Mao and Communism in China

• These notes cover the rise of Mao Zedong and the Communist Party in China, their methods for gaining and maintaining power, and the establishment of an authoritarian state, including political structures, use of violence, propaganda, economic policies, foreign policy, the Cultural Revolution, and social and domestic policies.

Conditions of Rise/Emergence

• China's failure to modernize in the 19th century led to widespread poverty, affecting approximately 80% of the population at the start of the 1900s.
• European powers exploited China through unequal treaties, exemplified by Britain opening ports and establishing residences.
• The 1911 Chinese Revolution overthrew the Qing Dynasty but established a weak republic led by a military figure who failed to control the provinces or improve the economy, leading to a warlord system.
• China did not regain territories lost to Germany at the end of WWI, which were instead given to Japan at the Paris Peace Conference, triggering the May 4th protests in 1919.
• The strife in China led to the founding of the Communist Party (CCP), which initially allied with the GMD (Kuomintang) under Chiang Kai-Shek to overcome the warlord system between 1924 and 1927, followed by a civil war.

Nanjing Decade (1927-1937)

• The Nanjing Decade under Chiang Kai-Shek brought some stability and modest economic improvements, including roads and railways, leading to prosperity in Shanghai.
• Chiang Kai-Shek regime was unpopular with poorer sections of society and failed to consolidate control over all of China, necessitating alliances with warlords.
• His focus on eliminating Mao and the CCP, coupled with wealth concentrated in urban areas and a conservative, authoritarian approach, made communism an appealing alternative.

Methods for Rise to Power

• After a massacre in April, the CCP located in Jiangxi from 1927 to 1937, where Mao attempted to build a soviet base, leading to the overthrow of the higher class by the landless population with brutality which revealed Mao's ruthless nature.
• The Futian incident involved the torture and execution of 4,000 Red Army troops accused of plotting against Mao, reflecting his ruthless approach.
• Jiangxi's conditions, including high taxes, a large wealth gap, and oppressive tax collection practices, created fertile ground for communism.
• The Long March (1934-1935) was a year-long, 6,000-mile march during which 40,000 set out and only 20,000 survived, it was used for propaganda and gave Mao cult status.
• During the Long March, Mao emerged as the party leader due to his advice on which base to go to and how to go there, leading to ultimate survival.
• From 1935 to 1945, Yanan became the communist soviet base under Mao’s leadership.
• The caves built in the hillside become shelter from GMD air raids, sometimes large enough to house hospitals & CCP university.
• Mao and the Red Army "liberated" provinces by seizing villages, driving out landlords, reallocating land to peasants, and enforcing the Peasant Policy, where soldiers respected peasants, did not take liberties with women, and paid for supplies, leading to increased support.
• The Second Sino-Japanese War devastated China but aided Mao's rise by damaging the economy and weakening the GMD, who lost territory to Japan, 17 million civilians died.
• The Second Sino-Japanese war weakened the GMD so that the CCP were victorious when the civil war broke out in 1945.
• From 1942-1944, Mao launched the Rectification Movement, which involved public self-criticism and study of Mao's works, to combat "wrong thinking" within the party, resulting in imprisonment, torture, and suicides.
• During the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949), Mao's military leadership and guerilla tactics, combined with the GMD's lack of leadership and support, led to the CCP's victory.
• Mao gains cult-like status as leader & through Maoism ideology.

