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Proclamation of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong
The new government assumed control of a people exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict, and an economy ravaged by high inflation and disrupted transportation links. A new political and economic order modeled on the Soviet example was quickly installed.
http://www.china-profile.com/history/indepth/id_0.htm -
New marriage law bans polygamy and arranged marriages. Tries to strengthen women's status.
Designer: Yu Yunjie (俞云阶)
1953, February
Freedom of marriage, happiness and good luck
Ziyou hunyin meiman xingfu (自由婚姻美满幸福)
Publisher: Huadong renmin meishu chubanshe (华东人民美术出版社)
Size: 78x54 cm.
Call number: BG E15/594 (Landsberger collection) -
Ha Jin is born in Liaoning Province in northeast China
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Mao broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the "Great Leap Forward,"
Goal: rapidly increase agriculture and industry.
Created many communes and backyard factories.
Normal market mechanisms were disrupted, agricultural production fell behind, and China's people exhausted themselves producing what turned out to be shoddy, un-salable goods
Information directly from:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/18902.htm
Image of furnaces in the backyard used to make stell- it failed miserably.
Image from: http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=69&catid=2 -
Great Famine
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Period: to
Great Famine killing 20- 45 million
s. Within a year, starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural areas. From 1960 to 1961, the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad weather resulted in one of the deadliest famines in human history. -
State President Liu Shaoqi and Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, took over direction of the party
adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's revolutionary vision. -
Soviets withdrew all of their personnel from China
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"Waiting" begins in 1960
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"Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" :Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu, Deng, and other pragmatists
was unprecedented in communist China’s history. For the first time, a section of the Chinese communist leadership sought to rally popular opposition against another leadership group. China was set on a course of political and social anarchy that lasted the better part of a decade. taken from: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/18902.htm -
Jin joins the Chinese People’s Liberation Army at fourteen,
served somewhat more than five years as a soldie -
Chairman Mao dies
This essentially ends the cultural revolution in China. -
Jin entered Heilongjiang University
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Ha Jin immigrates to the United States
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Jin studies at Brandeis University in 1989
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Tiananmen Square massacre
Leads Jin to decide never to go back to China.
Students were protesting for democracy. Troops killd many trying to disband the protesting. This hapeened elsewhere - but Tinanamen is best known.
