Establishing communist rule

• The new power structure - The CCP

  
  

  • Party went from 4.5 million to 5.8 million by 1950.
  • Central Committee - 49 members by 1949.
  • Within that was a 25-man Politburo.
  • Within that was a 5-man Standing Committee.
  • Mao controlled the Standing Committee.
  • Standing Committee was made up of Mao's friends, like Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai.
• The new power structure - Mao's dominant position

  
  

  • Government was designed to enhance Mao's personal authority.
  • There was little distinction between the CCP, PLA and CPG, which overlapped and were interconnected.
  • Meant higher-ups had control over multiple branches.
  • Meant Mao had complete control over the whole party.
• The state of China's national infrastructure

  
  

  • China couldn't be called a unified nation due to Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists threatening to return from Taiwan.
  • Warlords still controlled large areas, and bandits evaded the forces of law and order, making travel and communication across the cities hazardous.
  • China lacked a unified language, although the majority of people were Han Chinese, there were over 50 ethnic and religous groups, each with their own customs and traditions.
• Overview

  
  

  • tens of million dead in the battle to supress warlordism.
  • Communist party came to power through their military, not politics.
  • They had some support in rural areas because of promises of land reform.
  • Less popular with urban business men.
  • Rural peasants did not understand communist ideals.
  • After years of humiliation from the West, China was ruined, poor, bankrupt and chaotic.
• The state of China's industry

  
  

  • Aim was to go from being dependent on a backward farming system to a modern industrial economy.
  • Retreating Nationalist forces had sabotaged equipment so they wouldn't fall into communist hands.
  • In 1949, factory output was 44% below its level from 1937.
  • many skilled personnel who had the knowledge required to rebuild industrial production had fled to Taiwan with the Nationalists.
  • Lacking industry threatened ideology, as Marxists believed industrial workers were the 'Vanguards of communism', yet that was only 5% of China's population.
• The growth of democratic centralism

  
  

  • 1954 constitution declared that 'all power in the people's republic belongs to the people'.
  • Elected legislature to meet once a year, on behalf of the people, to make laws or amend the constitution.
  • However, once a policy had been decided, no deviation from the prescribed line was allowed.
  • Mao used themes of respect for hierarchy in the writings of Confucius to justify his overarching authority.
• The PLA

  
  

  • Announced in October 1949 as the Communists lacked a means of national control.
  • Created as Mao said "all political power lies in the barrel of a gun."
  • Killed 100,000+ communist party enemies.
  • A conscription law passed in 1955 that ensured 800,000 new recruits every year.
• Guangdong

  
  

  • Used to be pro-nationalist stronghold and the regime feared that enemy spies and saboteurs remained.
  • The regime feared that anti-communist sentiment remained strong in the area and targeted it.
  • 28,000 people executed during the 'supress the counter-revolutionaries' campaign.
• The Laogai

  
  

  • Labour camps that translates to 'reform through labour'.
  • By 1955 there were 1.3 million in forced labour.
  • Most were political prisoners, including 300,000 doctors, engineers and experts. Their crimes included listening to foreign radio or not meeting work quotas.
  • forced to build roads or mine in uranium mines.
  • Conditions caused diarrhoea and dysentery.
  • In Guangdong tin mines, 1/3 took their own life or died of disease a year after being there.
  • estimated 27 million total laogai deaths.
• The reunification campaigns

  
  

  • Aim was to control the peripheral regions of China.
  • Said it wasn't an invasion as the area once belonged to a larger Chinese state.
  • Xiangjiang had a large Muslim population and shared more with the Soviet Union, Mao worried they'd take advantage of the chaos and take the land.
  • Tibet was led by the Buddhist Dalai Lama, who was a rival to Mao.
• The invasion of Tibet

  
  

  • Mao ordered it to 'liberate it from imperialist oppression', Tibetans didn't know what he was on about.
  • 60,000 attempted to resist the invasion but failed.
  • Chinese troops storm capital Lhasa in November 1950 and put forward a 17-point agreement for liberation.
  • Imposed policies aimed at wiping all traces of Tibetan identity like prohibiting their religion, language, history and political meetings.
• The five-antis campaign


