China: industrial and agricultural change Flashcards
(36 cards)
1
Q
When was the first five year plan for industry
A
1953-56
2
Q
Successes of the first five year plan for industry
A
- Industrial working class grew from 6-10 million
- Most sectors reached their targets (some execeeded)
- Better standards of living in cities
- Experts sent form communists states
- Abolished private sector (but gradual) ideological win
- Built a bridge over the yangtze river
- 9% annual growth rate
3
Q
Failures of the first five year plan for industry
A
- Created a culture of lying (targets)
- Unequal balance of light and heavy industry
- High interest rates on loans from soviet union which was repaid in grain causing food shortages
- Overcrowding in cities caused disease
4
Q
Mao’s main aims for agriculture 1949-57
A
- Mao wanted to produce more food to the cities, to feed the workers in the factories
- Mao had seen how peasants had reacted to grain requisitioning and collectivisation in Soviet Russia and was therefore wary of pushing the peasants too far
- The peasants made up 80% of the population in China therefore Mao needed an agricultural plan that would increase supplies but also be popular with the peasants
- Mao could only show that “the Chinese people have stood up” once china was economically strong, therefore Mao aimed to improve chinese agriculture as soon as possible
5
Q
Attacks on landlordism
A
- Landlords were viewed by the communists as feudal class enemies
- they posed a threat to land reform, which was the communists greatest source of popularity by the peasants
- Work teams of party cadres were sent to villages to encourage peasants to put landlords on trials called struggle meetings
- In this meetings peasants would stir up all their hatred and resentment onto the landlords, they would accuse them of crimes, beat them, steal from them, and in some cases kill them
6
Q
Land reform
A
- 1950 Agrarian reform law, removed all legal rights landowners had to their land and encouraged peasants to take it and own it themselves
- The violence often escalated further than the cadres had encouraged due to built up resentment
- By 1952, 43% of land had been redistributed to 60% of the population
- An estimated 1 to 2 million landlords died
- Agricultural output increased at 15% per annum
7
Q
Why was land reform not enough for the CCP
A
Land reform essentially would just mean replacing one landlord class with another.
8
Q
What were Mutual Aid Teams (MAT)
A
- Introduced in 1951
- Organised peasants into teams of 10 or fewer households, where they would pool resources like tools and fertilisers, and labour
- This helped poorer peasants
- Buying and selling of land and hiring of labourers was still allowed
- Overall MATs were effective and popular
9
Q
Agricultural Producers Co-operatives (APCs)
A
- Made up of 30 to 50 households
- Sate took a share of the harvest which was either paid back in grain or money
- Many richer peasants refused to join and slaughtered their animals rather than giving them up to the APCs
- Between 1953 and 54 grain production rose by less than 2%, this was a disapointing result
- Mao had expected resistance - “the peasants want freedom, we want socialism”
10
Q
voluntary to enforced collectivisation
A
- Failures of APCs caused disagreements within the party over the pace of collectivisation
- Conservative opponents such as Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, argued that China was not ready for rapid collectivisation due to their lack of mechanised equipment, they also knew that rapid collectivisation in the USSR had failed and caused revolts
- Mao disagreed and in 1955 he called to an increase in the rate of collectivisation until it was reach and private ownership ended
- January 1956, over 80% of peasants were part of an APC, 30% of that part of higher level APCs (200 to 300 households)
- APCs pooled land, resources and labour
- Members of APCs were only compensated for labour
- Private ownership on the most part ceased to exist
11
Q
Organisation of the communes
A
- 1956 Mao was pleased with the progress of APCs and took it as a sign that a rapid approach to collectivisation was correct, so he introduced communes
- Mao called this “walking on two legs”
- Communes consisted of around 5500 households
- First commune established in July 1958, in the Henan province, it was named sputnik, after the USSR sattelite
12
Q
Communal living
A
Mao’s expectations/ propaganda
- Standard of living would improve as peasants would be self sufficient, items such as toothpaste and rope would no longer be in short supply
- mess halls for eating
- Creches and schools, free women of burden of childcare so they could work also provide education
- Happiness homes for elderly
Reality
- Creches and schools, understaffed with unqualified staff, parents had to work long hours so could not look after the children
