Social T4

• Delayed marriage, as per Source 1, is the process where unmarried young men and women delay their age of marriage according to the needs of the revolution and to the circumstances of their own physical and intellectual development.
• Early marriage, as per Source 1, is an old custom left over from the old society and is not beneficial to the task of socialist revolution or to the physical and ideological growth of young people.
• The Communists were not successful in completely eradicating religious beliefs because old attitudes and traditions were simply too engrained in Chinese culture.
• Even in Mao’s mind, traditional attitudes were deeply entrenched.
• For an enquiry into the impact of religious persecution in China between 1949-66, the evidence of source 15 should be given a certain weight due to its insights into the cultural context of the period.
• The evidence of source 15 also has limitations, such as its focus on Mao’s perspective and its lack of consideration for the experiences of ordinary people.
• According to the marriage law in China, men at the age of 20 may marry and women at the age of 18, but this is not to be taken as the most suitable for marriage.
• If young people marry too early, their study, work, and physical growth will all be affected because of family and other burdens, as per Source 1.
• The communists believed that marriage policies were necessary to maintain the success of the communist revolution in China, as per Source 1.
• Marriage policies helped to distinguish Communist China from the pre-revolutionary China, as per Source 1.
• The communists believed that their marriage policies benefited the well-being and advancement of the individual, as per Source 1.
• The communists believed that social engineering should above all benefit the state by placing references to the revolution before that of the people, as per Source 1.
• The manual was an official publication of the Communist Party, as per Source 1.
• The purpose of the manual was specifically to advise young people on the reasons for and benefit of the communist marriage policies, as per Source 1.
• Between 1949 and 1976, the status of women in China underwent significant changes, including the impact of collectivisation and the communes on women’s lives.
• The publication of the manual in 1972, two decades after the proclamation of the Marriage Law (1950), underlines the belief that marriage policies helped to maintain the success of the revolution, as per Source 1.
• One of the changes during this period was the changing status of women through foot binding and the Marriage Law of 1950.
• Independent work on Religion was missed due to a bank holiday.
• The key question for the independent work on Religion is: How did the Communists seek to destroy the practice of religion?
• Attacks on Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Islam, and Ancestor worship were carried out by the Communists.
• The Marriage Law (1950) was introduced with speed at the beginning of Communist rule and made illicit marriage a criminal offence, as per Source 1.
• The changing status of women also involved the impact of collectivisation and the communes on women’s lives.
• Another aspect of the changing status of women was the role of women in the family and nature and extent of the change.
• Mao Zedong had a personal interest in the passage of the Marriage Law and believed firmly both in the benefits of delayed marriage and equal rights within marriage, as per Source 1.
• The changing status of women also involved the problem of changing traditional views, especially in the countryside.
• Mao’s China relied on manual labour to improve agricultural and industrial production, as per Source 1.
• Study Source 1 on the next slide before answering the source question.
• Source 1 is valuable to the historian for an enquiry into the reasons for the implementation of marriage policies in Mao’s China due to its detailed description of the communists' attempts to destroy the practice of religion in the PRC, 1949-76.
• The social effects of Mao’s policies regarding religion are complex and varied, with some groups benefiting and others suffering.
• The government’s attempts to suppress religion and religious beliefs in the years 1949-76 were mixed, with some successes and failures.
• The 1954 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China guarantees equality before the law and freedom of assembly, association, procession, demonstration, and religious belief.
• The Chinese Communist Party followed the Soviet model for national religious associations, allowing each of the main religions to continue as long as they gave up independence to the state.
• Karl Marx derided religion as an 'opiate', a drug used by the bourgeois elite to pacify the workers and peasants and prevent them from revolting.
• In Marxist theory, religion was derided as an ‘opiate’, a drug used by the bourgeois elite to pacify the workers and peasants and prevent them from revolting.
• The Chinese Communist Party viewed religious belief and worship as a form of feudal superstition that throughout history had been deliberately cultivated by the classes in power to suppress the masses.
• Religion, with its promise of eternal happiness in the afterlife, was a powerful force persuading the workers to put up with their grim lives without protest; the more they suffered in this life, the greater would be their reward in heaven.
• Christianity was resented as a Western imposition, used by the capitalist West to brainwash the Chinese into subservience.
• Religious belief was targeted from the very first days of the PRC.
• Mao declared that religion was poison and compared the Christian missionaries in China to the Nazis in Europe.
• Almost immediately after Mao led his party to power, the attack on religion began as it represented the old and outdated views that Communism wanted to sweep away.