Establishing Communist Rule - Defeating the CCP’s Opponents Flashcards
(24 cards)
1
Q
What was the campaign to suppress ‘counter-revolutionaries’?
A
- launched 1950
- anyone who had potential to cause problems for regime at risk - most vulnerable those who worked for previous nationalist regime
- western businessmen forced to leave the country
- many Christian’s missionaries arrested and charged on suspicion of espionage
- expanded by Korean War giving Mao more justification to seek out spies
2
Q
How did the CCP encourage self registration?
A
- targeted workers for previous gov
- asked to submit autobiographies listing friends and associates - promised lenience
- all arrested - dissapeared
3
Q
How did the CCP encourage mass participation?
A
- party encouraged ordinary citizens to become involved in political activities such as denouncing counter-revolutionaries
- chanted during public struggle meetings “Kill! Kill! Kill!”
- government recorded 800,000 counter revolutionary deaths during first half of 1951
4
Q
What was the three antis campaign (1951)?
A
- Mao called for a ‘big clean up throughout the party’
- directed against corruption, waste and obstructionist bureaucracy in government
- regime removed anyone within civil service they didn’t like
- enough loyal party cadres had been trained to replace civil service
- former nationalist employees were imprisoned or executed
5
Q
What was the five antis campaign (1952)?
A
- dedicated to ending bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts and stealing state economic information
- targeted middle class and private business owners
- confessers encouraged to believe they would be treated leniently
- many chose suicide, parks patrolled by police to prevent people from hanging themselves
- survivors sent to laogai
6
Q
Were the anti’s campaigns successful?
A
- both very successful
- campaigns helped establish the party’s control over private companies
- party sent cadres into companies to take leading management roles
- changed social system as people forced to denounce others to save themselves
- only way to protect oneself was utter loyalty to CCP
7
Q
What were the reunification campaigns?
A
- Tibet and Xinjiang were boarder regions far from Beijing so vulnerable to foreign influence
- Xinjiang had large Muslims population - more in common with Muslim areas of Soviet Union
- Tibet led by Buddhist Dalai Lama - rival leader to Mao
8
Q
What was the invasion of Tibet (1950)?
A
- PLA to invade and ‘liberate it from imperialist oppression’
- met with resistance of 60,000 but ultimately overcame them
- representatives no choice but to sign 17-point agreement which set out terms of merging Tibet into the PRC
9
Q
How did Mao aim to remove Tibetan identity?
A
- Mao declared desire to raise population of Tibet from 3 million to 10 million
- promoted migration of Han Chinese into Tibet
- aimed to marginalise indigenous population and replac traditional culture
- PLA built a massive highway to move migrants and military forces into Tibet
- mandarin enforced as official language
10
Q
How did the CCP use propaganda and exile during the invasion of Tibet?
A
- PLA propaganda units spread idea that Tibetans needed liberation from traditional ‘feudal’ society
- newspapers and magazines distributed that presented benefits of communism
- Tibetan refugees went to India telling tales of persecution and torture
- when the Tibetans rebelled in 1959 they were brutally suppressed by PLA
- the Dalai Lama fled to India
11
Q
Why was Xinjiang targeted?
A
- large Muslim population with close ethnic ties to Muslims in Soviet Union
- mosques common
- Arabic was the language used in religious services
- feared the growth of Russian influence
12
Q
Who were the Uighurs?
A
- largest minority group in Xinjiang - 3/4 population of 3 million
- nationalist leaders invited to the political consultative conference in 1949 - plane crash killing all on board
- replacements agreed to submit to Chinese rule
- PLA cleared all resistance and secured territory for migration of Han Chinese
13
Q
Why was Guangdong targeted?
A
- Traditionally pro nationalist stronghold
- Regime feared enemy spies and saboteurs remained
- Estimated 28,000 people executed in Guangdong during the ‘supress the counter revolutionaries campaign’
14
Q
Why was Taiwan targeted?
A
- Chang kai-shek’s new nation claimed to be the ‘official’ China
- sent spies and agents to attack and sabotage the new regime
15
Q
What were the laogai?
A
- laogai meant ‘reform through labour’
- camps built in most inhospitable border regions such as Manchuria’s mosquito infested swamps
- start of 1955 more than 1.3 million people undergoing forced labour
- 300,000 doctors, engineers and experts
16
Q
What were the conditions like in the laogai?
A
- diarrhoea and dysentery were common
- tin mines in Guangdong 1/3 prisoners committed suicide or died of disease within a year
- estimated 27 million died in labour camps during Mao’s rule
17
Q
How did the laogai benefit the regime?
A
- mid 1950s laogai contributing 700 million yuan in industrial products and 350,000 tons of grain to economy
- intimidated and terrorised population
- way of converting former opponents through communist propaganda
18
Q
Why did Mao feel that he needed intellectual support?
A
- by 1956 Mao’s power was well established
- economic production had stalled
19
Q
Why did the state of the party cause Mao to launch the hundred flowers campaign?
A
- Mao worried party was becoming less revolutionary
- too bureaucratic
- party cadres no longer revolutionaries but a new privileged class of managers
- party members not radical enough in introducing communist policies
- Mao hoped intellectuals would point out these mistakes
- criticise more conservative communists
20
Q
Why did international cocncers cause Mao to launch the hundred flowers campaign?
A
- Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s cult of personality as well as use of secret police and terror during the secret speech
- Mao sought for a way to prove he was not a dictator and evade criticism
21
Q
Was Mao overconfident when launching the hundred flowers campaign?
A
- early years of the PRC had been a huge success
- Xinjiang and Tibet had been brought under control by PLA
- first five year plan had stimulated industrial recovery
- victory in Korea
- Mao expected intellectuals to provide policies that would give him greater influence
22
Q
What was the hundred flowers campaign (1956)?
A
- ‘let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend’
- most intellectuals unwilling to suggest new policies out of fear
- many party leaders felt they would be subject to criticism so didn’t support campaign
- Mao admitted CCP had made mistakes and wrongly identified intellectuals as enemies of the regime in an unpublished speech played to cadres
23
Q
How did intellectuals criticise the party?
A
- big posters denounced party’s failure to provide democratic rights
- compared to Nazis at Auschwitz
- complained about economic inequalities
- criticised privileged lifestyle of party elites
24
Q
How did Mao respond to harsh criticism from intellectuals?
A
- enraged by personal criticisms
- declared the “poisonous weeds” had grown up among the “fragrant flowers”
- ‘right wingers’ had abused their freedoms and demand a class struggle against them
- “poisonous weeds” defined very broadly
- cadres given quota of 5% per work unit ‘rightist’
