How Had The Lives Of Women, Landlords, Businessmen And Peasants Improved During The First Stage Of Communist Control In China 1949 - aprox. 1962?
History Coursework 2001 : Tom AbouNader :
How Had The Lives Of Women, Landlords, Businessmen And Peasants Improved During The First Stage Of Communist Control In China 1949 - aprox. 1962?
The 29 of September 1949 was the year in which the Communists took control over the soon to be "Peoples Republic Of China." What faced them was a country ravaged by war from overseas invasion and from civil unrest. These years of war had taken their toll on the country's infrastructure, terrain and output. Inflation was huge, and at the end of 1948 it was around 2,870,00% due to the effects of a continued state of civil war, the Wall Street crash, the damage done by the invading Japanese, the fleeing Chiang Kai Shek and also from Russian revolutionaries who stole much important machinery. Because of this rapid inflation many people lost all savings and also in some cases their homes and jobs. Unemployment was huge, and starvation was setting in because of the damage to farmland and casualties to peasants. Despite this; the population was increasing by around 15 million per annum, and this was in addition to the already present 540 million Chinese. China had reached a point where it had nearly rendered itself extinct as a working country.
Prior to Communist control in China, many things had been very different. The previous capitalist government had been corrupt and lacked discipline. One party that saw much change upon the defeat of the Kuomingtang and the election of Mao Tse-tung, was the women of China. Preceding the communists, women had been classed as far below men. They had no rights - political or humanitarian, which gave them no say in anything. In some of the poorer families women were especially ill-treated to the extent if money was short, a man may sell his wife of daughter as a concubine, slave or prostitute. Many female babies were drowned at birth as they were unwanted and deemed a burden. Upon surviving birth, large numbers were saddled with arranged marriages to men who were most probably already in the tenure of more than one wife. Women were treated as the possessions of men, and were regarded as domestic servants. Things were to change though as according to Mao's "Common Programme" women "...shall enjoy equal rights with men..."
In April 1950 the Marriage Law was introduced. This brought an end to much of many womens' suffering, as it abolished arranged marriages, bigamy, the marriage of children and the killing of unwanted girl babies. In addition to this family property was jointly owned between husband and wife, contra to the husband owning everything. Divorce by mutual consent was now an option and a minimum age of marriage was initiated - 18 for women and 20 for men. However upon looking at the figures of Divorce by Mutual Consent, we can see that the law was not used with as much potency as might have been expected. Out of the 70 million couples only 1 million obtained divorces; and one may draw some different conclusions to this; either most of the couples were happily married or even if a man's wife wanted to get a divorce, it was still in her husbands control whether to accept the divorce or not. This was a major fault in the Divorce by Mutual Consent clause of the Marriage Law.
Previously women had been conditional to foot binding which was also annulled. One other law in February 1951 ordained that expectant mothers should receive full wages for 2 months after child birth. This was a huge improvement on the previous situation for women and was accepted with great rapture. However Mao's saying "Women Hold Up Half The Sky" really only applied to those women in populated communist controlled areas, and in some remote rural sections, life for women continued as methodically traditional as usual. Nevertheless the statement that women were equal to men was taken literally in some ...
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Previously women had been conditional to foot binding which was also annulled. One other law in February 1951 ordained that expectant mothers should receive full wages for 2 months after child birth. This was a huge improvement on the previous situation for women and was accepted with great rapture. However Mao's saying "Women Hold Up Half The Sky" really only applied to those women in populated communist controlled areas, and in some remote rural sections, life for women continued as methodically traditional as usual. Nevertheless the statement that women were equal to men was taken literally in some cases and did not always benefit women as they had expected. For example women peasants were made to do much the same hard labour jobs as men, and were also expected to physically carry out these tasks with the same yield. This was just one example of the way in which this law was exploited. One great irony of the Marriage Law was Mao himself, who had 3 separate marriages, each overlapping one of the others. However being the Head of State he used available powers to remove all traces of these actions - he effectively erased his past. All in all however most women profited from the communist take-over and found themselves in a much better public position than they had previously been sample to. Women's social status had been greatly increased to that of a male "Equal." But as stated before, at the start of the communist rule, there was a big difference between the execution of Mao's new laws in the highly populated areas such as Beijing and the far rural reaches on the edge of Chinese territory.
Another group of people affected by the communist take over, were the Landlords and Businessmen. Both of these groups were already disliked by the communists as they represented the capitalist section of China which went against the rudimentary socialist principles. Landlords were naturally disliked because they had previously had power over the peasant, to the extreme of even taking possession of any female peasant as a concubine. In addition to this - many of the richer landlords were Kuomingtang members which was an obviously dangerous thing to have been during communist rule. Fiercely opposing the red take-over of nationalist China, the KMT had been the communists number one persecutor for many a year. Retribution was dire for the Landlords, those rich or relatively poor, the principles and denunciation were the same and according to the newly drawn up "Common Programme" the state would "...severely punish all Kuomingtang counter-revolutionary war criminals... feudal landlords... [and] capitalists..." Upon the start of the Red Dawn, various mass meetings were held for peasants to "Speak Bitterness" against previous or neighbouring landlords. This was something like a trial by accusation for the landlords and in some cases also for KMT officials. In these meetings the indicted were usually humiliated, made to confess to crimes and/or forced to take a lowly place in the community. They were stripped of their status, privileges, political rights and of all their previously owned land(which was later collectively split and divided among the peasants.) In some cases the accused was sentenced to death and shot. Meetings would sometimes get out of hand and become violent towards the particular person on "Trial". This sometimes led to severe beatings and frequently death. After only one year of communist control; deaths of around 1million landlords, KMT officials and members were estimated.
