HW 7

1. Identify and explain four of Mao's main aims as ruler of China (from notes also).

- Increase industrial output.

- Gain support from the USSR

- Rebuild China and build support from peasants and communes

- Get and maintain power

2. Identify and explain four major methods he used to try to achieve those aims. (think specific domestic policies)

- The Great Leap Forward: Mao's plan to make China into one of the world's leading industrial nations while improving agriculture. He hoped to overtake the English economy within 15 years and America's in 20 to 30 years. From 1958-1963.

-Communes: Mao reorganized the people into communes, which on average contained 5000 families who would give up land, animals and equipment to common ownership with everyone in the commune. Mao thought this would release the "tremendous energy of the masses" by increasing efficiency with things like communal eating halls (less time spent cooking by various people), and "houses of happiness" for the sick and infirm so that they wouldn't be a burden on their families.

-Propaganda: Posters, slogans and newspaper articles were used to make the chinese people enthusiastic about working long hours no matter the weather or bad conditions. Loudspeakers would play "revolutionary songs and stirring speeches" that encouraged the people to meet and exceed the goals for each target in the 5 Year Plan that was being implemented at the time. This essentially motivated people into achieving hefty tasks such as building a giant dam near Beijing.

- Backyard Steel Campaign: Emphasis on creating steel was heavy within the communes. 60,000 'backyard steel furnaces' were set up in towns and villages. Each one was only capable of making a couple tons of steel, but with the propaganda propelling people forward they were producing 11 million tons of steel, which was a 65% increase from the total in 1957.

3. Give examples of two legal methods and two examples of force Mao used to achieve his aims.

Legal:

-Propaganda

-The First Five-Year Plan

Force:

-Cooperatives: Families were forced into groups of 200-300 families. Families weren't paid for the use of their land, received wages only for their labor, were forced to surrender title deeds for their land and equipment and animals.

-Aftermath of 'The Hundred Flowers': Mao's critics while free speech was permitted were soon sent to camps in the country for "thought reform", some were fired from their jobs. Free speech was forbidden and press was censored.

4. Explain the cause-and-effect relationship between the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Three Bitter Years".

The basic problem of the "Great Leap Forward" was that it pushed for too much, and consequently things broke down. Overused factories lead to machines that were too old and overwork falling apart under strain, working falling asleep and being injured due to exhaustion-related accidents. The Backyard Steel campaign took a large number of workers, which took people out of the fields and reduced what could be grown; then, most of the steel produced was useless and had to be thrown away because the peasants didn't know how to produce it correctly. The coal that the B.S.C. took also lead to a shortage in the country's supplies, so railways were inoperative. The farming crisis also arose from the Great Leap Forward. The harvest in 1958 was poor because so many people were taken from the fields to pursue the new industrial goals, and because Party officials falsely claimed that the grain harvest was 260 million tons (perhaps to increase morale or appease Mao), which lead to communal eating halls giving peasants too-generous meals and using up food stocks. With the bad harvest of 1959 and all the chaos of the G.L.F.'s failure, there was a famine that killed 9 million people just in 1960.

5. Please give three examples from the reading of Mao using propaganda to achieve his aims.

- Lying about production: The government presumably lied about how much grain had been produced because it wanted to encourage the workers to do even more and exceed what they were doing at the time.

- Broadcasting: The use of loudspeakers playing patriotic songs and speeches that encouraged workers to meet and exceed the plans of the second 5 Year Plan was an effective propaganda method.

- Personal involvement: To make people even more enthusiastic about working for the Communists, Mao himself and members of the Politburo would come in and join in the work of building the dam in Beijing.