The Economic Development of the PRC 1952-62

Question 1

What steps were taken towards collectivisation in 1951?

Answer 1

Mutual-aid teams grouped together up to 10 peasant households to share labour, tools and animals. Only poorer peasants were allowed to participate.

Question 2

What steps were taken towards collectivisation in 1952-53?

Answer 2

Agricultural Producers’ Cooperatives grouped together 30-50 peasant households to share land and labour. This enabled peasants to increase yields and share the costs of new machinery. Private ownership of land within the APCs were retained by peasant families, with profits for the year shared on the basis of ‘land-share’ and ‘labour-share’. This meant wealthier peasants profited the most.

Question 3

What steps were taken towards collectivisation in 1955?

Answer 3

‘Higher stage’ APCs were introduced, grouping between 200-300 households. In the distribution of profits, ‘land-share’ was reduced and ‘labour-share’ was increased.

Question 4

How many peasant households belonged to APCs in July 1955?

Answer 4

17 million households.

Question 5

How many peasant households belonged to APCs in January 1956?

Answer 5

75 million households - 63% of the peasant population.

Question 6

What were the 3 main results of collectivisation 1952-57?

Answer 6

1) CCP control in the countryside was strengthened.
2) Between 1953-57, agricultural production only grew 3.8%.
3) By the end of 1956, only 3% of peasant households farmed privately. Mao proclaimed collectivisation had been achieved 15 years ahead of schedule.

Question 7

Why was industrial development essential for China?

Answer 7

In order to fully achieve self-sufficiency and build socialism within China.

Question 8

How did China aim to achieve industrial development?

Answer 8

By following the Soviet model of Five Year Plans, with China planning to use 3 across 15 years.

Question 9

When did the First Five Year Plan take place?

Answer 9

1953 - 1957.

Question 10

What did the First Five Year Plan aim to achieve?

Answer 10

To increase the production of heavy industry, such as iron, steel, energy, transport, communications, industrial machinery and chemicals.

Question 11

How was the First Five Year Plan funded?

Answer 11

Through patriotic savings campaigns, where the CCP would encourage saving in State banks. The CCP limited the supply of consumer goods, to further stimulate saving.

Question 12

How successful was the First Five Year Plan?

Answer 12

The plan set ambitious targets, however by 1956, most of the targets had been exceeded.

Question 13

What metrics exceeded the targets of the First Five Year Plan (7), and by how much (%)?

Answer 13

1) Coal (115% of the target).
2) Steel (129.8% of the target).
3) Cement (114.3% of the target).
4) Electrical power (121.6% of the target).
5) Machine tools (220.1% of the target).
6) Bicycles (211.5% of the target).
7) Trucks (187.5% of the target).

Question 14

What metrics did not meet the targets of the First Five Year Plan (2), and by how much (%)?

Answer 14

1) Locomotives (83.5% of the target).
2) Insecticide (87.1% of the target).

Question 15

What were the 5 drawbacks to the First Five Year Plan?

Answer 15

1) Many of the new workers were illiterate and ill-trained. This meant a lot of new equipment was not installed or maintained properly.
2) An emphasis on quantity over quality.
3) State planners were ignorant of basic procedures, leading to bureaucratic delays and bottlenecks in the production, distribution and supply processes.
4) Competition for scarce resources between industries and between State and private enterprises.
5) Part of the cost was paid for by Soviet loans, which had to be repaid in food exports, with high interest.

Question 16

When was the Great Leap Forward launched?

Answer 16

January 1958.

Question 17

What slogan was the Great Leap Forward launched under?

Answer 17

‘More, faster, better, cheaper’.

Question 18

What was the aim of the Great Leap Forward?

Answer 18

To transform China into a leading industrial power in record time, through the mass mobilisation of the people and correct CCP leadership. China aimed to leapfrog Great Britain in 7 years, and the USA soon after.

Question 19

Who was the driving force behind the Great Leap Forward?

Answer 19

Mao, supported by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping in the Politburo debates.

Question 20

Who were the main opposition to the Great Leap Forward?

Answer 20

More cautious CCP members, such as Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun and Peng Dehuai.

Question 21

What was the CCP debate on how to increase food production?