Establishment/Consolidation of an Authoritarian State

• On October 1, 1949, the Yanan years prepared China for Mao’s declaration of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
• Two out of four official posts were occupied by PLA officers, which ensured the CCP continues its rein.
• The country was divided into 6 regions, each led by a chairman, party secretary, military commander (PLA occupied), and political commissar (PLA occupied).
• The Politburo carried out government functions under Mao's authority.
• The CCP maintained power by claiming it was with the people, but only one party could run for election and individuals had to declare the CCP’s absolute right to rule.
• Authority was structured from Mao and the Politburo down through the PLA, regional leaders, and workers.
• China's entrance into the Korean War (1950-1953) provided a reason for Mao to demand solidarity out of fear of the USA and Stalin’s persuasion.
• The "reunification campaigns" of 1950 involved sending PLA armies to Tibet, Xinjiang, and Southern Guangdong under the guise of improving local conditions, but in reality, it forcibly imposed martial law to suppress independence movements.
• The Anti-movements created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty to eliminate the "bourgeois class" through public informing and restricted access to work and housing for suspects.
• The Anti-landlord campaign involved land confiscation and redistribution to peasants, resulting in approximately 1 million landlord deaths in the early 1950s.
• A bloody land reform movement/campaign was launched with approximately 1 million killed in the early 1950s.
• Three anti-campaigns strengthened party controls and funds by targeting waste, corruption, and bureaucratism.
• launched 5 anti-campaigns which strengthened party controls & funds; anti-waste, anti-corruption, anti-bureaucratism
• Different anti-campaigns to pursue what were seen as problems; 1952, after 3 anti-campaigns, 5 antis launched: bribery, spying, tax evasion, fraud, theft

Korean War & Effects

• The PRC entered the war early out of fear of US marching into China, although it was overt a Mao Win
• The Korean War negatively impacted China's economic recovery by setting it back 10 years and strained Sino-Soviet relations, with China feeling like the true defender of communism.
• The war led to protection of Taiwan by the US.
• The local repression was underway with the excuse of ensuring a united front for Korea.

The 100 Flowers Movement

• The 100 Flowers Movement exposed critics and opposition within China allowing the party to round up hundreds of thousands after it was shut down.
• The aims were to ensure the CCP did not deviate from revolutionary path.
• The methods to achieve the aims were to invite criticism to members.
• The effects that followed were attacks on Mao and the arrests of "rightists" because Mao declared himself appalled by criticism.

Maintenance of Power

• Mao used propaganda to eliminate opposition and spread his ideology through China Central Television, People's Daily newspaper, 1.5 million propagandists, wall posters, discussion groups, and roadside loudspeakers.

• Lin Biao promoted a cult of personality around Mao through the "Little Red Book," which contributed to Mao's god-like status.

• Mao aimed to develop China as an industrial power, initially through a 5-year plan funded by the USSR, but later through the "Great Leap Forward" to rapidly grow the economy by having peasants produce food surpluses and workers produce steel.

• Mao thought China could surpass stages other nations underwent to industrialize, competing w/ US, USSR, etc.

• The first step of GLF was mass collectivization program where half a billion peasants were obliged to live and work in communes, leading to confusion, decreased crop yields, and famine from 1958 to 1962, resulting in approximately 40 million deaths.

• From 1958-1962, ≈40 million Chinese starved to death because of no open opposition.

• In 1949 CCP inflation rate = 1000%

• In 1951 inflation rates were reduced to 15% by: cuts in public spending, increased taxation on urban residents, replacing old Chinese $ w/ new currency, Yuan

• The Korean War had set up China as an ideological defender of communism however, Mao had emphasized China’s interp. Of Marxism specifically for China.

• Mao convinced Stalin wanted disunited China so USSR could be leader of Marxism in Asia.

• Mao convinced Stalin wanted disunited China so USSR could be leader of Marxism in Asia.

• The 1950 Sino-Soviet treaty gave loans to China, to be repaid at high interest. 10,000 Soviet economic & military advisers had to be paid for by PRC

• Mao places himself as the true defender of Marxism against classist imperialists when USSR eases tensions w/ the West.

• China ridicules USSR’s leadership of the world revolution as USSR capitulates to the American threat after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

• Meant more tense relations w/ USSR, but China committed nuclear program & was able to develop atomic bomb, 1964 & hydrogen bomb 4 yrs later named 59/6

• Territorial disputes led to a significant battle in 1969 which proved China’s ability to stand up to USSR

Cultural Revolution: Force and Treatment of Opposition

• Mao feared the communist party was infiltrated by revisionists plotting against a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie because of the GLP disaster where Xiaoping & Shaoqi put China back on path to recovery by relaxing Mao’s economic policies.

• Mao believed Party could only be maintained through “constant revolution” by teaching proletarians to rebel (May, 1966).

• The "Red Guards" attacked teachers and Party leaders, while Mao left Xiaoping and Shaoqi to deal with the guards.

