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Common Program
- "People's Democratic Dictatorship"
- Democracy for the CCP supporters
- Dictatorship for "counter-revolutionaries", landlords, capitalists and former GMD supporters
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Fanshen - Agrarian Reform Act
- Redistributing of land - "turning over"
- 1951; 40% of land was in control of 60% of the people
- Estimated 1.5 - 2 million landlords died (1947-1952)
- Encouraged 'Speak Bitterness' and 'Frankness'
"education of the peasants into socialism" - Mao
"ordinary people has qualms about persecuting their erstwhile neighbours" - Dikötter
"the objectives of land reform also included information and control" - Morton -
Period: to
Korean War
- First mass campaign
- Resist America, Aid Korea"
- China has "stood up" against the West
- Included a movement against "counter-revolutionaries" (1950-51)
by "1951 80% of all Chinese had had to take part in accusation meetings or watch organised lynchings and public executions" - Leys -
Speak Bitterness/Frankness Campaign
- Landlords faced interrogation, banishment, imprisonment, bashing and execution
- Estimated 1.5 to 2 mil landlords die between 1947 and 1952
- Some estimates (including families) quote 2-4 mil executed, imprisoned or sent to "thought reform camps"
- Coincided with the Agricultural Reform Act
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Thought Reform
- Directly targeted intellectuals
- Used overt intimidation and struggle sessions
- Schram claims over 30,000 meetings were held with 30mil in attendance
- Public executions occurred and names were listed in the newspaper
- 2mil estimated to have been killed by CCP (Meisner)
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Period: to
Peasant Collectivisation - 1st movement
- '51 40% of land belongs to 60% of pop
- 53 peasants encouraged into 'lower-stage co-ops' consisting of 30-50 fams
- '54 private trade banned and discontent grew; a kulak class begun by Land reform
- '56 96% of peasants in higher-stage co-operatives (200-300 fams) only by Mao's encouragement
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Period: to
Sanfan and Wufan Campaigns
Sanfan (1951) targeted corruption, waste and bureaucracy
Wufan (1952) targeted bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on gvt and stealing info
- Allowed the CCP to eliminate private enterprise and bourgeois businesses
- Retail sales (under state control) increased 306% during 1952
- State controlled 95% of all foreign trade
- Initiated culture of "informing against" -
Mass Organisations
All-China Federation of Democratic Youth: 18 million
All-China Federation of Trade Unions: 10.2 million
Young Pioneers (ages 9-14): 8 million
All-China Democratic Federation: 3.29 million- All CCP controlled
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Period: to
First 5 Year Plan
- Focus on Heavy industry (coal, pig-iron, steel, fertiliser etc) = growth of 102.7%
- Overall economic growth rate of 9%
- Life expectancy increases (37 to 56) by '57; 800 western hospitals ('57), 170,000 paramedics
- Only 15% of pop benefit
- 3x Primary school enrolments, 4x uni enrolments by '57
- Urban pop inc by 40%
- targets over-met by 17%
- Agri growth only 2.7% increase
"meaning of socialism became increasingly ambiguous" - Meisner -
First Elections
- Over 18 universal votes (except landlords and counter-revs)
- 10 parties (including CCP) contested elections
- Established the National People's Congress containing 3000 members
- State Council (apex of the Congress) was entirely CCP
- CCP's Politburo of 15-20 were effectively in total political control
- Other political parties were banned from contesting in elections by 1955 (only CCP remained)
- Members of the Standing Council (top 5 of the CCP) held multiple high ranking positions
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Hundred Flowers Campaign
- Mao launched it to rid party of bureaucracy, allow "venting" of the people, secure his own supremacy or to "bring his critics into the open" (Fitz).
- Failures of Marxism, entrenched bureaucracy, socialist realism and pseudoscientific principles were attacked
- After criticisms of Mao emerged in July, an anti-rightist campaign was launched late 1957 and 100F was halted.
- 2.9 mil accused of being rightists, 1 mil were Party Members
- 300,000 were imprisoned
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Anti-Rightist Movement
- 2.9 million accused of rightist, 1 mil of them Party members
- 300,000 were forced into labour camps
- 3mil investigated, up to 400,000 exiled to labour camps and 30,000 executed
- thousands committed suicide
- Judicial system suffered largely, as lawyers were forced to move occupation and hence judicial power was exercised by political cadres and police
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Period: to
Great Leap Forward
- Aimed for 75% increase in industrial & agricultural production, 50% increase of income by '62
- Mao aimed to industrialise the countryside
- 600,000 backyard steel furnaces built, over 11mil tonnes of steel in a year, 3mil thrown away as scrap
- Abandoned in '60
"a legacy of bitterness" - Meisner
"I take responsibility" "I am a complete outsider when it comes to economic construction - Mao -
Period: to
Peasant Collectivisation
- '58 private ownership of land and private farming abolished, 700mil placed in 26,578 communes
- Avg commune contained 5000 families, 4mil communal dining halls
- Children put into nurseries and schools, adults all working on the land or the "backyard steel" and elderly into 'houses of happiness'
"the state had become the ultimate landlord" - Fairbank -
Peng Duhuai Expelled
- Commander of the PLA
- Spoke out against GLF at the Lushan conference in July
- quoted that it the GLF occured "basically from a lack of experience"
- Dismissed from his party posts
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Period: to
Three Bitter Years
- Estimated 30mil Chinese died of starvation and disease as a result of GLF and Lysenko theory
- Children and Wives sold for food, prostitution and reports of cannibalism
- Reports of grain production were heightened out of fear of CCP and competition with other communes
- Labour was taken out of fields and out towards steel production, worsening the famine
"legacy of bitterness and mistrust" bt peasant and CCP - Meisner -
Party growth under CR
BY 1961:
- CCP reached membership of 17mil, growing by 1mil per annum
- Communist Youth League at 25mil members
- Federation of Trade Unions at 20ml members
- Womens Federation at 75mil members
- Students' Federation at 4mil members -
Period: to
Capitalist Roaders
- Leaders: Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi
- 12% of commune land became private, rural markets re-established for market force, creating 1/3 of peasant income
- Bourgeois specialists, wage differentiation and work hierarchy reintroduced. Light industry became economic focus.
