China

• Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) convenes in Beijing to pass the Common Program

  1949 September
• Mao announces the formation of the People's Republic of China (PRC)

  1949 October
• Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek retreats to Taiwan

  1949 December
• Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries launched


  1950 March
• The Korean War begins

  1950 June
• United Nations (UN) troops drive into North Korea towards the Chinese border


  1950 October
• People's Liberation Army (PLA) begins 'reunification' campaigns in Tibet and Xinjiang; PLA also deployed in Guangdong


  1950 October
• China enters the Korean War in support of the communist North against the UN


  1950 November
• 'Resist America, Aid Korea' campaign begins


  1951 February
• 17-Point Agreement between Tibet and China signed

  1951 May
• Three Antis Campaign


  1951-2 August-July
• Five Antis Campaign

  1952 February-May
• Truce signed between North and South Korea

  1953 July
• China's first constitution introduced

  1954 September
• The Hundred Flowers Campaign

  1957 May-June
• The Anti-Rightist Campaign

  1957 June
• The People's Republic of China was created in 1949
• China in 1949


  • China was very far from the modern and powerful nation it is today
  • China was backward - lacking an organised central government and with an economy still reliant on small-scale agricultural production
  • 80% of the population lived in poor rural areas and survived by farming the land
  • Had been left behind in the industrial revolution that had transformed western Europe and the USA
  • There was little healthcare outside the cities and education was very poor
  • The vast majority of peasants remained illiterate
  • Social attitudes were rooted in Confucian tradition
  • Women were not considered equal and they did not have the right to own property
  • For many years, China had been ruled by powerful Emperors or military warlords who ran their provinces as their own private fiefdoms - there was no history or experience of democratic rule
  • China's deeply rooted problems were further exacerbated by nearly 40 years of conflict
• The Civil War between nationalists and communists that started in 1927 had killed millions, destroyed infrastructure and spread poverty and malnutrition. Refugees clogged what remained of transport networks and filled the streets of the cities.
• Despite being forced to flee to Taiwan in December 1949, the nationalists continued to be a threat, bombing ships on the coast to prevent communist attack, while killing hundreds in the cities on the mainland
• In October 1949, when Mao announced the creation of the People's Republic of China, he promised that Chinese people that after years of humiliation, the Chinese people had 'stood up'
• China in 1911


  • A revolution took place against the Qing dynasty and, by the following year, the last great imperial dynasty had collapsed.
  • People has lost faith in the Emperors and old system as it couldn't keep pace with the modern economic and military developments of the Western empires
  • Britain, France, Germany and Russia were all able to exploit China's weakness to their own benefit, forcing China to accept trade agreements that were very one sided and controlling parts of its cities, like the vital port of Shanghai
• China after the end of imperial rule

  • China descended into chaos
  • Lack of central government led to the country being partitioned by warlords who ran their regions as private fiefdoms
  • The nationalists (the Guomindang or GMD) under Chiang Kai-shek advocated capitalist economic development but rejected Western democratic values in favour of authoritarian rule.
  • The Communist Party of China (CCP), formed in 1921, advocated the development of a communist state based on the ideas of Karl Marx. They were led by Mao Zedong
  • They stopped fighting in 1937 but resumed after WW2 in 1945. It was a bloody and costly civil war lasting between 1946 and 1949
  • Communist People's Liberation Army (PLA) wiped out village after village with blanket shelling
  • One pilot reported that every village he flow over was burning and 'the fields were covered with bodies'
  • The nationalist army had a 4-to-1 numerical superiority
  • The communists were more popular, especially among the poor peasants (communist promises of equality)
• China at the end of the Civil War


  • Formal establishment of a new communist China did not represent either the consolidation of communist authority, nor herald the emergence of any sense of unified national identity
  • China was catastrophic after civil war
  • Tens of millions had been killed in the battle to suppress warlordism, the civil war, and to repel the Japanese occupation
  • After years of humiliation by Western powers, China was ruined, bankrupt and chaotic
  • Politically, the CCP had not come to power through a democratic election but had seized power as a result of military success. They did have support in rural areas, to whom their promises of land reform had appeal, but they were far less popular among businessmen and middle classes in large cities like Shanghai. Peasants also had little understanding of Mao's communist ideas.
• Administrative chaos


  • Before the nationalists left they stripped the country of assets such as gold, silver and dollar reserves, alongside cultural treasures, including those from Beijing's Forbidden City.
  • Many educated elite, including bureaucrats, had left with the nationalists. There were few experienced officials left to run cities or with enough technological knowledge to rebuild the economy
  • Communist Party members were ideologically committed and experienced at guerrilla fighting but lacked sufficient knowledge of civilian government
  • Lack of planning because of the speed with which the nationalist forces had collapsed.
  • War became known as 'The battle of the feet' - a race by the nationalists to flee.
  • Little preparation for running the country had taken place
• Lawlessness


  • An estimated 1 million bandits began to roam the countryside preying on the refugees displaced by the Japanese invasion or fleeing from the atrocities in the Civil War
  • They clogged the transport system, wandered aimlessly, or crammed into the unsanitary cities
  • China was living up to its old nickname as the 'Sick Man of Asia'
• Economic problems


