Mao Zedong

1
Mao Zedong

• Domestic Policy
• Political Conflict in the Leadership

2
Party Structure

• End of 1950 - 5,821,604 members
• Formal government 56 members
• Politburo 14 members
• Standing Committee 5 members Mao, Zhou Enlai,
  Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun

3
Maoism and Leninism

• Disagreement about the political order
• Leninist model for the state
• Mao Soviet model - routine and bureaucratic, an
  inward looking elite, isolated from the masses,
  acting to protect its own interests
• The mass line represents the creative and
  productive energies of the masses of the Chinese
  population, which are potentially inexhaustible.
  Party members should take their cue from the
  masses, and reinterpret policy with respect to
  the benefit of the masses.

4
Maos Theoretical Principles

• Soviet Union - dictatorship of the party
  bureaucrats
• Hungary and Poland - isolation of the leadership
  from the people
• Comintern problem - Moscows priorities dictating
  policies in Eastern European states

5
Maos Theoretical Principles

• Theories a response to challenges from colleagues
• Unable to accept responsibility for mistaken
  policies
• Criticism is a part of the Marxist dialectical
  method which is central to Party improvement as
  such, communists must not fear it, but engage in
  it openly.

6
Economics vs. Politics

• Leninists wanted economic recovery
• Economic matters priority over changing the way
  people think
• Mao totally rejected this view
• Mutual aid, comradeship and the political
  conviction primary importance

7
Economics vs. Politics

• Economic development should go hand in hand with
  social awareness
• E.g. mutual aid teams in the countryside
• The people can achieve anything

8
Economics vs. Politics

• Disagreement about specific policy especially
  agriculture
• Leninists were committed to collectivisation -
  urban industrial development
• Mao insisted that the peasants should not be
  squeezed for the benefit of urban
  industrialisation
• Early 1960s - if people educated as good
  socialists, economic change would follow

9
The Party and the Masses

• Mao against Leninist recruitment policy
• However, party membership way to higher education
  self-replicating elite
• Problem - how to reconcile with need for skilled
  people to modernise China
• Opposition to a continuation of the
  intellectualism of the Confucian period
• Classless society required proletariat to produce
  its own intellectuals

10
Revolution and Stability

• Stability stagnation
• Marxist theory end of class conflict workers
  own means of production, collectivisation
  agriculture
• Mao had a different view of class state of mind

11
Maos Class Enemies

• External enemies who appeared intent on crushing
  communism - the US
• The emergence of new classes in the countryside -
  rich peasants
• People who felt themselves superior to the masses
• Agents of foreign powers
• The party itself becoming established as a ruling
  elite

12
Need for support in the cities

• Rural areas natural support
• Necessary find urban, educated cadres
• Campaigns mass mobilisation against domestic
  subversion
• Three Anti and Five Anti campaigns examples

13

• Peace! Democracy! Bread!
• Cartoon cover from 1957