Cultural revolution poster

Chinese Revolution - AOS 2

By holli.jw
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    Land Reform

    • Target: landlords
    • Effect: peasants encouraged to denounce landlords in ‘speak bitterness’ meetings & vote on punishments in People’s Courts. 1mil landlords executed, remainder stripped of property.

  • Thought Reform

    • Target: intellectuals
    • Effect: intellectuals forced to attend indoctrination classes on Mao Zedong Thought. Dissenters forced to write self-criticisms/undergo struggle sessions/sent to re-education by labour. All dissent silenced.

  • Three Antis Campaign (Sanfan)

    • Aimed to eradicate Corruption, Waste and Bureaucracy within CCP.
    • Intended to expose unreliable officials/corrupt cadres.
    • 1mil CCP members expelled.
    • Encouraged ordinary people to take action, encouraged culture of spying.

  • Five Antis Campaign (Wufan)

    • Aimed to target tax evasion, fraud, cheating on govt. contracts, theft of govt. property and bribery within CCP.
    • Impacted industrialists/business owners (believed to be bourgeoisie capitalists who corrupted govt. personnel).
    • 450,000 were fined/imprisoned.
    • Encouraged ordinary people to take action, encouraged culture of spying.
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    First Five-Year Plan

    • Modelled after the Soviet Union.
    • Aimed to industrialise/modernise China to achieve Communism.
    • 10-16% increase in overall annual production.
    • Created a socialist, industrialised economy under govt. control (step towards communism).
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    Collectivisation

    • Aimed to collective agriculture to create a more productive, socialist economy and rase revenues from grain exports.
    • Peasants encouraged/coerced to give up land and join govt.-run Collective Farms .
    • Created socialist economy - govt. now controlled/organised agriculture.
    • Failed to improve food production; no money to invest in materials; food production stagnated.
    • Peasant living standards worsened.
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    Hundred Flowers Campaign

    • Mao called on intellectuals to rectify party's work style; thought grievances would be better expressed in controlled manner.
    • Responses with a torrent of criticisms that attacked the Party and Mao themselves.
    • Mao labelled these 'poisonous weeds', launching the Anti-Rightest Campaign
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    Anti-Rightist Campaign

    • Triggered by Hundred Flowers Campaign; aimed to purge dissidents.
    • Signified beginning of Mao's reliance on terror to silence dissent.
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    Great Leap Forward (Second Five-Year Plan)

    • Aimed to rapidly industrialise China's agricultural/industrial sectors by utilising massive amounts of cheap human labour to avoid importing industrial machinery.
    • PROBLEMS: Collectivisation, backyard furnaces, Four Pests, etc.
    • Resulted in The Great Famine.
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    The Great Famine (Three Bad Years Famine)

    • 30% drop in food production
    • Govt. failed to acknowledge severity of reality.
    • Approx. 30mil deaths from starvation.
    • A man-made famine, though some environmental factors exacerbated it (eg. flood, drought, locust plague).

  • Lushan Plenum

    • Peng Dehuai raised concerns that the GLF was causing problems.
    • Mao was humiliated and outraged and his formerly close relationship with Peng was destroyed.
    • Lin Biao replaced Peng as defence minister **Day not supposed to be there, just month/year
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    Cult of Mao

    • Mao and supporters sought to restore his influence after GLF.
    • Lin Biao edited/mass-produced Mao's Little Red Book and created emulation campaigns (eg. Learn from Lei Feng).
    • Chinese youth were indoctrinated to worship Mao, allowing Mao to mobilise them as the Red Guards in 1966
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    Cultural Revolution and May 16 Circular

    • Publicly aimed to preserve true Communist ideology; covertly aimed to consolidate Mao's unchallenged authority.
    • May 16 Circular: Mao outlined concerns that party was infiltrated by bourgeoisie representatives, who would turn the Republic into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
    • These spies were to be filtered out in the Cultural Revolution.
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    Red Guard and Four Olds

    • Mao mobilised radical Chinese youth as the Red Guard to combat counterrevolutionary forces and defend the revolution.
    • Primary uni students, workers, party officials' children, peasants and soldiers.
    • Obliterated anything that fit into the 'four olds': old ideas, old customs, old culture and old habits.