2.3+2.4: 5 Year Plans Flashcards
(19 cards)
1st 5YP: AIMS
1953-57
focus on industry
make china world power, reach USSR
self sufficiency as protection from capitalism
1st 5YP: METHODS
Sino-Soviet Treaty 1950: 10,000 soviet technicians, 300M $ loan
Russification: soviet news agency TASS main info source, ‘brutalist’ architecture
Wages reinvested into gov schemes, peasants sold food to State Owned Enterprises 1957
Countryside fed cities, exported grain to fund industry
1st 5YP: SUCCESSES
good wages, job security, healthcare… in CITIES
railways increased 400% -> travel for PLA improved
HI tripled, new industrial plant Anshan produced 2/3 of steel
discovery of oil & minerals
9% annual growth rate
1st 5YP: FAILURES
no improvement in countryside
less than 50% of children under 16 in full time school by 1957
removal of experienced managers who questioned Mao = standard not maintained
2nd 5YP: AIMS
1958-62
superiority of ‘Chinese road’ to socialism
Great Leap Forward
Developing both industry & agriculture
2nd 5YP: METHODS
Maosim instead of soviet communism
mass mobilisation replaced soviet experts
more decision-making power given to local cadres
2nd 5YP: SUCCESSES
1964 after discovery of uranium in Xinjiang nuclear weapons developed
increase in raw materials
Tiananmen Square 1959: 500,000 people, massive infrastructure project
2nd 5YP: FAILURES
backyard furnaces: 25% pop abandoned farming, melted families’ metal objects
desalination due to Three Gate Gorge Dam
soil erosion: deforestation for fire
China only producing 50% HI and 75% light goods that it could
Backyard Furnaces
lack of utensils: had been burned to make useless steel
leads to the Great Famine
50% of China’s steel production comes out of Backyard Furnaces = useless
proves Chinese industry is very primitive
Three Gates Gorge Dam
mass mobilisation couldn’t work without the experts that Mao kicked out
Death of crops due to desalination &
because less farmers caring for crops (backyard furnaces)
Lysenkoism
Lysenko to boost agricultural production
1. use of fertiliser -> no chem = use manure = home destruction (insulation)
2. close cropping (no consideration of crop type)
3. pest control (4 pests campaign killed 2 M sparrows, disrupted eco balance)
4. deep ploughing: no mechanisation = impossible
Targets & Results of Great Leap Forward
Zhou Enlai demanded exports rise to 8 Billion Yuan to pay for soviet help
State procurement of grain up from 17% to 28% 1957->59
60,000 Tonnes rice gift to Albania at famine peak
grain to USSR & East Ger for machinery
Consequences of Great famine
25% Tibet pop die 8deliberate restriction of resources)
30 million deaths
Central China called “Arc of Misery”
fear of harsh punishments=peasants inflated figures
grain exports made shortages worse
7000 cadres conference
1962
Lui Shaoqui: issues 30% natural disasters, 70% man made
party split between ideologues/pragmatists
Lui & Deng Xiaoping take over policy & daily management of econ
aura of infallibility broken, Mao withdraws from public life
Lui’s Reforms
measures to improve agricultural production (instead of “walking on two legs”)
Ideological fanaticism replaced by economic realism
Agricultural Changes after 1962
Purge of local cadres - remove corruption
1960 directive: Allow villagers to have private plots, dismantling Communes
local markets, private land ownership
Communes broken up into smaller collectives and reward-system reinstalled (based on individual input)
25 M city dwellers relocated to countryside to reduce urban food pressure -> deurbanisation
1961: massive grain imports from Canada, Australia and USA
Agriculture: Success or Failure after 1962?
S: By 1965, grain harvest back up to 1957 (pre GLF) level, imports end starvation
F: ideological failure, dependency on capitalism, de-urbanisation means China cannot support industrialisation
Industrial Changes after 1962
3rd 5 Year Plan 1962-65
Thousands of inefficient projects shut down
Relaxation in persecution - scientists and intellectuals valued
Shift back to centralised control, targets made more realistic
Financial incentives restored
Revisionism
criticism used by Communists to describe course of action that betrays their principles. Mao used it against his enemies, mostly Khrushchev
He described the retreat as dangerous revisionism
