China under MaoMarch 20, 2014

Review

What role did Gandhi play in Indian nationalism?

What role did Jinnah play in South Asian nationalism?

What was the Indian National Congress?

What role did World War I play in the rise of Indian nationalism?

Buddhist nationalism in Ceylon

The British took over Ceylon from the Dutch in 1801, making it Britain’s first crown colony. Population grew from 700,000 to 7 million under British rule.

They promoted commercial agriculture, including a plantation system. This eroded the traditional social system. Moreover, they imported Tamils (who were mostly Hindus) to work on those plantations.

Buddhists responded to the British challenge to the traditional way of life by a) identifying Buddhism with Sinhalese national identity and b) reforming Buddhism to make it more modern (looking more like Protestant Christianity).

Ceylon moves toward independence

In 1919, in imitation of the Indian example, a Congress Party was founded in Ceylon. It included both Sinhalese (Buddhists) and Tamils (Hindus).

In the 1920s, the British implemented a plan for elections and limited self-government, which included plans for elected representatives of specific ethnic groups.

Tamils began to worry that in a majority-rule government they would be overpowered by the majority Sinhalese.

Universal suffrage in 1932, including women (first in Asia).

Independence gained in 1948.

Consequences of British Rule

The British created nationalism in South Asia--they created nations where no real nations had existed before.

And they created nationalists by educating them, but then refused to grant them equal treatment.

They hardened ethno-religious differences, stimulating South Asian Muslim nationalism.

China—1945-49Ebrey, 452-53

Not long after Japan surrendered, a civil war broke out between the Nationalist forces under Chiang Kaishek and the Communist forces under Mao Zedong.

The Nationalists had a much larger army with more modern equipment, yet they lost. Why? (p. 453)

Was nationalism or socio-economic reform more important? Scholars still debate whether it was the aura of nationalism or the land redistribution polices of the CCP that gained it so many supporters in the 1940s.

What was Barrington Moore’s explanation? The flight of landlords, combined with a weak commercial sector, meant China would adopt the Communist path to industrialization.

Different approaches to modernization

In the early stages of economic modernization, when there is not much surplus available to invest in new technology, there are 3 different ways to obtain that surplus:

the Fascist route—rely on landlords to extract the surplus from the peasants

the Communist route— eliminate landlords and capitalists and take the surplus they had accumulated

the Democratic route—work with urban business people to garner a surplus by taxing the free market.

Barrington Moore’s thesis

Japan in the 1st half of the 20th century kept landlords in place to extract the surplus. So did the government of Chiang Kaishek. That’s the Fascist approach of modernization.

However, the Japanese invasion of China pushed many landlords out of villages while also destroying business in urban areas, making the Fascist approach unworkable and leaving no barriers to the Communist approach to capital accumulation, letting the state collect the surplus directly.

People’s Republic of China

1949-2014From totalitarianism to authoritarianism.From a revolutionary to a developmental state.From economic dictation to regulation

The Mao Years: Permanent revolution

An import-substitution economy

The Great Leap “Forward” of 1958-1960--communes

The Cultural Revolution of 1965-1976: Red vrs. Expert

Mao turned against his own government (Liu Shaoqi) and party (Deng Xiaoping). Zhou Enlai helped maintain some stability.

1949--the PRC is bornOn Oct. 1, 1949, Mao stood in Tiananmen Square and declared the birth of the People’s Republic of China

Mao at first sided with the Soviet Union, imitating the Soviet emphasis on industrial development. (p. 473)

Mao also had the PRC intervene in the Korea War when it appeared North Korea, which had invaded South Korea, might be wiped out by the US-led counter-attack. (pp. 475-76

Mao promoted land reform --more necessary in the south than in the north--that eventually took land away from the peasants and put it under community (actually, state and party) control. It was bloody---one or two million landlords were killed. (pp.476-77)

Mao’s unique approach

Influenced by Confucianism, Mao broke with Soviet-style Communism by emphasizing populism and voluntarism.

Populism--distrust of experts in favour of the ideologically correct and the “views of the masses.” (better red than expert, p. 487)

voluntarism--the belief that it is not material conditions that determine productivity but human determination--whatever we want to do, we can do.

This led to the disaster of the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960), in which as many as 30 million may have died of malnutrition. (pp. 480-83)

The Cultural Revolution (pp. 484-487)

Frustrated by the slow progress China was making toward his goal of a prosperous and powerful Communist society, Mao decided the party hierarchy, along with government bureaucrats, was responsible for that lack of progress. In 1966, he launched an attack on his own party and government.

He mobilized young people as “red guards.”

Among those he attacked were Party Secretary Deng Xiaoping and China’s president Liu Shaoqi.

He was supported by his wife Jiang Qing (the head of the Gang of Four) as well as by General Lin Biao (for a while).

Cultural Revolution images

For posters of the Cultural Revolution, labeled in English, go to

http://huntingtonarchive.osu.edu/Exhibitions/picturingPowerExhibit.html

For photographs of the Cultural Revolution, go tohttp://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/through-a-thwarted-cinematographers-eye-chinas-cultural-revolution/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Also, there is a virtual museum of the Cultural Revolution at

http://museums.cnd.org/CR/halls.html

It is primarily in Chinese

The Cultural Revolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPuvFXv8Gos

The ten-year disasterThe Cultural Revolution was a disaster for China.

It created a civil war between warring factions of the Red Guards until the Army was called upon in 1969 to restore law and order.

It shut down education for a decade, as students were sent from cities to the countryside to “learn from the masses.”

The distrust, and even persecution, of technical experts led to a pause in the march toward a modern industrial and commercial economy.

The PRC and its neighbours

1950--China seizes Tibet (p. 478-79)

1950-53 China participates in the Korean War, supporting North Korea again South Korea, the US, Canada, and the United Nations. (pp. 475-76)

1962--a brief border war with India

1969--clashes along the border with the USSR (Russia)

1972-- US President Richard Nixon is invited to China to meet with Mao

The Mao era ends (pp. 487-88)

1971 Mao’s “closest comrade-in-arms,” Lin Biao, flees toward Russia, but his plane crashes before he gets there.

1972-- US President Richard Nixon is invited to China to meet with Mao

1976--Zhou Enlai, a somewhat moderate influence on Mao, dies in January.

July, 1976, an earthquake in Tangshan (killing at least 250,000 people) suggests that the mandate of heaven has been withdrawn.

Sept. 9, 1976. Mao dies. Within a month, his wife and her fellow Gang of Four members are arrested.

The Cultu

ral Revolution is over.