Did Mao Create A Cruel Dictatorship ?

There are no two ways about it, in the later years of Mao’s rule, he did create a cruel dictatorship. However when considering the overall opinion of him, to make a judgement, we must look at his entire reign and weigh up the good and bad. For example before Mao china had very little economy, and the poor were getting ever poorer and the rich were getting richer. During the period October 1949 until his death in 1976 china grew, in leaps and bounds socially, economically and agriculturally. Mostly down to the work of Mao.

When Mao first took over and announced his vision for a new peaceful china in October of 1949, China was a war-torn, starving and backwards country. And re-building china after foreign occupation and civil war was to be a huge challenge. Unemployment was high, and there were mass food shortages. Life expectancy was only 40 years, and there was also raging inflation.

Mao had the support of the peasants, and although they disliked change, he felt he could achieve his aim. In 1950 Mao introduced the agrarian reform law, where he sent party workers out to share land between peasants, a privilege they had never had before. The next problem Mao was faced with was, the food shortage. He created Co-ops, and although this helped it did not solve the problem of the quickly rising population, but slowly rising food production, Mao’s next step in combating this was to set up mutual aid teams, where peasants worked on each others land, he provided extra fertiliser and more tools to reward families who grew more food. From 1953 Mao encouraged peasants to form Co-ops, under this system land was jointly owned by so one large crop could be grown efficiently, and resources could be pooled. There was opposition from many peasants who didn’t want to give up the land that they fought for. However local CCP workers put pressure on them to join, and by 1957 over 90% of the peasants belonged to a co-operative.

At the time Mao took over China was faced with economic and industrial chaos. The first task was to tackle this. To do this he took many steps. Firstly he took over banks and very soon China’s currency had stabilised, next he ordered wages and prices to be fixed at a low rate. He punished black marketers severly, and within one year inflation had ended The next step he took was to increase taxes paid by business’s.

Railway links had been destroyed in the war, Mao made it a priority to re-build them, so that coal could be brought ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Railway links had been destroyed in the war, Mao made it a priority to re-build them, so that coal could be brought from the northern coal field to the Chinese industries, Within months Mao had restored rail links to the biggest city in China, Shang-hai.

Solving existing problems was not enough for Mao, who wanted China to become a super-power, at first he moved slowly, but in 1953 the state took over all business’s, it planned and organised what was to be produced, although he kept the owners on as managers. In 1953 Mao also started the first of his five year plans, with the help of USSR he began ambitious programmes to build new industries. Thousands of Russian scientist and engineers, supervised 1 000 000’s of Chinese on ever 700 projects, at the same time 1 000’s of Chinese were sent for education at soviet universities and colleges. The focus was on heavy industries - steel, coal, chemicals. The plan was that these raw materials would build planes, trains, and engines which would improve transport throughout China. The 5 year plan achieved outstanding results, the highly motivated workers, surpassed all of Mao’s targets. From these figures on the graph we can see how Mao improved the Economy of China.( previous page )

That wasn’t all, during the 1950’s Mao attempted to modernise and reform many other aspects of life in China.

Health care became free, although medicine wasn’t very advanced, the emphasis was on prevention rather than cure.
Cities were cleaned up, each family had to produce one rat tail per week to show there effort.
Women gained rights. They could now divorce men, and Mao banned marriage, he also opened nurseries for children allowing women to join the work force.
There was a literacy drive, where party workers taught villagers basic education, and by 1960’s 90% of China’s population had basic level of eduction

Mao had 1 500 000 propagandist, who spread good things about him, anyone who disagreed, or showed signs of anti-communist were sent for re-education, Propaganda was at every corner. With radio speakers, loud speakers on the roadsides, and posters littered all aver the place. People had to accept it. Here is an example of one of the posters that would have been spread around Everybody learned to hide their true feelings. They learned to say and do as the party wanted them to. A good example of this false patriotism, is when Mao took a disliking to sparrows, the loyal Chinese followed suit and waged a big war against them, and killed them left, right and centre.