  • Economy was completely devastated
  • No stable or unified currency
  • Biggest problem was hyperinflation - unable to support itself through taxation, the GMD regime had sought to bankroll its armies through printing money. In places, people reverted to bartering.
  • Shortage of consumer goods led to people hoarding scares supplies, worsening the situation
  • In 1940, 100 Chinese yuan was enough to buy a pig. By 1945, it was only enough to buy a fish. By 1946, 100 yuan was needed to pay for just an egg. By 1949, people used carts to transport their practically worthless banknotes
• The state of China's industry

  • Mao sought to make China a great power through transforming it from a nation dependent on a backward farming system to one possessing a modern industrial economy
  • However, when communists came to power, China's industry had been badly damaged by years of war and much of China's industrial equipment had been destroyed
  • Retreating nationalist forces had attempted to sabotage industrial sites to prevent them from falling into the hands of the communists
  • At the end of WW2, the Soviet Union controlled Manchuria in the north-east of China. They were meant to ensure that the defeated Japanese soldiers went back to Japan but this caused problems
  • Many of China's steel mills were in Manchuria, as were huge reserves of iron ore and coal alongside fertile farmland
  • SU dismantled industrial equipment in factories and mines, confiscated tools and gold and shipped them back to the USSR
  • Situation worsened during the Civil War. In 1949, factory output was 44% below its level of 1937
  • Factories needed to be reconstructed before industrial production could be improved
  • Raw materials were scarce and difficult to get into factories
  • Many skilled personnel who had the knowledge required to rebuild industrial production had fled to Taiwan with the nationalists
  • Lack of industrial production posed an ideological threat
• The state of China's agriculture

  • Communist Party popularity was greatest among the peasants in rural areas
  • 80% population lived in rural areas
  • Mao clearly understood the importance of retaining their support
  • As the vast majority of peasants were illiterate and uneducated, they were incapable of understanding the complexities of Marxist thought (so many were not ideologically committed to the creation of a communist state)
  • Had little interest in theories or political ideas
  • Yearned to escape poverty and own their own land
  • Many peasants felt unfairly exploited by their landlords who made them pay high rents
  • To ensure their support, the CP promised to introduce land reform
  • As with industry, Chinese agriculture suffered from long-term historical problems, exacerbated by years of war
  • Agricultural tools and livestock were in short supply and the most common fertilisers used by the peasants remained human waste - this spread disease
  • During the Civil War, many peasants had been forcibly conscripted into the nationalist forces to replace soldiers lost in battle - meant farms were often left unattended
  • Crops died, reducing food supply to dangerous levels
  • By 1949, food production was at subsistence level and in some parts of China, there was a famine
• Land reform

  • The introduction of a nationwide policy of land reform was made more difficult by the size and diverse nature of China
  • In some areas, Party organisations were well embedded into society and as a result reforms such as the redistribution of land to peasants had already taken place, while in others, particularly in the north areas only recently liberated by the communists, it had not yet started
  • Vast areas of agricultural land made it physically impossible for the CCP to send trained Party activists or cadres to every village to organise land reform
  • Cadres often lack local knowledge of how the land in a village was organised, also found it hard to communicate with the peasants as they did not speak the same dialect
  • Even if they could understand, most peasants were only interested in events in their own villages - they were not concerned with national political issues or revolutionary ideology
• Redistribution of land to peasants

  • CP believed peasants were being exploited by their rich landlords
  • Party cadres travelled to villages and encouraged peasants to rise up against the oppressors, subjecting landlords to 'struggle meetings' where they would be beaten while the mass of peasants shouted abuse and humiliated them
  • At the end of the meeting, landlords would be forced to sign a confession and hand his land over to the Party cadres who would redistribute it more fairly among the villages
  • This policy was hugely popular and a source of great support for the communists
• National infrastructure


  • China was not a single, unified nation
  • Nationalist forces were still present on Chinese territory, and while Chiang Kai-shek had been defeated, he had evaded capture and escaped to Taiwan, promising to return to remove the communists
  • Chiang had a very powerful ally in the US
  • The previous nationalist government had been very corrupt - bribery of officials was commonplace (many leaders hoarded supplies)
  • Warlords still controlled large areas, and bandits evaded the forces of law and order, making communication and travel between cities hazardous
  • Central government control had largely broken down
  • Lack of central control was further retarded by a lack of unified language
  • Many areas had their distinct dialect
• Transport


  • Transports networks were badly damaged; an estimated half of the railway network had been destroyed
  • Blowing up railway tracks and bridges had been a key tactic of the communist during the Civil War as it disrupted the nationalists' ability to move their troops into battle
  • Had to quickly rebuild the railways in order to consolidate control over the entire country
  • Telephone lines had been damaged while rivers and harbours were clogged up with ships sunk during the conflict
• Cities


  • The lack of national infrastructure meant that rural and urban China was largely isolated from each other
  • Communist soldiers were mainly peasant farmers
  • Often became the source of jokes in cities such as Shanghai
  • Inexperienced, the communists were not well prepared to run China's cities or set up an efficient government
• The nationalist threat


  • Establishing national, unified control would be extremely difficult as there was no effective administrative structure in place
• Many areas had their distinct dialect
• Transport networks


  • Badly damaged; an estimated half of the railway network had been destroyed
• Blowing up railway tracks and bridges

  1. Key tactic of the communists during the Civil War

  2. Disrupted the nationalists' ability to move their troops into battle
• Rebuilding the railways


  Quickly done in order to consolidate control over the entire country
• Telephone lines


  • Damaged