By the late forties, the Communists were in control of most of the countryside. They had two main aims. The first was to improve the lives of the women; rich or poor. For the richer women, the first step they took was to abolish the traditional foot binding. For the poor, they abolished the murder of unwanted baby girls, the sale of women, and prostitution. A Women’s Association was set up, for any class of women, so they could get help about abusive husbands or father-in-laws.
While all this was going on, most of the cities were still under Kuomintang (KMT) rule. The KMT had made no changes to the way in which women lived, but many older, traditional women were happier like this. They didn’t want all these young people make them think for themselves, and make decisions about what they wanted.
Finally, in 1949 when the whole of China was bought under Communist rule, several laws were bought in for women. The first, in 1949, was women’s rights were to be equal to men. They were to have exactly the same privileges. The second, was the Marriage Law in 1950. Arranged marriages and the marriages of children were all bought to an end. The minimum age for marriage was fixed at eighteen for women, and twenty for men. Men and women now jointly owned the family and its property. The final law was in 1951. This entitled expectant mother to two months maternity leave of full wages after the birth of the child. This was for women of all status.
The main change for the life of women came in 1958 in The Great Leap Forward. This was the breakdown of a woman’s traditional role. Women no longer stayed at home and looked after the children and the older members of the family, or cooked meals. Instead, the population was split up into Communes. The old people went to ‘houses of happiness’, and the children went to nurseries and then to boarding schools. The whole commune ate together in big canteens. This gave the women the time to go out to work.
On the whole I think that the Communist revolution improved the life of the women between 1949 and the 1960s. They were no longer property, but were human beings who were treated as equals. They could now choose whom they wanted to marry, and were allowed to contribute to the countries industry.
On the other hand, they were not able to look after or even see their children for long periods of time. Surely this could not have been healthy? The children grew up in a school not knowing either of their parents. This destroyed all family values. The parents worked a twelve-hour day with no holidays. I think the Communists would have been even stronger, had they left at least some traditional family customs.
Peasants
There were several problems in the agricultural part of China in the 1940s. Firstly, throughout the Civil war and W.W.II, the agricultural out put had dropped drastically, due to peasants leaving the fields to go and fight. This totally destroyed the irrigation systems. The second problem was the country’s population was growing by over fifteen million per year. This caused food shortages and famine. The third problem was, the methods of agriculture were extremely backward. Everything was done by hand, and therefore took a lot longer.
To discuss the individual problems, it is easiest to split the peasants up into two groups. Landed peasants, and non landed peasants.
Before 1949, the peasants with no land didn’t really have a life worth living. Their live expectancy was short, due to their poor health. Disease was common. They lived on the poverty line. The farming was worse than medieval times; people had to pull the machinery instead of cattle. The landlords treated peasants like animals. They had no money and no property. If they didn’t work up to scratch and were fired and they would starve or freeze to death.
The landed peasants weren’t much better off. Even though they owned land, they didn’t have any machinery to work on it. Therefore, they ended up working for the landlords anyway. Almost all the money they earned from rent, they had to give to the government as tax. They were pretty lowly, but they had some self-respect.
The Communists first took over some countryside areas in the early forties. They immediately saw how they could gain the support of the peasants. They noticed how little of them actually owned land, and how unbearably high the taxes were. First, they arrested all of the Landlords, and split up their land equally among all the peasants, reducing all taxes and rents. This proved to be popular, but the next problem was the peasants didn’t have any machinery to work this land they had suddenly be given. In 1951, the Mutual Aid Teams were set up. This was an organisation, which encouraged the peasants to join together to share machinery and animals. Also, to avoid another food shortage, the peasants had to sell about twenty percent of their produce to the government at a considerably low price. They had to pay tax on this, which stopped the peasants from thriving. This worked for about five years, and then they decided to encourage peasants to join what they called ‘Lower Stage Cooperatives’. This was when about fifty families put all their land together to make one, big, efficient farm. Even though the families still legally owned their plot of land, it was on permanent loan to the cooperative, which paid the families rent. Even though the peasants got paid for their land use, they were no longer their own bosses. They were once again in a big organisation under the government’s rule. They weren’t independent, and didn’t produce their own food. It was shared among fifty families. This wasn’t great, but then Mao declared that the lower-stage cooperatives were to merge into higher-stage cooperatives. These were much bigger than the lower-stage cooperatives. They consisted of up to three hundred families. Families did not get paid rent for the use of their land, just wages in return for their labour. The peasants not only lost their land, animals and equipment, which they had been given a few years previous, but the also lost their status and self-respect. At the same time as this, the government introduced a new movement called the ‘Great Leap Forward’. The only part of this, which effected the peasants, was the ‘backyard campaigns’. If they did not take part, they were seen as reactionaries (opposed to the Communists). These campaigns took all of the peasants away from the fields, causing a huge famine. Mao finally saw what a bad idea it was and stopped, but it was too late. Over five million people had already died.
I think on the whole, the Communist Revolution did not succeed in making the peasants lives particularly better. To begin with, the Communists made a huge improvement, but by the Great Leap Forward, they were back to their old ways; not owning anything, and living on the poverty line. Had Mao not seeked more power and made orders he later regretted, then things may have been different.
Landlords and Businessmen
Before the Communist revolution, China had been a big place for businessmen and Landlords (until the early forties). Most of the major cities had been under the control of the KMT, right up to 1949, where as the countryside had been taken over much earlier. This was where most of the businessmen worked and lived. These were very respected men, who usually owned their own businesses. The KMT supported them, so they felt safe.
Pre 1940s, the Landlords had had unlimited power. They could treat the peasants as they liked and demand however much rent or crops from them as they wished. By the early 1940s most landlord areas were under Communist rule. This meant big trouble! The Communists believed in equal rights. This meant the landlords had to go. They had all their land taken from them, their power and their money. Many were arrested and a good fair share were executed. As well as this, they also had trouble from the Japanese in Yanan. Landlords in these areas were treated in similar ways. Those who were left were treated equally with the peasants.
After the revolution, though all landlords had been demoted, the government did not get rid of all the businessmen. This was because, if China was to become the world’s biggest industrial nation, they would need intellectuals to run the financial side of the country.
In 1950, all major banks, the railway network, and a third of all heavy industry became state property. This put a lot of men out of business, making them peasants. In 1953, the first 5-year plan was set up, announcing no property was privately owned, it all belonged to the government.
In 1956, the hundred Flowers campaign was launched. This encouraged everyone to tell the government what they thought of it. Those who dared to speak were immediately arrested and most were killed. This was a test. Mao managed to get rid of all his biggest threats by offering them the freedom of speech.
The Communist revolution was definitely not an improvement on the lives of the Landlords and Businessmen. They were stripped of their riches, and ended up living a life of poverty, if they lived at all.
Overall, I conclude that the Communist Revolution did not improve the living standards of the population. Women were given equal rights, but they were made to go out and work all hours as a consequence. Peasants were given land, just to have it taken away from them several years later. Mao should have been a Nationalist. He had a lust for power, and ended up as a dictator, deciding what was happening to the country by himself. Had the Communists stuck to their original aims, I think things would have worked out, but they didn’t and the Chinese people suffered as a consequence.
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Bibliography
Reigate Grammar School history section - notes on ‘China under Mao’
Josh Brooman – China Since 1900
Ben Walsh – Modern World History