Answer 21

Chen Yun wanted to incentivise peasants to produce more, however Mao rejected this as it would risk widening the income disparity between the rich and poor peasants.

Question 22

What were the 3 factors which caused Mao to reassess his position in 1956/57?

Answer 22

1) Events in the USSR and Eastern European revolts made Mao question both China’s reliance on the the USSR and the relationship between the CCP and the people.
2) The First Five Year Plan made it clear that the highly centralised Soviet model of economic planning was not appropriate for China.
3) Food production had not kept up with industrial growth, which would hold back further economic developments.

Question 23

How was the Great Leap Forward a way of continuing and revitalising the revolution (2)?

Answer 23

1) Mao believed that through mass mobilisation and political will, economic laws could be defied, and what technical experts stated would take decades, would take a few years.
2) Mao believed the GLF would take the CCP back to its rural routes, fearing that many in the CCP were losing their way.

Question 24

What were people’s communes (3)?

Answer 24

1) The combination of APCs into even larger units, containing, on average, 20,000 people.
2) They took over the functions of local government and becoming military units.
3) Anyone aged 15-50 in a commune was a member of the people’s militia, whilst also serving as the basic work unit.

Question 25

What was life like in people’s communes (3)?

Answer 25

1) Communes took over the peasants’ private plots of land and work was organised in a military style.
2) Children and old people were cared for in communal kindergartens and ‘happiness homes’.
3) All meals were provided in mess halls, and family ties were dismissed as ‘bourgeois emotional attachments’.

Question 26

How many communes had been established by 1958?

Answer 26

25,000.

Question 27

What were ‘backyard furnaces’ (2)?

Answer 27

1) Blast furnaces used by the people of China during the Great Leap Forward, constructed in the fields and backyards of communes, schools, colleges, and other institutions, to produce iron and steel.
2) All kinds of metal implements were melted down, fuelled by furniture, doors, trees, etc.

Question 28

How was the Great Leap Forward planned (3)?

Answer 28

1) Planning was decentralised, and left to Party cadres to achieve the ambitious targets of the GLF.
2) Technical experts were dismissed and the state statistics bureau was virtually dismantled.
3) Mao continuously raised targets due to the early success of the GLF.

Question 29

Who was Trofim Lysenko?

Answer 29

A Soviet scientist who influenced agricultural production in the 1930s and 1940s, with his main expertise in crop yields.

Question 30

What was the Eight Point Agricultural Constitution?

Answer 30

Based on the ideals of Lysenko, the eight points presented a scientific approach to improving crop yields. This involved planting crops closer together and to plough the soil much deeper than normal.

Question 31

How successful was the Eight Point Agricultural Constitution (2)?

Answer 31

1) The deeper ploughing damaged the structure of the soil.
2) The close planting deprived crops of light and nutrients.
Overall, it had a disastrous effect on grain yields.

Question 32

What was the Four Noes campaign, and what was its significance on agriculture?

Answer 32

A campaign to eradicate pests (flies, mosquitoes, rats, and sparrows). People were urged to prevent sparrows from landing until they died from exhaustion, and to kill 5 flies a day. This was so effective that it upset the ecological balance and caterpillars thrived and consumed large amounts of crops.

Question 33

What were the initial results of the Great Leap Forward (5)?

Answer 33

1) Weather conditions were favourable.
2) Grain yields showed impressive growth on previous years.
3) By the end of the 1958, 100,000 people were working on ‘backyard furnaces’.
4) Foreign observers commended Chinese enthusiasm for the GLF.
5) According to official figures, China had a surplus of grain, and Mao suggested all to eat 5 meals a day.

Question 34

What were the agricultural results of the GLF in 1959 (2)?

Answer 34

1) Food shortages were reported in 5 provinces.
2) The government declared a 270 million tonne harvest, when really it was 170 million tonnes.

Question 35

What were the agricultural results of the GLF in 1960?

Answer 35

Only 143 million tonnes of grain were produced, eventually leading to the Great Chinese Famine, with up to 55 million dying.

Question 36

What were the industrial results of the GLF in 1958?

Answer 36

In September, 14% of steel was produced in backyard furnaces, and by October, this had increased to 49%.

