Mao/Castro Consolidation and Maintenance

• Personality cult


  Mao had an incredibly strong personality cult
• Posters of Mao


  • Placed all over the People's Republic of China
• Little Red Book


  A collection of sayings attributed to Mao on a variety of topics
• People carrying the Little Red Book


  Made the people (especially those born after WWII) admire Mao even more
• Cultural Revolution (1966-1970)


  1. Mao declared a "Cultural Revolution" to regain control

  2. Mao went after the bureaucracy for being corrupt, too used to giving orders and losing sight of the goals of the Revolution

  3. Real reason: He wanted to get back at the bureaucrats who sidelined him after the Great Leap Forward
• Red Guard


  Paramilitary groups made up of and led by students who would go around and denounce bureaucrats
• Purging bureaucrats


  1. Sent to the country

  2. Re-education camps- farms to work the land, learn how food was grown and to be humble in the face of the peasants
• Article 94 of the 1954 Constitution gave all Chinese citizens the right to an education
• History lessons


  Glorified CCP, PLA and especially Mao
• Youth groups


  • Young Pioneers (ages 6-14)
  • Youth League (ages 14-28)
• Article 96 in 1954 Constitution guaranteed women equality with men
• Agrarian Reform Law (1950)


  Land redistributed from landlords to the peasants
• Article 13 of 1954 Constitution gave the gov't the power to nationalize land in urban and rural areas
• Mao did this early on in the cities. The gov't took over banks, railroads and heavy industry
• Other businesses were squeezed out by the gov't that set up competing businesses and sold their goods at a lower price
• Gov't also accused business owners of crimes (i.e. tax evasion, bribery, fraud, theft) in order to take away their business away by legal means
• 1953, 86% of Chinese Industry was under government control
• First Five Year Plan (1953-1957)


  Put the economy under the direct control of the CCP (Mao) and strengthened his position of power
• Article 15 of the 1954 Constitution allowed for state planning of the economy
• Collectivization of agriculture (1956)


  1. To increase efficiency and produce more crops

  2. Move was NOT popular among farmers
• Mao blamed "A serious leaning towards capitalism"
• Democratic Centralism


  This was not for the Chinese
• Mao purged those who had collaborated with the Japanese, the KMT and Chiang Kai-shek and rich landlords


  In order to consolidate his political power
• 1954 Constitution gave Mao the legal authority to govern
• Article 19 gave the gov't the right to "suppress all treasonable and counterrevolutionary activities and punish all traitors
• Disagree with the government and you could be purged
• Hundred Flowers Campaign (1954)


  1. Mao launched to allow Chinese citizens to criticize the gov't

  2. When thousands of people criticized Mao he was shocked!

  3. He ordered people to be fired and sent to reeducation camps
• Criticism of Mao and the gov't was no longer allowed
• Immediately after Mao seized power (1950)


  He purged Japanese collaborators, KMT followers and landlords
• People who disagreed with Mao or offered criticism were labled "rightist" and sent to re-education camps
• To re-establish power after he was pushed aside in 1961


  Mao launched the Cultural Revolution
• Hundreds of thousands of CCP members were purged as a result
• Cooperation with USSR (1950-1956)


  The USSR gave technical assistance to China which helped them rapidly industrialize and modernize their economy
• Some of the technical assistance helped lay the ground work for the atomic bomb in 1964
• Mao used Stalin as a model to govern


  (strong personality cult, ruthless oppression, total control of the economy including the 5 year plans)
• Split with the USSR (1960-1969)


  1. Started with dispute over leader of the world wide communist movement

  2. Later Mao used this to forge a new relationship with the US in the early 1970's
• Mao sent about 3 million "volunteers" to fight on the side of North Korea


  Goal- Prevent the unification of Korea under the UN (South Korean rule)
• China suffered 600,000 casualties- it was a success for Mao
• After a century of being weak in internationally, China was recognized as world power
• In spite of Chiang Kai-shek gov't in Taiwan being officially recognized internationally