Hundred Flowers

People were so obsessed with proving their dedication to Mao that they lost sight of how irrationally they were acting. The author of The Mao Button uses extreme hyperbole to satirize this personality worship. The entire country of China lived with a deep-seated fear that their dedication to the Chairman would be called into question, and they would not be able to prove themselves - and thus would face ridicule, or the even punishment. Indeed, a mere lapel pin was enough by which to judge someone’s patriotism.

Also according to document #5: after Mao Zedong’s rise to power he had set up and launched a 5-year plan from the years 1953-1958. His goal was to get rid of China’s dependence on agriculture to become a “world Power”. He had run manipulate campaigns to manipulate the people to doing and agreeing with what he wanted to g=do by doing “flower campaigns” and “supposed” (hypothetical) willingness to peoples different opinions, showing how he is just tricking people in to doing as he say and pretend to care for the people! Also doc 5 states “Given the freedom to express themselves, some Chinese began openly opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership”. Meaning that the people were speaking their mind and often speaking the truth about the ways of the communist party which werent always positive notes. However, later on just after a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and punished anyone who criticized or was accused to have criticized the Communist Party. And the numbers/amount were believed to be as high as 500,000 people. Showing that Mao was evil because he didn’t want people speaking

Bob Fu conveys clearly the inexorable control that Communist leaders in China have over their people. For example, after Fu and his friends participated in the Tiananmen Square protests, Fu was coerced, day in day out, to write a confession of his purported misdeeds against China and her people as a “counterrevolutionary” (79-82, 85, 87).

The method applied by Zedong focused on uniting China under one belief in order to implement communist ideas in the country, widely changing the country’s structure. (Doc 7). At his defense trial, Cuban revolution leader Fidel Castro appealed to those struggling in his country. He spoke to those who hoped for a brighter future and who have been betrayed by their country. By addressing their battle, Castro urged them to fight for a better Cuba. His relentless and undying commitment ultimately granted Castro his wish for a revolution. (Doc 8). An additional document consisting of a diary entry from a Chinese citizen during the communist revolution would create a clearer vision as to how convincing Mao Zedong truly was.

When Jan Wong first arrived in China, she was filled with the complete belief that China’s totalitarianism way of government was the best way of governing, and that no other way would do. While natives smiled behind false expressions, she failed to realize the true extent of the miserable lives under the Maoist regime until she herself experienced the injustices faced by the Chinese citizens. In Red China Blues, author Jan Wong writes of her experiences during her life in China and after, and how her whole journey led to the realization of the harsh reality that Maoism really was. As Wong learned more and more about the truth behind the totalitarian government, her own experiences helped her to transform

While Mao’s interpretation of Marxism included using peasants as the basis for revolution, Stalin felt that workers were meant to lead an urban-based class war. This led to Stalin’s view that the revolution in China was not genuinely Marxist and his refusal to support the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). However, Stalin also feared Mao as a rival, did not want the Cold War to spread to Asia, and favored the Guomindang over the CCP. These personality clashes and Stalin’s instinct for self-preservation convinced Mao that Stalin wished for a divided and weak China that would be unable to

The begins of Mao’s Cultural Revolution begins with the Hundred Flowers Campaign which took place during 1956-1957, the government embarks on this campaign with the hope that the tension between government and scholars can end, but this approach does not work and backfires. The next event which takes place in the Anti-Rights Campaign (1957-1958), this campaign disciplines those who spoke out during the Hundred flowers Campaign, a significant amount of people lots many jobs due to this and are sent away by government. This leads into the Great Leap Forward (1958-1959), this just happens to be one of Mao’s more intense programs of economic reform, in this program Mao’s main attempt was to modernize China’s economy, the consequence of this resulted in Mao’s having a temporary loss of power. He believed that all he needed to develop was agriculture and industry and believed that both

