Mao Zedong

1
Mao Zedong

• Domestic Policy
• The Rural Areas 1949-1957

2
Reconstruction

• Mao thought rural reform key area expertise
• Destruction of the landlords as a class
• Peasants encouraged to take the decisions about
  redistribution
• Passing the gate

3
Reconstruction

• Peasants uneducated
• Massacre of landlords, an estimated 2 million
  were killed
• Extremes violence and passive
• Not enough arable land

4
Collectivisation

• Early 1950s food production necessarily more
  efficient Mao argued for collectivisation
• Believed poorer peasants would welcome it
• Plan to introduce co-operatives of 150-200
  households
• Debate within the government

5
Collectivisation

• Leninists - wanted to collect from the peasants
• Maoists - wanted to collect the peasants together
• Learnt from Stalins mistakes slow move to
  collectivisation
• Mutual aid teams share tools, animals, labour
  at harvest, later on a year-round basis (already
  established feature Chinese farming)

6
Collectivisation

• In 1955 the cautious approach won incremental
  move to large-scale collectives
• From his speeches at the time clear that Mao
  resented this
• Early 1955 65 peasant households used mutual aid
  teams
• Second stage agricultural producers
  cooperatives (APCs) land worked as single unit
• Remunerated according to input tools, labour etc.

7
Collectivisation

• By June 1955 16.9 million (out of 110 million)
  households part of APCs
• Mao intervened - toured the countryside, using
  his prestige to win support for Maoist
  collectivisation
• Only 2 growth output need increase to meet
  needs popl.

8
Collectivisation

• June 1955 Mao criticized abolition of the
  collectives
• Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai felt APCs too quick,
  Mao felt like tottering women with bound feet
• Goal for complete collectivisation 1958, but
  local officials pushed and by 1957 initial
  process complete
• Result food shortage and a further reversal of
  Maos policy

9
Problems with modernisation

• Two fundamental problems
• 1. strategy economic development
• 2. role of intellectuals
• Role of collectivisation
• How did the Party leadership react?
• Increased number intellectuals introduced to
  Party Stalinist model? Mao unhappy

10
The Hundred Flowers Campaign

• Despite the successes of the party, Mao was
  dissatisfied
• Radical new plan May 1956
• let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools
  of thought contend
• Difficult to understand what, in practice, it
  meant for policy

11
The Hundred Flowers Campaign

• Mao had several objectives in the campaign
• to bring out into the open his major opponents
• to force the party to immerse itself in the
  masses
• to show that class enemies were still waiting to
  overthrow the revolution

12
The Hundred Flowers Campaign

• Alternative interpretation - Mao expected that
  people would give a full endorsement to the
  revolution
• Re-formed the speech, reducing the freedom of
  speech

13
The Hundred Flowers Campaign

• Another interpretation - Mao was motivated by the
  desire to score points against his opponents
  after he had lost the collectivisation issue
• Misjudged the mood of the country

14
The Hundred Flowers Campaign

• Summer of 1956 saw a wave of strikes and student
  unrest
• By 1957 the criticisms became stronger with calls
  for Mao and Zhou Enlai to stand down

15
The Hundred Flowers Campaign

• Ended the period in June 1957
• Class conflict must remain a priority for the
  party
• Road to the Cultural Revolution was opened