- Thirty formal ranks differing in income introduced in CCP, shift of power into the higher ranks, recruited upon technical knowledge
- Campaign of "democratic centralism" launched '61-'62
- By '61, economy was stabilised
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Period: to
The unfolding of the Cultural Revolution
- '63 - '65 the Party half-heartedly attempted to address Mao's concerns by instigating a socialist education movement
- Mao distrusted the pragmatists, was concerned about the revisionist movement of the revolution, wanted to reassert his authority and his ideology and close the gap between city and country life.
- Wanted to provide youth with revolutionary experience and orthodox Maoism
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Formation of the Red Guards
- June; closes schools to form rev committees
- Red Guards formed after May 16th
- Attacked the "Four Olds" (Sep) (thinking, culture, customs and habits)
- Aug; first rally held in Tiananmen sq of 1mil RG
- "Rebel" groups emerge; inter-factional violence - formed by Party officials to deflect target from cadres to "bourgeois authorities" and "bad class background".
"intellectuals...most conveniently identifiable as 'bourgeois'" - Meisner -
Quotes on Capitalist Roaders
"the price for economic progress... the decay of the spirit of Maoist ideological precepts...and an ever widening gap between town and countryside" - Meisner
"conflict between radical Maoists and party bureaucrats grew increasingly sharp and eventually irreconcilable" -
Group of Four
- August 1966
- Group of Four: Mao, Madame Mao (Jiang Qing), Lin Biao and Zhou Enlai
- Madame Mao wrote 8 operas featuring Mao, purged Chinese media and literature and used the CR to enact cruel personal revenges on Zhou
- Lin wrote 'Quotations from Chairman Mao' and his 'Selected Works'; selling over 1 billion copies and 150 million copies respectively.
- Zhou attempted to act as mediator, but to no avail
"I bit whom he (Mao) said to bite" - Jiang -
Period: to
Cultural Revolution
- Violence begins after the closing of schools in June
- Red Guards increase massively in population (at least 20mil)
- Rebel/Alt groups emerge (Sep) against the Red Guards; all claiming true allegiance to Mao
- Intersectional violence, party centres seized, workers radicalise, provinces declare independence
- China recedes into anarchy
- Mao calls in PLA to take control of cities
- Feb and March; the Army suppresses radicals
- Sep '67: country is told to cease all rebelling
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May 16th Circular
- Published by Mao in a newspaper
- Proclaimed the beginning of the Cultural Revolution
- Aimed to "expose the reactionary bourgeois" and "repudiate reactionary bourgeois ideas in the sphere" of arts and culture
- Reaction to the allegory play 'the dismissal of Hai Rui' that mimicked Mao's dismissal of Peng Duhai
- Red Guards begin to gather
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Mao's Yangtze River Swim
- 72 years of age
- Media stunt to prove he was still 'vigorous' enough to lead China
- Led 5,000 other swimmers
"It's my revolution; mine to win and mine to lose" - Dr Li quoting Mao -
First Red Guard Rally
- 1 million Red Guards rally in Tiananmen square
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Wuhan Incident
- July '67
- Armed conflict between two factional groups for occupation of Wuhan
- One group was supported by local PLA unit, the other supported by Red Guards; both numbering 500,000 each
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Shanghai Independence
- Shanghai People’s Commune declared independence
- Power seizures occurred in Shangsi province and Harbin City
- Feb and March; the Army begins to suppress all radical movements with thousands of causalities
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Party members suffer
- Red Guards attack Liu and his wife; forced into self-criticisms
- Lost all rank and power by '68
- Thrown into jail, where he starved to death
- Deng was similarly stripped of power, as well as many other Party members
- Zhou Enlai, who attempted to act as a mediator, was attacked by Madame Mao; who directed RG to attack and torture his two children to death. MM then forced Zhou to sign an arrest warrent for his own brother in '68
- 3mil had been purged
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Outcomes of the GPCR
- 12% loss in industrial production ('66-'68)
- Public executions and Student rebels crushed by PLA
- 3mil party cadres and 12mil students "sent down" to countryside for re-education
- 40,000 killed in one province alone
- At least 400,000 deaths, not including the victims of physical and psychological torture
- China becomes a military state
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Lin Biao named Mao's successor
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Death of Lin Biao