  
  

  • Introduced in 1952 to remove possible opponents and seize control over economic assets.
  • dedicated to ending: bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts and stealing state economic information.
  • targeted middles class businessmen by telling those who confessed they'd get a better punishment if they snitched, they were still executed.
  • Denunciation boxes were set up on street corners to encourage wives and kids to out their husbands/fathers.
  • Suicide was the only act of defiance against the regime.
• The three-antis campaign


  
  

  • Launched in 1951 as Mao called for a 'big clean up throughout the party.'
  • Was launched to get rid of: corruption, waste and bureaucracy.
  • Was supported by middle class who didn't like those taking advantage of their new found power.
  • By late 1951, communists had trained enough cadres to do the jobs like collecting taxes and organising schools, so they imprisoned and executed the former employees.
• The hundred flowers campaign

  
  

  • Education was expensive in China, so intellectuals were declared as 'capitalist enemies.'
  • Mao may have been scared by Khrushchev's call for de-Stalinisation and wanted to make sure the world didn't see him as a dictator.
  • Could also be overconfidence in himself.
  • On 2nd May 1956, Mao declared 'Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend.'
  • After they started criticising him, 400,000 - 700,000 intellectuals were purged or sent to the Laogai.
• Enhancing CCP control after the Korean War

  
  

  • Could promote national unity through creating antipathy to the USA and a sense of collective endeavour which promoted the idea of the PLA soldier hero.
  • Farmers pledged to increase production and donated surplus crops to the troops.
  • Workers increased production of coal, iron and steel.
  • Businessmen signed 'patriotic pacts' in which they promised to pay their taxes on time.
• Supressing opposition after the Korean War

  
  

  • 'Resist America, aid Korea' campaign portrayed them as bandits, murderers and savages.
  • 800,000 counter-revolutionaries and 135,000 official executions during the first half of 1951.
  • spread a rumour that America was testing biological weapons like insects infected with anthrax. This was later believed and attempted by Japan.
• China's international prestige after the Korean War

  
  

  • Mao described the west as 'paper tigers'
  • forming a cohesive Chinese national sentiment showed they would no longer be bullied by foreigners
  • Mao proved to be a tough leader who will stand up for China's interests and people.
  • ruined relationship with the west by fighting the USA funded nationalist forces, left China isolated with the USSR.
• The state of agriculture after the Civil war

  
  

  • Rural peasants made up 80% of China's population, mao kept their support with Land reform as they were too illiterate to understand Marxism.
  • tools and livestock were in short supply so they used human waste as fertilizer, which spread disease.
  • due to peasants being dragged into the Civil war, many farms were left unattended to, leading to dangerous food shortages.
  • By 1949, food shortages had led to famine and production was at a subsistence level.
• Attacks on Landlordism

  
  

  • landlords were subject to struggle meetings in front of their whole village and had to admit to being 'class enemies'
  • many sentenced to death
  • violence escalated past encouraged level as peasants saw it as an opportunity to settle family feuds or seize more land
  • landlords were scapegoats to generate enthusiasm for the communist cause.
• The redistribution of land

  
  

  • 88% of households took part in the program.
  • 43% of the land was redistributed to 60% of the population.
  • 1950-52 total agricultural production increased at a rate of 15% a year.
  • 1-2 million landlords executed in the process.
• Locking up enemies after the Korean War

  
  

  • CCP could denounce any enemies that were non-communists as spies or traitors.
  • 'Resist America, Aid Korea' campaign presented Americans as bandits, murderers and savages.
  • Posters put up showing American president as an evil vampiric ghoul.
  • Meetings publicly denounced opponents and sentenced them to death
• Administrative chaos after 1949

  • Retreating nationalists stripped country of gold, silver, and dollar reserves, effecting economy
  • Communists were good at guerrilla warfare but had no knowledge of running a city as they were mostly rural peasants
  • Washed rice in toilets thinking it was a sink
  • Brought donkeys into hotel lobbies thinking it was a stable
• PLA's economic role

