Mao’s China1949-1976

Modified from Mr. Caroddo’s Education Website at http://caroddoapclasses.com/id4.html

China after 1911The Revolution of 1911 was intended to create a modern

republican form of government in China.

Instead, the country broke up into warlord-dominated regions with increasing poverty and violence.

The Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party led the revolution, but controlled few areas.

Kuomintang PartySun Yat-sen was the main leader of the 1911 Revolution

and the Nationalist Party (KMT).

He died in 1925 and was succeeded as leader by Chiang Kai-shek.

Chiang cooperated with the Communists for a time, but then massacred them in 1927.

The Peasant RevolutionMao was a leader of the Chinese Communist Party since its

founding in 1921.

While most Chinese Communists believed that urban workers were the group that would be the most important supporters of the revolution, Mao decided that peasants had more revolutionary potential.

Land ReformMao discovered even in the 1920s

that the Communists could win the support of the peasants by taking away land from the rich and sharing this with the poor.

Mao learned how to get the vast majority of peasants on his side by concentrating the confiscations on a small minority of wealthy farmers.

The Long MarchMao led a Communist area in Jiangxi Province in 1934, but

attacks by the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) government army forced them to undergo the “Long March” lasting over a year and covering 3700 miles to a new, safer area to the north in Shanxi Province.

World War IIAt the end of the Second World War, the

Russians moved into Manchuria against the Japanese and were able to share some weapons with the Chinese Communists.

Stalin urged Mao to ally with Chiang Kai-shek rather than to fight him.

Communist Victory, 1949Due to corruption and inefficiency

among the KMT leadership, the Communists took power in mainland China in October, 1949.

The KMT leaders retreated to the island of Taiwan.

Now Mao was in charge of the whole country.

The Former EliteHundreds of thousands of members of

the former elite were put to death in the mass trials of 1949-1951.

Their land was then distributed among the poorer peasants.

This was the most important revolutionary act in the rural villages of China.

IndustrializationBetween 1949 and 1960, China

followed the Russian strategy of industrialization.

They built large factories in the cities.

Many Russian engineers came to China to assist in this effort.

Many of the largest factories in China today were built during this period.

Great Leap Forward, 1958-60 In 1958, Mao decided that the Russian

strategy of industrial development was not suitable for China.

This urban, large-factory system was not having enough of an impact on the mass of the population in the countryside.

Mao decided to opt for a unique Chinese method of industrialization.

Great Leap ForwardThe most mocked aspect of the Great Leap Forward was

the backyard steel furnaces.

Mao thought that peasants could learn to make steel on a broadly decentralized basis.

Most areas of China, however, lacked the ore and fuel for this.

Great Leap ForwardMillions of peasants were pulled away from their

agricultural tasks in order to engage in industrialization or water conservancy projects.

This lack of attention to the crops added to the problem of a serious drought and up to 30 million people died in China during this period.

Great Leap ForwardSmall villages were done away

with, and the peasants were moved to larger towns.

Mao attempted to have the peasants live in dormitories – with the separation of husbands and wives.

Communal kitchens and nurseries were established.

These measures failed.

Sino-Soviet Dispute, 1960From 1960 onward, China and Russia had a great

ideological quarrel.

Mao asserted that the world was in a revolutionary situation.

Mao expected revolution to come from the poor peasants of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Sino-Soviet DisputeThe Soviet Union was led in 1960

by Nikita Khrushchev and he insisted on the need for “peaceful coexistence” with the West.

Khrushchev was against promoting revolution in Third World countries as China wished to do.

The Cultural RevolutionBetween 1961 and 1963, conditions were relatively quiet

in China, but in 1964 Mao began pushing a new crusade to transform the culture to make the country more purely communist.

Mao attacked traditional Confucian and Buddhist elements in Chinese culture.

Cultural RevolutionAny Communist leaders who were not strongly for equality

were condemned in this movement.

The Cultural Revolution started among students, but it began to affect other sectors of society.

Cultural RevolutionEventually, the military stepped in and sent the students

off to work as peasants.

Assessing MaoMost people both in China and the West consider Mao’s

leadership atrocious – particularly the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Assessing Mao In spite of the deaths during

the Great Leap Forward and the social and economic disruption of the Cultural Revolution, the two movements helped to modernize China both in its rural economy and in its ideology.

After MaoFrom 1975 to 1997, China was

led by Deng Xiaoping who welcomed economic reforms in the direction of capitalism.

Peasants were allowed to farm on their own and to leave the collective farms.

Local governments were permitted to establish township and village enterprises (TVEs) that functioned like capitalist firms.

Deng Xiaoping