What impact did Mao have on the lives of the Chinese people from 1949 in the following areas: economic, social and political

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History Coursework – China

Question 1

What impact did Mao have on the lives of the Chinese people from 1949 in the following areas: economic, social and political

Introduction

On October 1st 1949, the Communists proclaimed the existence of a new kind of China – The People’s Republic of China. The only remaining part of China under Communist control was the island of Taiwan. The chairman of the Communist Party was Mao Zedong. Two days before the People’s Republic of China was announced, Communist Party leaders drew up a common programme that outlined the Party’s aims and intentions such as independence, democracy, peace, unity and prosperity. All sorts of problems got in the way of reaching these targets. Previously, there had been three years of civil war, which had left China in a mess. There were millions of peasants with not enough food and the population was rising by 15 million a year. Cities were in chaos and inflation had made the currency worthless. There was also a high level of unemployment. To add to this, there was also the threat of being attacked by the Guomindang in Taiwan. The major problem, however, was how to hold China together as a single, united country. I am going to research the effect Mao had on the Chinese people’s lives.

Economic Changes

Agriculture

   

The first three years of the people’s republic were a time of great change for almost all Chinese people. Firstly I am going to investigate how economic changes changed people’s lives. I shall start by writing about Agricultural changes and then Industrial changes.

On 30th June 1950 the Agrarian Reform Law was introduced to tackle the problem of land ownership. Previously, the Communists had started dividing land among peasants so by 1949 the process was already underway in many parts of the country. From 1950 Communist Party members travelled around the countryside teaching poor peasants how to work out the social class of the people in their community. They were divided into categories: landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants and poor peasants.

Poor peasants were encouraged to hold mass meeting where they could speak out about their poverty and about landlords who had treated them badly. Once a villager’s social class had been decided, land was taken from those who had more than they needed and given to those who had none. Over 300 million peasants benefited. However, life was not so good for the landlords. Over 40 per cent of their land had been taken. The poor peasants held ‘speak bitterness’ meetings which started getting violent and often led to the execution of landlords who had been particularly cruel to their tenants. Between two and four million landlords were killed.

 

Although poor peasants had been given land, many found they had no equipment to cultivate it. Therefore mutual aid teams of around ten households, which owned land, would share equipment and animals. This improved peasant’s lives greatly.

In the mid 50’s, there were serious food shortages and farmers had to sell 15 – 20 % of their land to the government at a fixed low price. They also had to pay an Agricultural tax on their produce. The Party leaders who toured the villages helping the poor peasants put the Agrarian Reform Law into action and collected the Agricultural tax.

The consequences of these changes meant that life was made better for poor peasants who gained land but had to work in groups as they had no equipment. Rich peasants lives, however, were made a lot worse as they had a lot of land taken from them and many were killed.

In 1953, as part of the first five year plan, the lower-stage co-operative was introduced. This was where 30-50 families put their land together to make one bigger, more efficient farm. Although the families still legally owned their plots of land, the land was on loan to the co-operative who paid rent for using it.

Higher stage co-operatives were later introduced and by the end of 1956, 95% of peasant families had joined them. They consisted of 200-300 families. The main difference was that they were not paid rent for the use of the land, therefore most of the 300 million peasants who had been given land and initially benefited from Mao’s changes, were in effect landless again. They were only allowed a few square metres for growing vegetables or keeping chickens. Peasants only received wages for their labour and had to surrender title deeds to their land, equipment and animals. This meant they owned nothing, and every peasant was equal. However, in the end this did not work out because the co-operatives were too large to manage and the land peasants had been given was taken away from them.

In the summer of 1958, Mao introduced a 2nd Five –Year Plan, running from 1958 to 1963. He wanted to make China into one of the worlds leading industrial nations, at the same time improving agriculture. His targets were to overtake the British economy in 15 years and the America economy in 20-30 years. This was known as the ‘Great Leap Forward’.

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Part of the Great Leap Forward was to organise the Chinese people into Communes. The speed at which they did this was astounding. By the end of 1958, 700 million people had been placed into 26,578 communes, which held about 5000 families each. All these families gave up their land, animals and equipment to be used by all members of the communes.

All sorts of things were organised so that as many people as possible worked. Four million communal dining halls were established so that people did not waste time cooking meals and worked instead. Several million children ...

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