  • Helped rebuild China's infrastructure
  • Officers dependants were compelled to work in the co-operative farms
  • Work teams of PLA soldiers contributed up to a week's free labour a year to help local construction or irrigation projects
• PLA's educational role

  • Soldiers called it the 'big university' because they were taught to read and write
  • The 'learn from the PLA' campaign instructed people to learn from the revolutionary and personal attributes of the 'people's soldier'
  • Characteristics taught: discipline, bravery and resourcefulness
• International relationships after the Korean War

  • Involvement reinforced USA’s belief in a global communist conquest
  • Led to US defence spending reached $50 billion a year in their effort to contain communism
  • Truman built alliances in East Asia and said he wanted to turn Japan into nothing less than an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’
  • Foreign Minister Chen Yi claimed Stalin shed a tear upon hearing of China’s intervention in the Korean War
  • Left them isolated with the USSR during Cold War  
• Cost of Korean War

  • Cost the PRC $10 billion
  • 400,000 out of 3 million soldiers died
  • Mao’s son Anying was killed by an attack on PLA headquarters
  • ‘In revolutionary war, you always pay a price’ - Mao
• Nationalist threat after 1949


  • Had connections with the US, who provided them with planes to bomb coastal cities like Shanghai
  • One raid in February 1950, killed over 1000 people and damaged the water and electricity lines
• HFC - rectification of the party

  • Feared the party was becoming less revolutionary and instead become bureaucratic
  • Cadres had become privileged class of managers, who were lazy and taking advantage of their new status
  • Mao wanted them to be forced to act in the interest of the people again
  • Was angry about the lack of economic policies being introduced
• HFC - international concerns

  • Khrushchev announced destalinisation in February 1956 and instead called for a sharing of power between leaders, called Collective Leadership
  • Mao was worried that his cult of personality mirrored Stalin’s
  • Wanted to prove he wasn’t a dictator
• HFC - Mao's overconfidence 


  • Early years of the Republic had been a success
  • Xinjing and Tibet had been brought under PLA control
  • Industry recovered after Civil War
  • Propaganda after Korean War
  • May of expected large endorsement of his policies, which would give him greater influence and allow him to advance in his personal mission for communism
• HFC - Genuine desire for help

  • Economic production had stalled, and Mao still wanted to catch up with the West
  • Most of the party were uneducated peasants so they needed to enlist the help of those who could organise modern industries, develop advanced technology, or provide solutions
• HFC - Mao admitting mistakes

  • Admitted the CCP had made mistakes at the Supreme State Council Conference, to try and launch the movement
  • Said the Party had wrongly identified intellectuals as enemies
  • Used force too much
  • Admitted that 800,000 had been killed
  • Promised to release people from labour camps
  • However, the speech was not published, but instead taped and played to party officials who were tasked with encouraging intellectuals to speak up
• HFC - intellectuals speaking up


  • Big posters put on the walls of offices and factories denouncing party failures to provide freedom in the arts
  • Comparisons made to Nazi Germany and Auschwitz
  • Complaints about economic inequalities, notably with their low wages compared to the money party elites were making
  • Party headquarters stormed by angry students
  • Mao criticised personally, with his personal power being compared to the pope
  • Poster saying ‘dissatisfied peasants could throw Chairman Mao’s portrait into the toilet’
• HFC - antirightest campaign

  • Mao’s doctor Zhisui Li claimed he stayed in bed depressed
  • Claimed in the People’s Daily that ‘poisonous weeds’ had grown up among the ‘fragrant flowers’
  • Punishments for all those who opposed socialist culture or denying the achievements of the revolution
  • Cadres told to identify 5% of Danwei to be rightest, meaning innocent people were accused to meet quotas
• HFC - attack on intellectuals

  • 400,000 – 700,000 purged and sent to either the countryside or laogai
  • Others took their own lives to avoid terror
  • Ding Ling was exiled to a desolate part of Northen Cina and all her writing was banned, despite previously writing a glowing account of communist land reform