- food and diet worsened
- Happiness homes isolated and neglected the elderly
13
Q
Four pests campaign
A
- When agricultural production in the communes was not increasing Mao claimed that it was because of sparrows, rats, flies and mosquitos eating the crops
- Peasants were encouraged to bang pots and pans to scare of the sparrows rather than working
- Eventually there became a shortage of sparrows which ate the caterpillars causing caterpillars to eat the crops
14
Q
Abolition of private farming
A
- By the end of 1958 the party claimed that 99% of peasants were in communes
- Private ownership and trade was abolished
- Each commune had a militia which controlled the people and prevented them from selling any food or goods
15
Q
Lysenkoism
A
- Lysenko was an agrobiologist supported by Stalin in the 1930s
- Mao adopted Lysenko’s ideas which proved to be fraudulent, causing crop yields to fall dramatically
16
Q
How did the great famine start
A
- Agricultural production dropped drastically, due to the four pests campaign, little incentive to work and long hours of work becoming exhausting
- However the cadres in the communes, feared being seen as failures and didn’t want to criticise the communes (they had seen the results of the hundred flowers campaign) so they largely exaggerated their reports on what the communes had produced
- Due to these reports their bosses in the party set even higher production rates and in some cases land was left fallow as they feared overproduction, food was even sent as free gifts to North korea and vietnam
17
Q
when was the great famine
A
1958-62
18
Q
Consequences of the great famine
A
- 8 million people died in Anhui province
- 7.8 million died in Henan province
- One million died in Tibet
- gangs of starving peasants launched attacks on grain reserves, their punishment was torture and death
- Peasants would hunt rats to eat but they were too tired so would settle for toads and worms
- Children were kidnapped to be eaten
- Women were sold into prostitution for food
- Estimated 30-50 million died
19
Q
Natural reasons for the famine
A
- Typhoon and drought affected 60% of farmland
- Estimated 2 million died from drowning or starvation due to destroyed crops
- 2/3 of the Yalu river dried up
20
Q
Why could no intellectuals give advice on the communes/great famine
A
- Chinese intellectuals feared speaking up, hundred flowers campaign
- USSR relations were becoming strained and by 1960 Krushchev had withdrawn all USSR intellectuals from China
21
Q
How far were party officials and cadres to blame for the famine
A
- If party cadres hadn’t exagerrated production rates, higher targets wouldn’t have been set, food wouldnt have been sent abroad
- Party officials ignored the suffering, such as in Sichuan the population dropped by 6 million between 1957 to 61, the party official was dissmissive
- Mao said that “it is better to let half the population die, so the other half can eat their fill”
22
Q
Restoration of private farming
A
- The great famine was an embarassment to Mao, he stepped down from politics
- Liu and Deng took control in politics, they were pragmatists
- They immediately returned private farming and trade
- If peasants found an unused plot of land they could farm on it
- They were sent emergency supplies, of fertilisers and pesticides and other resources
- The motto “walking on two legs” replaced by “agriculture as the foundation of the economy”
- In 1965 agricultural production had returned to its levels in 1957
23
Q
When was the first five year plan
A
1953 - 1956
24
Q
The USSR’s financial and technical support during the first five year plan
A
- Modelled on Stalin’s plans for industry, which had successfully helped the USSR defeat Germany in WWII
- The decision to adopt the plan wasn’t only ideological but also practical, due to the trade embargo imposed by western powers, Mao was forced to rely on the USSR for help
- Sino-Soviet mutual assistance treaty febuary 1950
- The USSR gave china a loan of 300 million dollars over 5 years to help with the construction of iron and steel plant, electric power stations, and machinery plants
- They also sent 11,000 experts from the USSR and other communist countries in Eastern Europe to offer advice and training in China
25
The first five year plans targets
- Increase China's heavy industries, constructing industrial plants with modern machines
- Self sufficient
- Be able to supply the PLA, to protect China from the West
26
Successes of the plans
- Targets were reached
- Anual growth rate of over 9%
- Impressive engineering works, mostly for propaganda, such as the bridge across the Yangtze river
- Industrial working class grew from 6-10 million
- CCP increased their control over the people by providing housing, rations, healthcare and education - workers were organised into danwei which provided permits for welfare travel and permission to marry