Question 37

Why were ‘backyard furnaces’ abandoned in spring 1959?

Answer 37

The steel produced by ‘backyard furnaces’ was of extremely poor quality, with only 8 million tonnes being deemed acceptable in 1958. Despite this, targets were raised to 20 million tonnes in 1959, which was not met.

Question 38

What were the 5 main reasons for the failure of the GLF?

Answer 38

1) Weather conditions in 1959 : Droughts in the north and floods in the south reduced the harvest.
2) The anti-Rightist campaign of 1957 had purged many crucial experts and statisticians, and also unnerved cadres into telling Mao what he wanted, leading to inflated figures, causing Mao to raise targets as he believed they were being met.
3) The GLF involved a great waste of human and material resources - frequent military training took peasants away from work, many focused on steel over agricultural production, lots of land was left uncultivated, and ripened grain was often left to rot.
4) A break of Sino-Soviet relations in 1960 caused a withdrawal of Soviet experts and the halting of loans. Despite food shortages, millions of tonnes of grain had to be exported to pay for prior loans.
5) Mao overestimated the revolutionary enthusiasm of the peasants, with many reluctant to pool their resources, hoarding grain and slaughtering their animals, rather than share them.

Question 39

How did Peng Dehuai learn of the real effects of the GLF?

Answer 39

Returning to his birthplace of Henan in 1959, Peng realised that peasants were rebellious, food was going to waste and CCP propaganda was lying about how successful the GLF truly was.

Question 40

How did Peng Dehuai express his concerns to Mao?

Answer 40

As Mao was not available at the July 1959 meeting of the Central Committee of the Party, Peng wrote Mao a ‘letter of opinion’. This detailed that the GLF was correct in theory, but not in practice. Peng did not exempt Mao from criticism for the reasons why the GLF was failing.

Question 41

How did Mao react to Peng Dehuai’s ‘letter of opinion’ (3)?

Answer 41

1) Mao published the letter to all delegates, charging Peng from deviating from the ‘general line’ and denouncing him a ‘rightist’.
2) He was further accused of ‘objectively aiding China’s enemies’ (the USSR) and leading a ‘right-opportunist anti-Party clique’.
3) Peng was replaced by Lin Biao as Defence Minister and placed under house arrest.

Question 42

What were the 3 main consequences of the purge of Peng Dehuai?

Answer 42

1) It showed that not even leading CCP officials could express views that were even partially critical of Mao.
2) Mao needed to prove that he was correct over the GLF, and so launched the second GLF 1959-60, which added to the already disastrous effects of the GLF.
3) Another purge was launched against Party officials, with 6 million subjected to ‘struggle meetings’, a form of public humiliation. 80% of basic level cadres in Sichuan were dismissed.

Question 43

What effect did the GLF have on Mao’s position (2)?

Answer 43

1) Mao’s prestige was damaged and he lost his aura of infallibility. He made a form of self criticism at the June 1961 CCP conference, and again at the January 1962 7000 cadre Conference. Mao accepted responsibility, but made no apology or admission of mistakes.
2) Mao found himself no longer involved in day-to-day operations (having resigned as Chairman of the State Council), and had lost the support of many leading CCP officials.

Question 44

Who were the 3 main ‘pragmatists’ in the CCP?

Answer 44

Chen Yun, Deng Xiaoping, Liu Shaoqi.

Question 45

What 2 key economic changes did Chen Yun make in 1961?

Answer 45

1) April 1961: Communal canteens were abandoned and peasants could eat at home.
2) June 1961: Peasants could cultivate their own private plots and communes introduced financial incentives to produce more. Rural fairs and markets were permitted and many communes were broken up into smaller units based on villages.

Question 46

How did China shift further away from the GLF economically by 1962 (5)?

Answer 46

1) Around 25 million peasants who had gone to cities for work and food were returned to their home villages.
2) Around 25,000 inefficient enterprises founded in the GLF were closed down.
3) Coal and steel targets were reduced to realistic levels.
4) Industrial workers offered financial incentives to increase production.
5) Central bureaucratic control was reimposed, with experts once again valued. Production targets were reviewed annually.