Topic 3: The Rise and Rule of Single-Party States

Transcription

1 Topic 3: The Rise and Rule of Single-Party States Packet: White Swans by Jung Chang Major Theme: Origins and Nature of Authoritarian and Single-Party States Conditions That Produced Single-Party States Emergence of Leaders: Aims, Ideology, Support Totalitarianism: the Aim and the Extent to Which it was Achieved Mao - Took a dislike to sparrows - Ordered the peasants to bang metal in order for them to be unable to land, thus making them die of exhaustion, didn t work - Rarely kept a schedule - Summed up agriculture in 8 characters: soil, fertilizer, water, seeds, dense planting, protection, tending, technology Major Theme: Establishment of Authoritarian and Single-Party States Methods: Force Methods: Legal Form of Government, (Left & Right Wing) Ideology Nature, Extent and Treatment of Opposition 1962 Conference for 7000 officials - Mao stated famine was caused by 70 percent natural disasters and 30 percent human error People who refused to exaggerate beaten until they gave in - Whole nation slid into doublespeak - Lies were told with ease because words had lost their meaning Starvation led to dissent - Part had to convene a special conference - Held at end of June Marshal Peng Dehui criticized Mao through a letter to him - Letter actually fairly optimistic - Mao couldn t take the slightest criticism, dragged conference on

2 for a month, attacking Peng - Peng dismissed as defense minister Purge of rightist opportunists - Lesson that Mao s authority was unchallengeable even though he was in the wrong - If you offended Mao you would fall into disgrace - No opting out - Resignation was seen as an unacceptable protest Just to have heard treason was considered a capital offense - Local bosses would round up anyone they thought would expose them Chang s grandmother The Communists are good, but all these people are dead Chang s parents did not believe that the natural calamities were the explanation. Major Theme: Domestic Policies and Impact Structure and Organization of Government and Administration Political Policies Dictatorship under Mao - Information withheld and fabricated - Difficult for ordinary people to have confidence in their own experience or knowledge Senior officials had privileges - Got preferential treatment with supply distribution - Entitled to twice as much food Mao went to Moscow in late 1957 to attend a world Communist summit - Returned convinced that Russia was abandoning socialism and turning revisionist - Saw China as the only true believer United States and Britain represented the capitalist world - Overtaking them would be a triumph over their enemies - China had felt humiliated by the refusal of the West to recognize them

3 Economic Policies By 1961 political liberalization - Landlords removed the label of class enemy - Greater literary and artistic freedom - More relaxed atmosphere Searching for metal objects to produce steel - Doctors making steel, feeding logs even when performing operations Mao called steel the marshal of industry - Ordered steel output to be doubled - Instead of expanding proper steel industry; ordered whole population to take part - Steel quota for every unit million peasants pulled out of agriculture and into steel production - Reflected Mao s ignorance of economy and metaphysical disregard for reality People s Communes - China organized into new units - Each contained between 2000 and households - Each local boss exaggerated in order to prove they deserved Mao s attention Agriculture neglected because of the priority given to steel - Peasants exhausted from long hours finding fuel, scrap iron, and ore to keep the furnaces going - Fields left to women and children - Few people in the field for harvest time 1959 black market in Chengdu selling chickens and eggs End of 1958 ten great building in the capital to be completed Government provided food to the cities first - Seized grain from the peasants - As a result of this those than grew the food starved - Children survived because their parents gave their food to them Total number of people who died in Sichuan was 7 million - 10 percent of the total population

4 Social Policies Religious Policies Role of Education Role of the Arts Role of Media, Propaganda - Accepted estimate was around 30 million In another commune 35 percent of the peasants died - One peasant killed and ate his own child and begged to be killed - Official explanation was that Khrushchev had forced China to pay back large debt from the Korean War Everywhere possible turned into agricultural production - Hospital grounds Millions of deaths forced Mao to give up his economic policies - No more mass production of steel - Public canteens abolished - Small private plots allowed - Elements of market economy officially sanctioned 1958 regime banned eating at home, people had to eat in the commune canteen - Kitchen utensils were outlawed - Peasants allowed to eat to their heart s content - Consumed ad wasted entire food reserve - How much work actually done did not matter - Just slept in the fields, no incentive to work Not many lessons, teachers making steel Music from loudspeakers, banners, posters, slogans Long Live the Great Leap Forward! and Everybody, Make Steel! Reversal of Chinese sayings Capable women can make a meal without food. Exaggeration in an attempt to get Mao s attention - Villagers stated they were producing more than a million pounds of potatoes, 130,000 pounds of wheat, and cabbages weighing 500 pounds each - Peasants moved crops between land to show officials a miracle harvest - These crops usually died, visitors did not know this or did not

5 care - Peasants ordered to replant crops more densely Fishing was a symbol of a retreat to nature, escape from politics of the day - Symbol for disenchantment and noncooperation Status of Women Communists started promoting family planning in Most Chinese had the same attitude toward children: the more hands the better - Ended family planning Treatment of Religious Groups and Minorities Mao Even if the United States had more powerful atom bombs and used them on China, blasted a hole in the earth, or blew it to pieces, while this might be a matter of great significance to the solar system, it would still be an insignificant matter as far as the universe as a whole is concerned. Chang s mother criticized for running around without discipline. Mao continued to support the Great Leap Forward because it changed the psychological attitude of the Chinese from a passive state to active. Deng Xiaoping s stepmother I was a farmer all my life and I have never heard of such a nonsensical way of farming. about Mao The solution to edema was eating Chorella which grew in urine, the Chorella was disgusting to eat. Chang Chang had little understanding of the famine until food was stolen from her, as a child of an official she lived sheltered.