27
Failures of the plan
- Many factories sacrificed quality for quantity in order to meet targets
- Most Chinese workers had low levels of literacy and education which held back economic growth in short and long term
- China's administrators lacked organisational and management experience, therefore there was a lack of cooperation between industries and central planners, leading to bottlenecks in production
28
When was the great leap forward
1958-62
29
Mass mobilisation
Mao believed that by uniting the people under his ideology and building enough committment and revolutionary spirit among them and target could be reached
30
Reasons for the great leap forward
- Although the first five year plan improved industry agricultural production was still low
- Anti-rightist campaign meant no intellectual was willing to speak and advise solutions to China's economic problems, therefore mao was ready to use mass mobilisation to reach his targets
- Mao was over confident as the first five year plan had done so well
- Mao was desperate to prove china as the leading communist nation in asia, therefore when Krushchev made his speech in 1957 about overtaking the US in industrial production 1980, Mao announced China's plans for a technological revolution to overtake britain in the next 15 years
- "walking on two legs" - the party announced that "general grain" and "general steel" was now in charge of the economy
- mao also felt confident that communist was proving itself to be more successful than capitalism, the communists seemed to be winning the cold war, Russia had won the space race by launching sputnik - "the east wind is prevailing the west"
31
State owned enterpirses during the great leap forward
- Industrial firms were taken over to introduce state owned enterprises
- The party dictated the business prices and targets, idealistically for the good of the nation rather than profit
- Wages were secured - low incentive
- Any surplus produced went to the state - low incentive for managers
- Workers provided with housing, healthcare and education
32
Successes of the great leap forward
- Some irrigation projects initiated by the great leap forward had value
- Tiannemen square in Beijing was remoddelled, propaganda success, Mao demanded that it would bigger that the red square in Moscow
- Ideological win: private property banned, private trade banned, peasants lived communally sharing housing and resources
33
Failures of the great leap forward
-Targets were unrealistic, millions worked to death from starvation
- Mass mobilisation was hopelessly optimistic and due to the purges no one was willing to challenge Mao's policies
- Huge projects such as the three gate gorge dam were so badly planned that they caused more damage than good
- Factories lack of raw materials caused them to close down
- Backyard furnaces, peasants rather than working on the farms, would melt down their pots and pans, to produce steel. This steel was of such low quality that the party cadres had to bury it, they feared criticising the policy, and therefore lied about meeting its unrealistic targets
- By 1962 industrial production had declined by 40% from the 1959 level
34
Lushan conference
- July 1959 the lushan conference
- Defence minister Peng Dehaui sent a private letter to mao voicing his doubts about the reports of a record grain harvest
- He had recently travelled to his home province and witnessed the plight of the peasantry under the great leap forward
- He believed that his position in the party would protect him
- He was wrong Mao accused him of colluding with the soviet leader krushchev behind his back, he was replaced as defense minister, a devoted ally to mao
35
Mao steps down to Liu and Deng
- Although Mao claimed that the weather was the reason for the failures of the great leap forward, he stepped down from politics in 1962, this meant he no longer controlled the day to day runnings of the counrtry
- He was replaced by Liu and Deng, who were pragmatists, as Deng famously said "it doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it eats the rat"
36
Liu and Deng economic reforms
- In industry factories were told to make a profit, rather than aiming for communist values
- Factories were told to make products to help agriculture
- By 1965 Industrial output was nearly double the levels of 1957
- Light industry grew at a rate of 27%
- Heavy industry grew at a rate of 17%
- Experts in the laogai were released and returned to management posts
- End of 1962 availability of tools boats and carts returned to the levels before the communes
- Communes were made smaller, peasants given autonomy over what to grow, free trade on surplus crops introduced
- Opportunity to work private plots provided incentives for skilled and experienced peasants, by the mid 1960s private farms accounted for around 1/3 of peasants' incomes