In 1956 Mao allowed the Chinese to express there views on how China was being ran. He allowed people to critisise him, he said “let 100 flowers bloom.” However he was deeply upset, when floods of criticism poored in. and in june 1957, he quickly ended the hundred flowers movement. Large numbers of people were arrested, re-educated, and lost their jobs. Mao believed that China had become backwards looking again, and needed a new revolution to inspire the people, he thought that this was the time for China to make the Great Leap Forward. He wanted ordinary people in small villages to perform small scale industry in there own back yards, as it were. The co-ops were now merged together as vast communes, which were set, economic targets as well as farming. He wanted China’s steel production to equal that of the U.K’s in 15 years time.

Mao abolished private land and property altogether. Family life was replaced with shared canteens, barracks and dormitories, within each commune there were 600 – 1 000 people Brigades were divided into teams of 50 – 200 who would carry out work. By the end of 1958, most of China’s population belonged to on of the 40 000 communes.

At first it appeared that the Great Leap Forward was a huge success, with steel production doubling in the first year, in actual fact it was disasterous failure. In 1960 Mao quarrelled with the Russian leader, who subsequently withdrew his advisors from China. The Chinese were commited, but didn’t have the expertise to work. Massive amounts of iron were produced, but nearly all was brittle, impure and useless. Farming wasn’t any better, as the commune system meant rewards were not given for hard work. So many didn’t work. And in the 1960’s there was 2 years of drought. It is estimated that between 1958 and 1962 in excess of 30 000 000 people died. Many false claims by Mao were now becoming apparent. And Mao was edged out of leadership by Deng Xio Ping and Lui Shao-qi. Who gave back the peasants their land.

Mao resigned as president in 1959, however he remained as chairman of the CCP. By the mid 60’s he was becoming concerned about the direction China seemed to be taking. The class divede was slowly creeping back. He began to take a more active role and by 1966 lots of posters were distributed and everyone was given a little red book free. Mao called for the young people of china to rise up and ride China of anti communists.Deng was forced to become a waiter and Lui was imprisoned where he died 3 years later.

Over the next 3 years the Cultural revolution plunged China into deeper crisis, Mao told the students to form the red guard. And they were to seek out anti communist, but it failed. Teachers were tortured. Factories, schools and offices were ransacked. Homes were broken into. And China’s culture was destroyed.1 000’s of innocent people were killed. By 1967 the cultural revolution was rapidly spinning out of control. And in 1968 the PLA stepped in and stopped it. As a result of the Cultural Revolution 1 000 000 people died, and china lost all its heritage and economy. Total faith was lost in the CCP and Mao.

The red guard we sent to work in the country, and after the cultural revolution there was a power struggle, with Lin plotting to kill Mao in 1971, but Mao getting there first. Mao was now on his own, and finally died in 1976. his wife and 2 supporters were then arrested and that was the end of the line for Mao. Although he is still remembered today.

We cannot judge whether Mao was a cruel dictator. Because, in the beginning he did many good things, he lead the people to revolution, he brought a generation literacy, he gave the people land, he cleaned China up, he gave the country an econonomy, he saved China from Chaing- Kai Shek, he gave normal people power, he was a great military leader, he lead a 3000 mile march of 100 000 men, he gave women rights, he gave free health care to all of China, and a rail network for trade. Today people still read the little red book, and remember his remarkable swim down the yankee river. However we cannot ignore the fact that he killed in excess of 30 000 000 people in 2 years, after creating an economy and giving people land, he then took it away or destroyed it.

The conclusion that I can reach from all this, is that Mao started out a saviour to China, a wonderful leader, and in many peoples eyes he was God. But the power got to his head in the later years, and his wonderful empire went to ruins around him, because of his silly actions. And then desparate to re-claim them, he turned into a dictator, some may even say a tyrant !

By Daniel Rogers

1686 words