very poor growing year in 1959.
Some parts of China were hit by floods. In other
growing areas, drought was a major problem. The
harvest for 1959 was 170 million tons of grain – well below what China needed at
the most basic level. In parts of China, starvation occurred.

1960 had even worse weather than 1959. The harvest of 1960 was 144 million
tons. 9 million people are thought to have starved to death in 1960 alone; many
millions were left desperately ill as a result of a lack of food. The government
had to introduce rationing. This put people on the most minimal of food and
between 1959 and 1962, it is thought that 20
million people died of starvation or diseases
related to starvation.


By 1959, it was obvious that the Great Leap Forward had been a failure.
Some party members put the blame of the failure of the Great Leap Forward on
Mao. He was popular with the people but he still had to resign from his position
as Head of State (though he remained in the powerful Party Chairman position).


The day-to-day running of China was left to three moderates: Liu Shaoqi,
Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. In late 1960, they abandoned the Great
Leap Forward. Private ownership of land was reinstated and communes
were cut down to a manageable size. Peasants also had the incentive to
produce as much spare food as was possible as they could sell any spare
that they had a market.
These three moderates had restricted Mao’s power but his standing
among the ordinary Chinese people was still high as he was seen as the
leader of the revolution. He was to use this popularity with the people to
resurrect his authority at the expense of the moderates. This was in the socalled Cultural Revolution.
Mao
Zedong
Land
Reform
Mass
Executions
Great
Leap
Forward
Widespread
Famine
•
Facing the prospect of losing his place on the political
stage, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966.
During the Cultural Revolution, Mao closed
schools in China and young intellectuals
living in cities were ordered to the
countryside and forced to manufacture
weapons for the Red Army. The Revolution led
to the destruction of much of China's cultural heritage and
the imprisonment of a huge number of Chinese citizens, as
well as creating general economic and social chaos in the
country. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, perhaps
millions, perished in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.


Mao believed that the progress China had made since 1949 had lead to a
privileged class developing – engineers, scientists, factory managers etc. Mao
also believed that these people were acquiring too much power at his
expense. Mao was concerned that a new class of mandarins was emerging in
China who had no idea about the lifestyle of the normal person in China.
Red Guards (groups of youths who banded themselves together) encouraged
all the youth in China to criticize those who Mao deemed untrustworthy with
regards to the direction he wanted China to take. No-one was safe from
criticism: writers, economists and anyone associated with the man Mao
considered his main rival – Liu Shao-chi. Anyone who was deemed to have
developed a superior attitude was considered an enemy of the party and
people.


Mao deliberately set out to create a cult for himself and to purge the
Chinese Communist Party of anyone who did not fully support Mao. His
main selling point was a desire to create a China which had peasants,
workers and educated people working together – no-one was better than
anyone else and all working for the good of China – a classless society.
However, the enthusiasm of the Red Guards nearly pushed China into
social turmoil. Schools and colleges were closed and the economy started
to suffer. Groups of Red Guards fought Red Guards as each separate unit
believed that it knew best how China should proceed. In some areas the
activities of the Red Guard got out of hand. They turned their anger on
foreigners and foreign embassies got attacked. The British Embassy was
burned down completely.
Mao
Zedong
Land
Reform
Mass
Executions
Great
Leap
Forward
Widespread
Famine
Cultural
Revolution
Mass
Executions
 Essay
(1st-5th periods)
• Write a 5 paragraph essay
describing the leadership of Mao
and his affect on China.
1. Write a 5 paragraph essay describing the
leadership of Mao and his affect on China.
2. Write a 5 paragraph letter to Mao as the
President of the United States detailing his
mistakes in leading China and how to fix them.
3. Write a 5 paragraph letter as Mao to the United
Nations explaining your decisions as the
leader of Communist China.
4. Write a 5 paragraph letter as a Chinese
Peasant to the United Nations explaining your
life under the rule of Mao Zedong.
 On
the left side of your INB:
 Place
the following events in
chronological order:
• The Cultural Revolution
• World War II
• The Great Leap Forward
• The Long March
 On
the left side of your INB:
 Match
 Mao
the person with their government:
Zedong
Chang Kai Shek
 Democracy
Communist
 PRC
ROC
 On
the left side of your INB Pick ONE and
draw your interpretation of the event:
 The
Long March
 The Great Leap Forward
 The Cultural Revlution
 On
the left side of your INB:
 Put
the following people in
Chronological order
• Karl Marx
• Vladimir Lenin
Mao Zedong





Chaing Kai Shek. EHistory.http://ehistory.osu.edu/index.cfm. December 3, 2007.
A Consice History of China.
http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/china/ch07.html#Top. December 3, 2007.
World War 2 History. http://www.libraries.psu.edu/maps. December 3, 2007
Mao Zedong.
http://www.lcsd.k12.wa.us/~kbounds/class.global/4.china/4.PuYi.to.Mao/bio.mao.
htm. January 20, 2008.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/great_leap_forward.htm November 29, 2010