Topic 2 - Agricultural and Industrial Change - The Communes and Their Organisation

Question 1

Organisation of the Communes - How was Mao feeling by 1956 and what did he believe should happen next?

Answer 1

• By 1956, Mao was pleased with the creation of the coops
• Believed the Party should introduce the next stage of collectivisation – the movement into massive communes

Question 2

Organisation of the Communes - What did Mao believe was a signal that the path was right?

Answer 2

Mao believed that the progress made with MATs and PACs was a signal that his desire to increase the pace of collectivisation, in contrast to the cautionary pace advocated by his colleagues, was correct

Question 3

Organisation of the Communes - What was the policy called and what did it involve?

Answer 3

‘Walking on two legs’ would see an increase in both agricultural and industrial production

Question 4

Organisation of the Communes - How big was each commune roughly, when was the first commune, and what was it called?

Answer 4

• Each commune contained approximately 5,500 households
• First commune organised in Henan province in July 1958 – named Sputnik province in honour of the first ever satellite which had been launched by the USSR

Question 5

Communal living - What did Mao believe would happen to the standard of living in communes and what did he feel would be supplied?

Answer 5

• Mao believed standard of living of the peasants would improve on the communes because they would be self-sufficient
• Items in constant short supply such as toothbrushes and rope would be produced

Question 6

Communal living - What would be provided in the communes? (3)

Answer 6

• Mess halls would provide food
• Creches and schools would help with childcare and education – special benefit to women as they would be free from the burden of childcare
• Grandparents would be sparred from looking after their grandchildren, enjoying their old age in special ‘happiness homes’

Question 7

Communal living - How did communal living turn out? (Creches, parents, food halls, diets, women)

Answer 7

• Communal living turned out to be a disaster
• Creches were poorly organised with under qualified staff
• Parents were forced to work long hours
• Eating in food halls destroyed the family traditions of eating together
• Food was poor and diets worsened
• Women were now expected to undertake harsh physical labour

Question 8

Communal living - What did Mao believe was the problem causing the lack of production increase and what did this lead to?

Answer 8

• When production didn’t increase as Mao wanted, he believed it was because vermin were eating all the grain
• Led to the ‘Four Pests’ campaign that compelled peasants to exterminate sparrows, rats, flies, and mosquitos

Question 9

Communal living - What were the peasants told to do as part of the ‘Four Pests’ campaign and what did this inadvertently lead to?

Answer 9

• Peasants told to bang pots and pans or drums to scare the birds away or stop them from landing – led to birds falling out of the sky from exhaustion
• However, the sparrows ate insects and without the insects there was a plague of locusts that ate the harvest

Question 10

The abolition of private farming - How many peasants have been moving into communes by the end of 1958?

Answer 10

By the end of 1958, the Party claimed that 99% of the peasant pop had been moved into communes – almost half a billion people

Question 11

The abolition of private farming - What was banned by the Party in 1958? (4)

Answer 11

• Private ownership of property was outlawed
• Livestock could not be owned – had to be shared with the commune
• Selling of private produce was denounced by the Party as evidence of ‘rural capitalism’
• All markets where farmers could make extra money through the selling of private produce were banned

Question 12

The abolition of private farming - What did each commune organise?

Answer 12

Every commune organised a militia that prevented people from selling any food or goods

Question 13

The abolition of private farming - Overall - What happened to the private farming system in China?

Answer 13

The private farming system that had dominated Chinese rural life for generations was completely destroyed

Question 14

Lysenkoism - Who was Lysenko?

Answer 14

Trofim Lysenko was a Soviet agrobiologist whose ideas had been supported by Stalin in the 1930s

Question 15

Lysenkoism - What did Mao adopt in the mid 1950s?

Answer 15

In the mid 1950s, Mao adopted many of Lysenko’s ideas and made them official gov policy

Question 16

Lysenkoism - What was the impact of Lysenkoism on Chinese agriculture?

Answer 16

Some of the methods advocated was catastrophic for Chinese agriculture

Question 17

Lysenkoism - Example of a policy put forward by Lysenko?

Answer 17

Lysenko incorrectly claimed that crop yields would be increased of seeds were exposed to moisture and low temps before they were planted deep in the ground and close together

Question 18

Lysenkoism - What was the impact of Lysenkoism in China?

Answer 18

Lysenkoism proved to be completely fraudulent, causing crop yields to plummet dramatically and helping to unleash the disastrous famine of 1958-62

Question 19

The Great Famine of 1958-62 - What caused agricultural production to drop?

Answer 19

Peasants had little incentive to work hard and were exhausted by long hours of work or chasing away pests in the ‘Four Pests’ campaign – led to agricultural production dropping drastically

Question 20

The Great Famine of 1958-62 - How did Party cadres contribute to this and what did this lead to with Party bosses?

Answer 20

• Party cadres in the communes did not want to be seen as failures or to criticise the communes – they had seen what had happened during the Hundred Flowers campaign – so they greatly inflated reports of what the communes produced
• In turn, the Party bosses, believing that there was plenty of food, set even higher production quotas
• So bad was the misunderstanding that land was left fallow because the Party believed that there would be too much food to store, while ‘excess’ food was sent abroad to fellow Communist countries as free gifts

Question 21

The Great Famine of 1958-62 - What did peasants do to survive?

Answer 21

• Starving peasants launched desperate attacks on food stores
• Anyone caught stealing food was sentenced to death
• People ate frogs, worms, or the bark off trees
• Outbreaks of cannibalism and men sold their wives into prostitution for food

Question 22

The Great Famine of 1958-62 - What was the impact of fertility rate and diseases?

Answer 22

• Birth rates plummeted as women’s fertility dropped
• Many, particularly children and the elderly, died of diseases they could not resist due to malnourishment

Question 23

The Great Famine of 1958-62 - What was the famine made worse by?

Answer 23

Famine was made worse by terrible weather including flooding in South China and drought in North China

Question 24

The Great Famine of 1958-62 - How many people died in the famine approximately?

Answer 24

Although the exact figure are unknown, it is estimated that approximately 30-50 million people died during the Great Famine of 1958-62

Question 25

The restoration of private farming by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping - What did the famine do to Mao and what happened to the running of the country after this?

Answer 25

Famine was an embarrassment to Mao, and Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping took greater control over the running of the country

Question 26

The restoration of private farming by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping - What did Liu and Deng do, what was the motto changed to, and what happened to the size of communes?

Answer 26

• Pragmatists, they quickly moved to restore farming
• They replaced ‘walking on two legs’ with the motto ‘agriculture as the foundation of the economy’
• Communes reduced in size and peasants allowed to farm small private plots

Question 27

The restoration of private farming by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping - What were peasants allowed to do under the new rules?

Answer 27

• If they found unused, they were allowed to farm on it
• They could decide what to grow and how much fertiliser to use
• They could trade food at markets

Question 28

The restoration of private farming by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping - What did the Party send?

Answer 28

The Party sent emergency supplies of insecticides, fertilisers, and tools to the farms

Question 29

The restoration of private farming by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping - What happened to agricultural production by 1965?

Answer 29

By 1965, agricultural production had recovered from the disastrous GLF, returning to the same level as 1957