• Schools shut down and kids sent to be revolutionaries. 130 million youth stopped attending school; education undermined, “lost generation”.

• The "Intensive terror campaign" Red Guards attacked on 4 olds: thought, habits, culture, custom and beat, tortured, scalded, burned people, even killing victims.

• The CCRG (Central Cultural Revolution) provided Red Guards with names and whereabouts of suspect officials and party members.

• There was widespread education and industry halt, as well as mini civil wars between rival factions which brought the Cultural Revolution to a halt.

• "Up to the mountains and down to the villages campaign” - “Learn the dignity of labor

• PLA carried out “cleansing the class ranks campaign 1968-1971” to continue the violence, wherein tens of thousands killed.

Social and Domestic Policies

• In 1949 CCP came into power, peasants were for the most part barely literate/completely illiterate (≈20% literacy rate).
• By mid 1950, a national system of primary education had been set up an led to increase in literacy rate.
• Language reform – PRC adopts reform of Chinese language in 1955 where new reform of written Mandarin (Pinyin) = widespread .Helps ppl. in PRC as there was no alphabet previously.
• By the end of 1976, the literacy rate increased to 70%, which was a huge propaganda victory for Mao.
• 130 mil. Chinese youth stop attending school &uni between 1966-1970 which was a downside to education that undermined & students went around beating up teachers/rejecting forms of traditional learning; known as “Lost Generation".
• Loagai stands for “reform through labor” and used as a storage place during Mao’s regime to store his political enemies, used as means of re-education for thoes Mao believed were against his ideas.
• Chinese industry made use gave a continuous supply of slave labor through concentration camps/ heavy, manual labor & hazardous projects, able to maximize resources through massive labor projects w/out having to pay wages/salary for labor.
• In women's rights policies, the first act of PRC: marriage law 1950 aimed to eliminate feudal practices like concubinage & Child betrothal emphasized free choice of partners, monogamy, equal rights for both sexes, respect for old, care for young.
• "women hold up half the sky” - Laws allowed to buy/sell land/property = progressive & called on to do the work of men which increased women in workforce from 8-32%.
• “women hold up half the sky” - Laws allowed to buy/sell land/property = progressive & called on to do the work of men which increased women in workforce from 8-32%.
• Infrequency w/ women being granted gov. & party posts (ex. 13% CCP were women).
• During cultural rev. Ownership of pirate property is now illegal against comm. society, contradicting law allowing women to own property previously.

The Arts

• Mao reshaped Chinese Culture by replacing existing culture w/ proletariat culture All forms of art required to support revolution and “no such thing as art for art for art’s sake, art that is detached from our independence of politics”.
• Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, became a “cultural purifier of the nation” by denouncing and suppressing the 4 olds.
• Rigid censorship of performance, performance w/out revolutionary notion, and Western music outlawed/restricted which created a generation without a culture.

Religion

• Mao strongly disliked religion, and banned all religions while rounding up leaders.
• Collectivization (1950s) destroyed pattern of rural life, so the following was outlawed, and replaced with required propaganda films: Song and dance at weddings/festivals, Sagas of wandering poets, “Patriotic Churches” allowed which pledged the themselves to Mao (posed issues)"
• During the Four Olds religious leaders were rounded up, where confucianism becomes term of abuse and was denounced as representing all that was worst in China.
• PLA sent into Tibet and Xinjiang during reunification campaigns

Healthcare Policies

• Before 1949, healthcare policies in rural China were basic/non-existent, so the CCP focused on prevention through "Patriotic Health Movements" that mobilized sanitation projects and educated peasants.
• Film, posters, ratios, & broadcasts all educated peasants
• Such diseases as smallpox, cholera, typhus,& Lebresy were eliminated & others such as TB greatly reduced
• This had an impact on medical clinics, hospitals, trained doctors & barefoot doctors.
• 1950s anti campaigns & Cultural Revolution attacked medical professionals as “Bourgeois” & many doctors denounced so there was inequality between rural and urban access to hospitals/healthcare, and GLF led to malnutrition & starvation, underdeveloped hospitals, and barefoot doctors that lacked expertise.