Mao Consolidation of Power

Question 1

GMD errors at the start of Mao’s rule

Answer 1

• Failure to defeat CCP led many to question long-term ability
• Putting CCP over Jp in threat level leads to lost patriotic support
• Lost popularity due to treatment of peasants

Question 2

Factors of CCP success

Answer 2

Military: Guerilla warfare, capturing of enemy weapons, recruiting peasants
Politically: Mao presented war as a national struggle, effective GMD infiltration
Economically: Land reform, assists peasants, food distribution, fairer taxes
Foreign Aid: Soviet military aid

Question 3

Factors of GMD failure

Answer 3

Military: Low morale, focussed too far from base of support
Politically: Increasingly repressive, failed to gain the support of workers and peasants
Economically: Corrupt, unfair taxation, rampant inflation
Foreign Aid: Impact of association/dependence on the USA

Question 4

How did Mao achieve his position in the CCP

Answer 4

Achieved a position of predominance due to:
- Survival in early battles and infighting
- Fragmented nature of China let him experiment with rural communism 1941-43
- Uses campaigns and movements to consolidate
- Ideas popular with peasants, played down communist ideology

Question 5

Problems faced by the CCP in 1949 (at the end of the CW)

Answer 5

• Formal announcement didn’t solidify communist authority
• Millions dead, economy in ruin, government chaos
• Less support in cities among middle classes

Question 6

Problems faced by the CCP once taking power (REGALDS)

Answer 6

Lawlessness: about 1m bandits, warlords control areas
Administrative Chaos: experience officials leave with GMD, only 750k cadres
Economy: no stable currency, hyperinflation, skilled personnel fled to Taiwan
Damaged Transport: Rural and urban areas separated
GMD Threat: Harassment through raids on cities
Rift with West: Alienated, rely on USSR
Ideology: few understood ideology and goals

Question 7

Stabilization of Power

Answer 7

• wanted to “arouse the masses of the people”to cooperate in a ‘democratic centralism’ system
• seized property of fled GMD, public utilities
• middle classes remained after invited to stay in their current positions under Mao
• economic regulation, taxes raised, new currency

Question 8

“Resist America, Aid Korea” Campaign

Answer 8

• 1950
• Execution of 28k suspected counter-revolutionaries in one province alone
• Mass rallies organized to draw peasants into frenzy of suspicion

Question 9

Oppressive political control

Answer 9

• Labour camps with 1.5m inmates
• Danwei: neighbourhood/work groups used for surveillance, implementing ‘thought reform’, 2-3m committed suicide due to humiliation
• Encouraged trade unions, Communist Youth League, Women’s Federation
• PLA suppressed bandits, 100k killed
• ‘learn from PLA’ campaign enforced soldier like attributes

Question 10

Antis Campaigns

Answer 10

• 3 Antis-Campaign 1951, against corruption, waste and obstruction
• 5 Antis-Campaign 1952, against bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating gov’t contracts, economic espionage
• Victims subjected to ‘struggle sessions’

Question 11

What were the only territories not under CCP control by 1950?

Answer 11

GB Hong Kong, Portugese Macao, Outer Mongolia, Taiwan. Plans to take Taiwan called off due to Korea. Tibetan resistance took 6 months to crush

Question 12

How many CCP members were there by 1954

Answer 12

6.1m, no shortage of officials now

Question 13

Mao’s Cult of Personality

Answer 13

All were to know quotes from The Little Red Book by heart as ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ could solve all their problems

Question 14

Fenby HSQ

Answer 14

People were a blank sheet, mere numbers to be used as the leader saw fit

Question 15

Propaganda

Answer 15

The CCP “set about it … more intensively than have other ruling groups” Bradbury
- Lei Feng, fictitious icon
- loudspeakers in every village

Question 16

Political control 54-76

Answer 16

• Cadres ran schools and universities
• 1954 constitution developed a justice system based on USSR, ‘peoples lawyers’ and trials
• Not practiced until after Mao dies
• Mostly show trials

Question 17

Hundred Flowers 1956-57

Answer 17

• Lifted censorship, encouraged ‘constructive’ criticism
• “Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress”
• May-June 57, many letters and Democratic Wall at Beijing Uni
• Reimposed censorship

Question 18

Anti-Rightist Campaign

Answer 18

• July 1957
• After hundred flowers, half a million branded as ‘rightists’
• Faced beatings imprisonment and labour, many committed suicide

Question 19

Mao’s public disappearance

Answer 19

• 1959, after Great Leap Forward failure, Mao leaves to ‘plan’
• Purges continued despite being gone, ex. Peng Dehuai in july
• Also feared ‘communist road’ denounced Deng and Liu for moderate policies

Question 20

Cultural Revolution and Deng

Answer 20

• 1966-76
• Group of Five (started cultural rev.) purged, replaced with Gang of Four (including Maos wife)
• Launch ‘criticize Deng and oppose the rehabilitation of right-leaning elements’ as Deng supports Group of Five
• Zhous dies in 1976, Deng wants to be PM, Mao purges him, but when Mao dies, Deng takes power 78-92

Question 21

Opposition and Historiography

Answer 21

• main targets of bourgeois and intellectuals
• Creates Central Investigation Dept. in CCP, Inteligence wing of PLA, Central case examination group
• 1951, residence permits required for all over 15
• Chang and Halliday say struggle session separated Mao from others, public humiliation v. secret police

Question 22

Labour Camps

Answer 22

• Aided by Russian advisors, like gulags
• Called Laogai
• On average 10m per year in camps, by 1976 10k camps existed
• Many died from hunger, ill-treatment or suicide
• Families shunned by association

Question 23

Repressions

Answer 23

• 1959 purge of Gao and Rao
• Gao aimed for PM, urged, committed suicide
• Rao, associate with Gao, purged and imprisoned
• “today he uses sweet words … to those he entices; tomorrow he puts them to death for fabricated crimes” - Lin Biaos Son

Question 24

Relations with USSR

Answer 24

• Treaty in 1950 for military and economic aid (facade)
• Korea showed limits of USSR, China paid for military involvement
• Citizens accept ‘brother russia’ until Krushchevs ‘peaceful coexistence’ with the west
• USSR supports India in Sino-Indian war in 62
• Cuban Missile crisis leads to propaganda war in 63

Question 25

Relations with America

Answer 25

• USA portrayed as ‘paper tigers’, children chant “Death to the American imperialists and all their running dogs”
• Campaigns peaked in 63 due to Vietnam
• 1971, PRC recognized by UN
• ‘ping-pong diplomacy’ leads to talks with USA
• Nixon visits Beijing in 1972

Question 26

Reunification Campaigns

Answer 26

• Wanted to take Tibet, Xinjiang and Guangdong
• Threat from XInjiang as it had many muslims and similar to Russia
• Threat from Dalai Lama in Tibet - religious challenge

Question 27

Tibet

Answer 27

• PLA sent in Oct 1950
• 60k tried to resist
• Dalai Lama force to sign Agreement Measure on the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet
• Mao wipes Tibetan culture, replaced with Han