Businessmen had also been badly affected by the ongoing civil war and the eventual communist take-over. Much of the country's industry had been destroyed through war, invasion and Russian "liberation". Many remaining businesses were simply taken over by the government; owners were not allowed to draw any profit, except in sparse cases where profit was extremely limited. Mao released his first "Five Year Plan" where he decreed businesses were to optimise and increase output on all industrial fronts; putting increasing pressure on businessmen's shoulders to perform to the maximum. Quality was sacrificed for quantity. Businesses were made to pay an increased rate of tax, and were also dictated sale-prices set at low rates to help inflation. Firms were forced into bankruptcy and fell into state control. Many businessmen were disliked in much the same way as the landlords were - for their capitalist policies of self gain. Owners were even forced to confess to crimes fronting the 3 and 5 Antis campaigns against corruption, waste, bureaucratisation (3 Antis); bribery, tax evasion, fraud, theft and selling secrets to foreigners (5 Antis); that in most cases were totally erroneous. This was called "Ruthless High-pressure Gradualisation." Black marketers were punished severely. By 1953, 86% of businesses were under at least partial government control. Banks were nationalised as well as railways and around a third of all heavy industry. This was a successful attempt to stabilise the national economy. Factory owners and the like, were forced to portray numerous amounts of pro-Mao propaganda aimed to alert the people to any anti-Communists.
Landlords and businessmen were heavily affected by the socialist take over. Under previous governments they had prospered, gaining wealth and status. However now the opposite was true. After 1949 they were deprived of status, job, basic rights and in some cases their lives.
Unlike Women, Landlords and Businessmen; describing the changes brought upon the Peasants by the successful communist revolution; is not as straightforward as it may seem on the surface. Many things happened to the peasants that had multiple effects on their lives from the start. When Mao started out he realised that the way to power was through the multitude of peasants that made up most of China's population. If he could gain the support of the masses he could effectively control China. Much of Communist propaganda was aimed at the peasants in a great attempt to win them over.
After the defeat of the KMT, Mao's promises were found to be genuine, as in addition to solving the ever-growing food problem and gradually repairing the damage to the country's infrastructure, Mao laid down the plans for the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950. Between 1950-52 each peasant household was designated a plot from a immense 47million hectares of land - mostly confiscated from indicted Landlords. With this massive re-allotment of land peasants seemed to have come out unmistakably better off. Once classed as the low of the low, they now found themselves respected and treated as equals to people who had previously held them in utter disregard. Unfortunately all was not as it seemed. From 1952-56 the peasants were persuaded into a small scale collectivisation of their land toward "Mutual Aid Teams" of around 7-10 families. Animals and tools were shared but each family continued to own its land. Collectivisation continued, and the Mutual Aid Teams were combined into "Lower Stage Co-operatives", which were run in much the same way except land was farmed co-operatively, peasants being paid for their percent of land owned. Finally by 1956, 95% of peasants became part of what was known as "Higher Stage Co-operatives". This entailed around 100-300 families working together again in much the same way as in L.S.C. In addition to the co-operative farming, the peasants were encouraged to sell their land, and any peasants in contra to this "suggestion" were few and far between. The peasants had effectively lost the deeds of their land, to the person who had given them it in the first place - Mao.
During the process of collectivisation, Mao had taken a great interest into the production of Heavy Industry. From 1953-57 Mao organised his "First Five Year Plan". This was to give Heavy Industry priority on any funds received, and priority on construction resources. Aims were set high for a huge increase in industrial produce. Mao decided to gain extra funds for this plan by taxing the peasants. The plan had incorporated the collectivisation of land given out by the Agrarian Reform Law and had used this to maximise food output, to compensate for the extra amount of people migrating from working in the fields to working on the new Heavy Industrial sites. From this success Mao decided to organise a second five year plan: the "Great Leap Forward". This plan had aims not only to increase industry but also agriculture. What came next was effectively an advancement on the Higher Stage Co-operatives: peasant families were organised in to mammoth work forces of around 5000 families. This was to maximise work output on new construction projects, effectively pumping steroids into the country's economic growth. During the Great Leap Forward (1958) there were a smaller but still widespread projects to increase industrial commodities such as cement and fertiliser. Emphasis was put on steel production in a Back Yard Steel campaign, which unconsciously over-occupied many peasants' time on their search for scrap steel. The effect of this, in conjunction with severe droughts in 1960-61 led to huge almost self inflicted food shortages from 1959-61. Mao had failed to find the balance between the rate of agricultural and industrial advancement, the consequence of this was the death of 10-25 million people, most of which were the peasants. The peasants were the hands on the end of Mao's arms doing his binding at whatever cost, and at the end of it all, what had they gained? They themselves were still peasants, were still tied to manual labour and still had not really gained any social height. But their devotion to Mao blinded them from this in many cases, and they continued to do his biding.
All in all the peasants, women, landlords and businessmen all lost and gained from the communists, although admittedly in many cases what they gained was in fact exactly what they lost. What Mao brought was in some ways a strong dictatorship hidden behind a veil of socialism. Mao utilised the peasants in ways they could not discern or perceive and manipulated their actions to his wishes. Consequently he brain-washed a nation into devout Mao obsessives and used them as tools and fertiliser in his metaphorically blooming garden. Nonetheless he had acclaimed popularity and was well on his way to deification. In short Mao cheated all of these groups out of something, but the way in which he did this was just subtle enough not to cause uproar in his newly united country.
Word Count : 2036words
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Bibliography:
China Since 1900 : Josh Brooman
China Under Mao : Reigate Grammar School
Wild Swans : Jung Chiang
Modern Word History : Ben Walsh
Video Material: One Mans Revolution
Red Dynasty - China Under Mao
Page: 1 03/08/2003