At first, the Chinese Communist Party adopted the advice from a Russian agent rather than Mao’s suggestions . Due to their poor planing the Communist Party suffered another heavy casualties. Under this condition, the Chinese Communist Party appointed Mao ZeDong to leadership after they had a conference in January 1935. Since then, Mao apply different tactics in this terrible hardship of The Long March. He guided the Red Army to maneuver stealthy. “As the Red army moved away from Xiang, it used twisting movement patterns that made predicting its direction very difficult. Mao also split up the Red Army into smaller units. In theory this made theme more open to attack, in practice, they were more difficult to find in the open spaces on China”(Trueman, n.d.). Mao decided ShanXi, Northern China will be their destination. Under Mao’s leadership, the Red Army overcome the surmount numerous difficulties, at the cost of more than 70,000 men. During the entire battle the Red Army did not have those advanced military equipment like the Kuomintang Party. It took 368 days for Mao ZeDong and his Red Army to marched about 9,000 kilometers by foot in order to

How far do you agree that the Hundred Flowers campaign was a trick designed by Mao to trap his opponents?

Mao’s rise to power was as a result of favourable conditions resulting from both the failures of the Nationalist party (GMD) and the various successes of the Communist party (CCP). Before Mao was able to consolidate his power over China in 1949, he first had to become solitary leader of the CCP party; which he accomplished through his ideology, policies and leadership qualities.

He feared the Soviet Unions “deviationism” ha tainted his Maoist communism. So he mobilized young people in china, forming the Red Guards and shutting down schools. These kids were encouraged to attack “bourgeois” and root out enemies of the system, including family members. The results of this were devastating. The economy was left struggling to survive, people and elders were mistreated for things they didn’t do, and there were as many as 30 million casualties. After explaining this and how Maos death practically saved china, the author makes this statement. “On July 28, 1976, twin earthquakes struck near the city of Tangshan…the death toll…may have exceeded 700,000 people…The chairmen for life died on September 9, just six weeks after Tangshan. It probably was no coincidence.” This quote suggests that a political reaction was connected to Maos death. Practically a conspiracy theory, the author never backs it up with any evidence, proof, or reason. This weakens the overall topic and distracts from his main

It is clear that Mao’s initial goal was to gain power in China, which is demonstrated by his determination to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT) via his idiosyncratic version of communist revolution. In order to do so, Mao utilised methods he deemed most suitable for the communists and, more broadly, Chinese society. For example, unlike his Marxist predecessors, Mao believed that peasants, not urban workers, were the key to rebellion in China. Subsequently, in 1926, he organised peasant unions

Over the course of Mao’s leadership from 1949 until his death in 1976 we can see the significance of his leadership and what made him a good and bad leader. Mao had made some very good decisions to help certain groups but also made some very bad decisions that paid the price, in some cases killing millions. Due to the social and economic changes that then followed by a significant increase in the population and weak leadership that led to rebellions from 1911 that saw the end of 3500years of rule by the Chinese imperial dynasties. The social and economic chaos then led to the formation of two political parties. The CCP, led by Mao Zedong and the GMD led by Chiang Kai Shek. Mao and his party defeated the GMD in 1949 bringing Mao into power. Mao’s main goal was to turn China into a pure communist country. Over the course of Mao’s leadership he did this by making significant social, economic and political changes to the Chinese way of life. However due to his poor leadership and the faults that he made it caused people to oppose him and get in the way of his goal. That is why in 1966 Mao decided to assert his beliefs through a series of decisions, which came to be known as the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was a hard time for many people throughout China as Mao enforced many things upon them to achieve his aim of removing capitalism. Mao used the youth of China to be that

Even prior to Deng's ascension as leader of the Communist Party, there was criticism amongst the people and floating ideas of "less collectivity and more individual incentives" (Seybolt 59). When Deng Xiao

In 1949 a powerful communist leader by the name of Mao Zedong came to power based on his idea for a, “Great Leap Forward.” This idea was meant to bring China’s economy into the twentieth century. He had assembled a revolutionary government using traditional Chinese ideals of filial piety, harmony, and order. Mao's cult of personality, party purges, and political policies reflect Mao's esteem of these traditional Chinese ideals and history. However, the product of this revolution created a massive national shortage in vital materials and initiated a wide scale famine to China’s people (Gabriel).