The 1950s can be described as the golden age of Chinese communism. The party seized all farmland from landlords and redistributed it among the people, with the landlords getting the same share as everyone else. The banks and the biggest industrial businesses were transferred from private to state ownership, but smaller firms were left under the control of their owners, or under teams of workers and managers. There was unjust treatment, but it was mostly limited to former Kuomintang officials or people who didn’t support Mao Zedong and his endeavors. A huge percentage of the people who were pleased with the changes brought by the communists, were peasants. However, Mao Zedong strived to win everyone’s hearts. He removed most foreign “enclaves” and reasserted Chinese sovereignty to please intellectuals. Jung Chang's father was a compelling example of an ideal communist official. He was well educated, rigidly moral, and hard working. He refused to use his position to help his extended family, and he opposed corruption and nepotism within the party, which made him very popular with the people. However, most of the officials in the Communist Party were corrupt. For example, the Tings were a vindictive couple who abused their influential position and great power to purge many talented people who they didn’t get along with, or were simply jealous of. Zhang Xi-ting was Bao Qin’s boss when she was in Yibin. Mrs. Ting attempted to kiss Bao Qin’s husband, Wan Yu, when she was not
A conversation between a teenage peasant and his grandfather explained some of the goods that communism had brought to the Chinese. From the grandfather’s point of view, Communism had brought nothing but greatness to the Chinese state, but at the time period such claims would often be argued, thus building tension.(DOC 2). With the prevalent tension and the armed peasants it led to a mass reform during this period. An Addition document that may help in this would most definitely be a journal from a pro Communism and anti Communism to see the variety of views on the group.
In 1949 Mao Zedong and his communist revolutionaries had won control of China after a civil war that had lasted more than 20 years. Mao’s revolution was based on a society where the workers control the government. During this time China was a substandard country due to the years of war, disease, and natural disaster. To help make china stronger Mao called for couples to have more babies because babies equal more workers and more work leads to a stronger China. To help economically, people were forced to abandon farming and help aid an industrial China, thus known as The Great Leap Forward. With the replacing of farms, China was reconciled to food shortages, which then led to the killing of an estimated 30 million people. Therefore mao turned
Today, throughout most of China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is realized as one of the most chaotic and deadly times in chinese history; often referred to as the “ten lost years.” However, during the revolution, many hopeful individuals sought after change and looked toward Mao as
In 1949 china was under the expression of a communist state. The regime of china was set up in similarity to the regime of Vladimir Lenin in the Soviet Union. Mao Zedong was part of the communist party. He followed the vision of Karl Marx, by envisioning a society under his regime that all shared equal prosperity and communism. In order to bring this vision to reality, he wanted to eliminate all capitalism and its emphasis on property rights, profits, and free-market competition. In the 1950’s in the rural of china, Mao banned free markets, which involved peasants selling farm products. However the trade of capitalism still existed through the private enterprise of remnants. Mao was dissatisfied with the outcomes towards an economy of Marxism. So he strived for a stronger approach by coming up with the Great Leap Forward. However, after the intense economic development that china had suffered from the great leap forward, it left millions of individuals throughout china suffering from the masses and deaths from the collapse of the food system. Because of the major consequences that were suffered from this approach it was unable to be left unnoticed. So, in 1960 after Moa Zedong declined all responsibility towards the disaster from the Great Leap Forward, Lui Shao-chi and Deng Xiaoping were left to rectify and administer the crisis. However, their attempt to repair the economic damages towards china, only led to the reverse of Mao’s earlier policies. That were
The Chinese Communist Party took control of the government in 1949, after defeating the Nationalist party and its un-communist policies, laws, and views. During this time period WWII was also going on bringing with it new ideas and technologies that changed China for better or worse. With this change the peasant class experienced a major shift in rights, power, and influence. The Chinese Communist Party and the peasant class between circa 1925 and circa 1950 had a relationship that greatly benefited both sides, the Chinese Communist Party empowered the peasants and advocated for social and economic equality which strengthened the anti-japanese viewpoint and instilled a sense of nationalism.
