Mao vs. Deng Essay

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

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.

In 1966, Mao launched the ‘Cultural Revolution’ in order to reassert his authority over China and the CCP, but also ensure that China would not revert back into capitalism and cement the revolution so as not to make the same revisionist mistakes that Mao had seen in the USSR.

This paper aims to find out the differences between the developmental strategies of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping are important characters of China's history. Both great leaders and both tried to bring about reform with China. In addition, through the facts that society in China has been changing in recent decades, evaluate the achievements of each in the contribution to economic and social development of China.

During Mao’s time, he strongly stressed his principles of the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution”. However, due to these philosophies, China’s economic and social foundations crumbled and was severely damaged. The country was severely poor and economic production slowed. After Mao passed away, Deng Xiaoping emerged as Mao’s successor. He launched comprehensive economic reforms. These reforms aimed to decrease the role of the state in the economy and gradually introduce private forms of production in agriculture and industry. Because of these reforms, production increased by leaps and bounds and poverty was reduced dramatically. However, there was a problem that was arising. There was a lot of corruption and nepotism that was beginning to take over the economy. The gap between the wealthy and poor was growing and people began to see it as unfair.

In light of the economic changes that had occurred from the Maoist period (1949-1976) to the post-Maoist period (1978-2011) of China, the system of economic distribution of China under Mao Zedong’s and Deng Xiaoping’s leadership created a notable contrast of the standards of living for Chinese citizens. Mao Zedong’s establishment of collectively owned lands and state entitlement in the 1950s to 1970s put an end to private ownership and created a system whereby the earnings of Chinese citizens were paid per capita basis, reducing income differences. Upon the death of Mao Zedong and his system, Deng Xiaoping’s establishment of the privatization of lands and economic liberalization under his “Four Modernizations” reform goal created a system

After fleeing Chiang Kai-Shek Mao became the leader of a small communist republic he founded in the northern mountains of China. After WWII and the following power struggle with Chiang Mao founded the People's Republic of China in 1949. Mao ruled China until 1962 when he was taken from power by the communist party due to his disastrous “Great Leap Forward” which was intended to increase production to the level of Britian in a short amount of time. The result was the deaths of around 40 million people, although there was never an official count made. In 1966, after 25 years on the sidelines, Mao regained power by creating a threat that only he could fix. He claimed that China was under threat by capitalists. Mao’s followers killed thousands of people who posed a threat to his power. Mao also closed schools and sent intellectuals to labor camps to prevent opposition. This “revolution” solidified Mao's political position until his death, but also destroyed much of China’s cultural

If anything, the 1949 Chinese Revolution entered China into an era of never-ending revolution, violent and nonviolent. Two more “revolutions” occur after 1949: the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Mao believed that China’s socialist transformation was occurring too slowly. He believed China needed to leapfrog into a modern economy and a socialist utopia. In order for this to occur, there needed to be sweeping change within Chinese society. The hallmark of the Great Leap Forward were the People’s Communes. The greatest example of this era of revolution is the Cultural Revolution. At the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Mao instructed young Red Guards to destroy the Four Olds: old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas (Osnos, 285). The Cultural Revolution was revolution in its purest form. Mao intended to transform China into a completely modern, socialist state through the Cultural Revolution. There needed to be a sudden, extreme, or complete change in the way people live, work,

the people had at the communes. The main purpose of this plan was to keep all

Deng Xiaoping lead Mao’s Anti-Rightist campaign so it is he, rather than Mao who is responsible for those hardships and deaths. The Great Leap Forward 1958-61 was “to achieve greater, faster, better and more economic results” but in the end it caused the greatest amount of damage to “china’s greatest asset – it’s population.” Its aim was to catch up with Britain in 15 years but instead it lead to industrial failure, crop failures, famine and a marred truth. The introduction of communes were used to accelerate production and as seen in ‘Mao – A life’ peasants didn’t like the militarisation of their lives, thus causing a division. Mao’s ignorance in economy and steel production was evident in both his “completely wasted” backyard furnaces, in which he aimed to produce steel out of any metals and through the people’s lack of incentive to work due to the iron rice bowl, (guaranteed employment and wages).

Deng created socialism intertwined with communism. He wanted the government to still have most of the control over the people, but less control over farming and industry. This way the people would be able to sell their goods. He wanted more businesses in China, even with foreigners. Deng was the first to bring capitalism into China. He is known as the man that brought China up from being a third world county to one of top economic leaders in the world.

Thinking that most of the Chinese populace were workers, Mao refocused the objective of Chinese socialism toward the idea of a laborer upheaval. Regardless of this, the two countries still shared genuinely comparable qualities until the 1950s, when a noteworthy ideological break created.

Deng Xiaoping has been the individual with the most impact on China since the 1970’s. Along with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, he is looked at as one of the key figures in evolution of communism in China . Deng Xiaoping will be remembered as a national hero, but this was not always the case. The real story of Deng includes the fact that, on more than one occasion, his peers ostracized him. During his lifetime he has been a part of the many changes in China throughout the twentieth century. He was by Mao Zedong’s side through all of the struggles of the Chinese Communist Party; battling with Chiang Kai-shek and the Guomindang over

The world has changed a lot since the formation of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949. From a nation, which was barely living during the beginning of Mao Zedong’s reign to a country that boasts the second largest economy in the world. The People’s Republic of China, as learned from class, experienced hardships that most newly established country. Solidifying the legitimacy of the newly established Communist Party, securing the leadership position, and pulling people from the grave and encouraging them to become productive citizens that will help the country to grow.

The Great Leap Forward was a program designed as an economic stimulus model heavily focused on industry. Under this economic program, individual agricultural areas were merged into larger people’s communities and many of the peasants were ordered to work on enormous infrastructure projects and on the manufacture of iron and steel. Most privatization was banned; personal wealth was confiscated while livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.