CHANGE UNDER MAO (1949-63)

• when was the First Five Year Plan?

  1953-57
• why did Mao want a First Five Year Plan?

  • Socialism - Mao wanted to transform China into a socialist country and be self-sufficient
  • Agriculture - Mao recognised that the peasants wanted to own their own farms but he pressed ahead with rapid collectivisation of farming
  • Industry - Mao wanted to increase the capacity of heavy industry which was aided by 10,000 Soviet advisors
• what were the agricultural changes in the First Five Year Plan?

  • Mutual aid teams - (1951-55) this was a step to more cooperative forms of farming which included up to 10 households to farm land
  • Agricultural Producers Co-operatives (APCs) - (1953-56) 30-50 peasant households owned land but were centrally managed
  • Collectivisation - (1958-62) farms made up of 2,000-3,000 households that did not privately own anything as it all belonged to the collective
• what caused the Great Famine in 1958-62?

  a result of forced collectivisation - Mao forced collectivisation onto the peasants and they reacted by reducing production
• what factors contributed to the Great Famine in 1958-62?

  • no incentive - peasants could no longer sell extra produce for profit, so they produced less
  • Four Noes Campaign - Mao wanted all the sparrows, flies, mosquitoes & rats killed as he believed they ate the crops. However more insects ate the crops as there were no birds
  • Fear - communist officials lied to Mao about production success
  • Natural causes - droughts in the north & flooding in the south reduced harvest
• what were the results of the Great Famine in 1958-62?

  • 50 million deaths in China
  • Tibet was the worst hit - 1 million died
  • children & wives were sold to buy food
  • some resorted in cannibalism
• what were the industrial changes in the First Five Year Plan?


  • rapid expansion of heavy indsutry e.g. iron, steel, coal, petroleum
  • construction of road & rail bridge across the Yangtze River at Nanjing
  • officials were motivated to overestimate the production figures - coal doubled, steel increased by four times
  • central planning - removal of private ownership to partner or completely taken over by the state
• what were the reasons of the Great Leap Forward?

  • belief that socialism was superior to capitalism - Mao was inspired by the Soviets achievements
  • Mao desired to continue the industrial progress started in the 1st Five Year Plan
  • Mao wanted to be independant from Soviet Union in developing China's industry
  • Mao believed that anything could be achieved by the PRC if they had the will to succeed
• what were the key features of the Great Leap Forward?

  • Backyard furnaces - whole of China made to produce steel, up to 600,000 furnaces made in towns and villages
  • End of private ownership - CCP fully controlled all private buisnesses and took a step towards a communist system
  • Massive projects - giant bridges, canals & dams were constructed which the Chinese newspaper praised the economic achievements of communism
• what were the effects of the Great Leap Forward?

  • collectivisation failed and 50 milliojn died in a famine
  • the backyard furnaces produced poor, unusable steel thst could not be used in industrial production
  • Soviet experts left China (1960) - the Chinese were not yet sufficiently trained yet
• what were the changes in the role of women in China?

  • CCP viewed women as equals to men - made foot-binding illegal
  • CCP passed the Marriage Law (1950) - arranged marriage & dowry was banned, infanticide was banned, women were given the right to own, buy & sell property
  • Politics - CCP allowed women to vote (1953)
• what was the Mao Zedong Thought?

  Mao's beliefs such as class struggle and the need for continuing revolution to prevent counter-revolutionary ideas entering China and threatening the revolution
• what was the Thought Reform?

  a campaign launched by the CCP (1951) that focused on forcing intellectuals in universities to confess to the errors in their thinking and attend study sessions to re-educate them in the Mao Zedong Thought
• what was the Three Antis Campaign?

  • target: party members & bureaucrats
  • aims: to combat corruption, waste, inefficiency
• when was the Three Antis Campaign introduced?

  1951
• what was the Five Antis Campaign?

  • target: businessmen
  • aims: bring an end to bribery, avoid paying taxes, theft of state property, fraud, industrial sabotage
• when was the Five Antis Campaign introduced?

  1952
• what caused the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-57)?

  • serious error of judgement - Mao encouraged free speech but was shocked by the critism and clamped down on his critics
  • trap to expose anti-communist elements - a deliberate plan by Mao to flush out critics of the government & CCP
• what happened in the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-57)

  • early 1957, Mao announced that the people were to 'let a hundred flowers bloom' - in other words, Mao encouraged free speech
  • primarily the critism was limited but when the China's daily newspaper announced it, the critism grew - Mao was shocked to find critism about himself too
  • In Beijing University, students created a 'democracy wall' that was covered in CCP critism
• what were the effects of the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-57)?

  • Mao launched an 'anti-rightist' campaign - up to 500,000 intellectuals were branded as 'rightists' and persecuted
  • many were sent to labour camps & the countryside to be 're-educated'
  • CCP was strengthened - Mao's position became unchallenged and fear rose
• what was the Soviet influence on the economic developments in China?

  • Khrushchev visited China (1954) & helped China to develop its civilian nuclear programme - allowed China to produce nuclear power for energy to power its industry
  • Soviet Union pulled out of Manchuria
  • 1950 Treaty - China was loaned $300 million by the Soviet Union who provided 10,000 economic & military advisers (they provided an important role in the 1st Five Year Plan)
• what was the Soviet influence on the political developments in China?

  • Mao never stursted Stalin - Mao believed that Soviet Union tried to weaken China to be the top communist country
  • Mao respected Stalin as a communist - when deStalinisation happened Mao was shocked
  • Sino-Soviet relationship declined - two unsuccessful visits between Mao and Khrushchev
• what was Mao's aims once he became leader in 1949?

  • establishment of a communist system - in the way it ruled, the way the economy was run, in the way people lived their lives
  • the modernisation of China's economy
• what were the changes in agriculture & industry?

  • Mao wanted modernisation - required the population to move from the country to the town and sufficient food to feed urban workers
  • a modern economy is based on industrial production - Mao wanted more workers to develop modern industry, but also enough food to feed everyone in towns & countryside
  • Mao believed reforming agriculture into a communist system of production would achieve this
• when was the Agrarian Reform Law passed?

  1950
• what was the Agrarian Reform Law?

  • the property of large landlords taken away - given to peasants
  • the property of enemies of the state (e.g Chiang Kai-shek & foreign nationals) were confiscated
• what happened on the attacks of the landlords?

  • caused by the Agrarian Reform Law - villages assembled 'struggle meetings' to denounce landlords
  • estimated up to 1 million landlords executed, thousands beat up, thousands sent to special camps (to be 're-educated' to accept communist ideas)