In 1919, Mao Zedong helped to establish the city of Changsha by attracting a variety of organizations. One organization was to bring the students, the merchants and the workers together in demonstrations aimed at making the government to oppose Japan. Mao Zedong’s five Year Plan was an attempt by him to boost China’s industry and become more powerful. When Zedong came to power, China was way behind the industrial nations of the planet. “He set ambitious goals for the production of iron and steel, coal, cement, and electrical power. Thousands of factories were to be built and an army of workers was mobilized to staff them.” (80). His plan worked in most cases, but also killed millions of peasants in the process. Chairman Mao also had another plan. This one was said to transform the way hundreds of millions of peasants lived and worked. Mr. Zedong urged all the peasants to give up farming and join cooperatives. Cooperatives were large farms that Zedong believed produce crops more efficiently than private farms. His slogan for this was “More, Better, Faster,” . This plan was one of his many plans that actually worked, at least for a
As many other countries around the world China has its long history of a struggle for equality and prosperity against tyrants and dictatorships. The establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949 seemed to have put an end to that struggle for a better life. “The Chinese people have stood up!” declared Mao Tse-tung, the chairman of China’s Communist Party (CPP) – a leading political force in the country for the time. The people were defined as a coalition of four social classes: the workers, the peasants, the petite bourgeoisie and the national-capitalists. The four classes were to be led buy the CPP, as the leader of the working class.
“The Party: The Secret World Of China’s Communist Rulers,” by Richard McGregor is a book which provides detailed insight into the Communist Party of China, revealing many of the secret underpinnings of how the party is run, and explores the question of how they have continued to stay in power for so long. While other strong socialist powers, such as the Soviet Union and Eastern Germany, fell at the end of the 20th century, the CPC was able to stay in control and ultimately come out of that period even stronger. In McGregor’s own words “the party picked itself up off the ground, reconstituted its armor and reinforced its flank. Somehow, it has outlasted, outsmarted, outperformed, or simply outlawed its critics, flummoxing the pundits who have predicted its demise at numerous junctures.” Instead of letting its own ideologies weaken its power, the CPC has continually adapted and transformed its policies and goals in order to maintain their stronghold over the nation. Through his impressive list of Chinese scholars and political contacts, McGregor is able to lay out the fundamental workings inside the Chinese government and the impressive actions they’ve taken to remain such a powerful organization.
China has been a communist country since the communist revolution took place in 1949, since then China has been ruled by the dictator Mao Tse-Tung. However the Chinese dictator died in September 1976, he was hailed abroad as one of the worlds’ great leaders. Certainly one of the more impressive aspects of the Chinese communist government, has been the willingness of the people to protest against it (3, pg. 4).
From 1949 until his death in 1976, Mao Zedong transformed a country in poverty and chaos into a well-organised state with an educated populous, over which he maintained total control. 2 more intro sentences.
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
Mao Zedong’s rise to political power as chairmen of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was made possible by the failings of the GouMinDan (GMD). After the fall of the Qing dynasty, in 1911, China fell into disarray where warlords had power, rather than a national government. Sun Yat-sen began a nationalist group whose militaristic tacts allowed them to unite china under a singular party, the GMD. Despite many revolutionary promises very little positive changes were made by Chiang Kai-shek, who became leader of the GMD in 1925.However because of the party’s lack of political knowledge and poor socio-economic abilities the GMD’s rule was a failure. Mao used this to project his own ideology on China in the form of Maoism. Mao’s ability to take advantage of China’s bad situation allowed him to receive the support he required in order to rise to power.
There is no denying that the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party under Chairman Mao Zedong changed the course of the history of China and shaped the China the world sees today. The amount of lives, cultural traditions, and differing intellectual thoughts that were lost and destroyed as he strove to meet his goals for the country can never be recovered or replaced. However, it had been asserted that one of the more positive effects of Chairman Mao on the people of China was his somewhat radical opinion of woman. Prior to the Communist Revolution, women’s role in Chinese society was almost completely limited to life within the home and focused on supporting their family and being submissive to their fathers and husbands. Chairman Mao
Aside from Mao’s occupation as educator, he co-founded the Hunanese Student Association. The turning point that led Mao to be part of the communist movement was the endless oppression by General Zhang Jingyao, who was “extraordinary cruelty to farmer’s families in the countryside, his seizure of banks’ assets, and his proven record of massive opium smuggling and the illegal selling of lead-mining rights to German and American businessmen” (Spence 38). Mao argued that citizens like General Zheng made China corrupted and senseless. Therefore, he developed a form of thinking and government that would not only help unite China but their economy so there would be no separation between the rich and the
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).