Unit 1

• Confucian thought

  • People should be loyal to figures of authority such as parents and ancestors
  • Families governed by a dominant male figure
  • Husband controlled the wife, father had control over the children
• Civil War

  • 1946-49
  • Nationalists (GMD) under Chiang Kai Shek. They advocated capitalist economic development
  • Communists (CCP) formed in 1921 led by Mao Zedong
  • The war destroyed infrastructure, spread poverty and malnutrition
  • Economy was devastated with no stable currency and hyperinflation
  • Many of the educated fled with the nationalists to Taiwan
  • Nationalists bombed ships on the coast to prevent advancement of the CCP
• China's Economy 1949

  Industry:

  • Equipment was destroyed
  • Nationalist forces attempted to sabotage industrial sites
  • Local power stations were bombed
  • Raw materials were scarce
  • Factory output 44% below 1937 level

  Agriculture:

  • Peasants promised land reform
  • Tools and livestock were in short supply
  • Human waste used as fertiliser which spread disease

  Infrastructure:

  • 1/2 railway network destroyed
  • Bribery commonplace
• New Power Structure

  CP:

  • Grew up to 5.8 million by 1950
  • Set economic targets
  • Party cadres enforced policy
  • Controlled the education system and prison camp system
  • Peng Duhai (Minister of Defence) and Commander in Chief of PLA
• New Power Structure

  PLA:

  • Round up bandits and criminal gangs
  • Spread Communist influence
  • Armed forces attacked Xinjiang and Buddhist Tibet and GMD
  • 800,000 new recruits every year indoctrinated with Communist propaganda
• New Power Structure

  The Government:

  • Common Programme set out gendered equal educational opportunity
  • Politburo had 14 members
• Democratic Centralism

  • Democratic at local levels and town councils electing representatives
  • Process carried on up a hierarchy organisation until lowest councils were heard 'in the centre'
  • However, no point of any chance to vote in favour of any other political party
• Campaign to Suppress Counter Revolutionaries

  • March 1950
  • Launched by CCP to eradicate oppositional elements
• Three-Antis campaign

  • 1951
  • Mao called for a 'big clean up throughout the Party'
  • Directed against corruption, waste and bureaucracy in government
  • People found friends and family disappeared
  • Encouraged ordinary citizens to become involved in rallies to denounce 'counter-revolutionaries', they were also subject to struggle meetings
• Five-Antis campaign

  • 1952
  • Directed against bribery, tax evasion and theft of state property
  • Targeted bourgeois and private business owners
  • Employers of a firm known as 'tiger beaters' were organised by cadres into team of activists to gather incriminating evidence against bosses
  • They intimidated the 'capitalist tigers' before dragged to struggle meetings - many committed suicide
• Success of the Antis campaigns

  • Business men were found guilty and forced to pay heavy fines
  • They had to sell their stock to the state
• Use of terror against opponents

  • Used PLA to attack bandit gangs
  • They intimidated their enemies and humiliated their families
  • When a criminal was executed a bill was sent to their parents to cover the cost of the bullets used in their execution
• Reunification campaigns

  • Used to establish control over Chinese territory

  Tibet:

  • Buddhist population who were loyal to the Dalai Lama
  • The PLA attacked Buddhist traditions and the Lama was forced to flee

  Xinjiang:

  • Muslim population with ethnic ties to the USSR
  • Mao feared Soviet interference
• Laogai

  • 'reform through labour'
  • 1955 - over 1.3 million in the laogai
  • Mostly political opponents and many were suspect due to class and education (like doctors)
  • Terrible conditions and death by disease was common
  • Forced to attend meetings where they would be brainwashed by propaganda (many committed suicide)
• Hundred Flowers campaign

  • 1957
  • Mao encouraged intellectuals to criticise the Party
  • Mao feared the Party was becoming less revolutionary
  • Hoped that intellectuals would criticise more conservative members so he could remove them
• International concern

  • February 1956
  • Khrushchev's 'secret speech' denounced Stalin's use of the secret police and terror
  • This made Mao nervous as he sought to prove he was not a dictator by encouraging debate within the Party
• Hundred Flowers campaign reaction

  • Intellectuals denounced the Party's failures to provide democratic rights or freedom of expression
  • They attacked the privileged situation the Communist leaders had given themselves (more food, better housing and education)
• Mao's response to the HFC

  • June 1957 - he delivered a speech on 'Handling contradictions' published in the People's Daily newspapers
  • He declared that 'poisonous weeds' had grown among 'fragrant flowers'
  • These 'right wingers' had abused their freedoms and M demanded a campaign of class struggle on them
• Korean War

  • 1950
  • 25th June - 135,000 North Korean Communists invaded capitalist South Korea
  • Hostilities ended with a ceasefire in 1953
  • Mao proved Stalin that he was a trustworthy ally
  • Provided him with an excuse to lock up enemies and enforce conscription
  • He could raise taxes and force farmers to give up crops to aid the war effort
  • Communists launched 'Resist America, Aid Korea' campaign which mobilised masses with public support and created a shared unity
• Korean War - Human cost

  • 400,000 Chinese soldiers died
  • Forced the requisition of crops which led to famine in some parts of the country
  • Campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries -most vulnerable was religious people working for national regimes. Businessmen were forced to leave the country and had their property confiscated
• Korean War - Financial cost

  • Costed the PRC 10 billion
  • Previously China was viewed as the 'Sick Man of Asia' but their military success meant that they were now feared and respected in the West