Theme 1: Establishing Communist Rule - 1949-57

Question 1

Why did the Communists Win the Chinese civil war?

Answer 1

-Nationalist ineptitude
-Communist popularity
-Mao able to mobilise the population and exploit nationalist incompetence
-Chiang lacked ruthlessness of Mao
THE COMMUNIST FORCES DID NOT WIN THE CIVIL WAR, RATHER THE NATIONALISTS LOST IT

Question 2

Why may have peasants been bound together with fear of the communists?

Answer 2

• Russian forces supplied the communits with weapons and soliders
• communist terror was brutal
• took place in low-key rural areas

Question 3

What were the communists?

Answer 3

people who want to give more equality to the working class* and want to end foreign influence**

• Party members became bourgeiosie
• *Contradicted by russian influence

Question 4

What did Mao attribute their victory to?

Answer 4

peasant support

claimed victory was a peoples victory which legitamized their view to impose communism on china

Question 5

What were the problems for the communist regime?

Answer 5

• peasants and mao supporters were uneducated and so were incapable of understanding complex marxist thought
• china was wide and diverse, with different dialects, so getting across communist ideas was difficult (china was not a single unified nation)
• lack of organisation, preparation (due to swift nationalist dimise) and inexperience in ruilling civilians
• peasants were supposed to lead the revoultion, as workers only made up 1% of chinas population, but lacked the education to understand the concept of communism

Question 6

What is Mao Ze-Dong Thought?

Answer 6

SELF RELIANCE - determine china would not be reliant on other powers
CONTINUING REVOLUTION - new generations involved in revolutionary struggle, to prevent counter revolution
CLASS STRUGGLE - struggle key to maintaining a revolution
LEARNING FROM THE PEOPLE - should be embedded by the people and masses should participate
MASS MOBILISATION - believed chinas people could achieve anything when mobilised

Question 7

What is significant about class struggle?

Answer 7

explains why a new bourgeioise culture is continually created - so that a constant revolution can take place

Question 8

What is shown by this Mao Quote - “political power grows out of the power of a gun. our principle is that the party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to control the party”?

Answer 8

shows true democracy in the communist party lay in the obedience of the members to the authority and instructions of the leaders

Question 9

What methods were used to deal with oppostion (exc. the PLA)?

Answer 9

• mass participation
• self-registration of nationalists
• regional bureaux - 6 regions

Question 10

What methods were used to by the PLA to deal with opposition?

Answer 10

• struggle meetings
• intimidate opponents - publish list of convicts
• army
• promote communism (reduce oppostion)
  
  • speak to people/help them
  • farming - everyone is equal, even PLA
  • building - more accepting of new regime
• foot soldiers of communism
• educated in the ways of communism
• part of local government

Question 11

What were Mao’s reasons for joining the Korean War (1950-53)?

Answer 11

• shows communist strength to the world
• anti-capitalist propaganda in china (to deal with oppostion outisde and inside of china)
• gain resources and land from Korea
• get communist support from Stalin (industrial help)
• help unite the country with a victory
• Mao hoped to rival Stalin as a leader of the communist movement
• gave Mao an excuse to introduce campaigns to deal with oppostion

Question 12

What was the campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries - October 1950?

Answer 12

• focused on internal threats to chinese revolution/links to GMD
• executions carried out in public to have an impact

Question 13

What was the Three-Antis campaign - August 1951 to July 1952?

Answer 13

• targets were corruption, waste and obstructionist bureucracy
• involved mass meetings
• party members subject to self-criticism and were given a reminder of the danger of independent thought

Question 14

What was the Five-Antis campaign - February to May 1952?

Answer 14

• directed against the bourgeiosie

- mass meetings with denunciations of people and confiscation of property

Question 15

What was the Hundred Flowers campaign - May to June 1957?

Answer 15

-lifted the restrictions imposed on chinese intellectuals and granted freedom of speech

Question 16

What was the Anti-Rightist campaign - June 1957?

Answer 16

• people were forced to retract their statements after a flood of criticism from the hundred flowers campaign
• intellectuals were rounded on

Question 17

Why was the Hundred Flowers campaign introduced?

Answer 17

• to see who those who opposed Mao and the communists

- to reveal those he believed to be traitors and to punish them afterward