In what ways did Mao Zedong s Great Leap Forward impact lives of Chinese people during ? History of the Americas HL Word Count: 2,154

Transcription

1 In what ways did Mao Zedong s Great Leap Forward impact lives of Chinese people during ? History of the Americas HL Word Count: 2,154 Student Declaration: I assert that this historical investigation is solely my authentic work. I understand that if this work is copied or plagiarized that my historical investigation will not be submitted to the IBO and I will receive no grade from the IBO. 1

2 Section 1: Identification and evaluation of sources This investigation is intended to answer the question: In what ways did Mao Zedong s Great Leap Forward impact lives of Chinese people during ? To answer this question, primary sources portraying the first-hand experiences of Chinese people who lived during the Great Leap Forward (GLF) between 1958 and 1961, specifically an interview that illustrates real experiences during the GLF, will be examined. Other primary sources including an audio podcast and a book of collected oral interviews will be examined to understand the experiences of those whose family members have been directly affected by the Great Leap Forward and how it affected the social implications of this time period. Secondary sources exploring the nature of the GLF and its social effects will be utilized as well. Mao Zedong s motives and China s political and economic context during this time period will also be examined in the secondary sources. The interview with A Cui Ying, my grandmother, who lived in Eastern China during the GLF, was conducted in person during December The interview was conducted upon my request for a primary source account of the GLF by someone whose life was directly impacted by the consequences of the GLF. This source is valuable because it presents the perspective of a Chinese citizen who grew up during the Maoist Era and whose life as a young adult has greatly been influenced by the Communist-style education she received in school. This interview also illustrates the immediate effects that my grandmother s family that was present during the GLF faced and the impact of the failed plan on their lives. The limitation of this source is that my grandmother lived under the Communist regime in China, where information was highly limited to the public and ordinary citizens. Her perspectives may have been influenced by the Communist propaganda that was implemented during the GLF. Moreover, as a child in the late 2

3 1950 s, my grandmother s perspective was limited to the information she had access to in schooling monitored by the Party and information that was spread by people in her local community in Shenjiamen in the Zhejiang Providence. Mao s Great Famine: The History of China s Most Devastating Catastrophe, is a book published in 2010 by Frank Dikötter, a professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong. The purpose of this source is to present a detailed chronicle of the GLF that reveals secret information from the newly opened Chinese archives to modern day historians and students who are studying the history of China s GLF. This source is valuable because it contains information on the GLF from the previously closed Chinese archives, which very few historians and researchers have been able to investigate prior to the opening of these archives because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) limited the information publicly available to regular people and historians. The limitation of this source is that the information the author was able to obtain from the Chinese archives may not have included information that the Chinese Communist Party had intentionally deleted or kept hidden from the archives. Section 2: Investigation Between 1958 and 1961, drastic changes were implemented in the People s Republic of China under Mao Zedong, who believed that a socialist system of agriculture heavily reliant on labor force would lead to vast land productivity and rapid industrialization. 1 The growing population led to land-shortages and poverty; private land ownership was abolished in the 1950 s and replaced with collectivization. In the 1950s, the Party also constantly feared counterrevolution, revisionism and the regeneration of capitalism. 2 To establish a long-term consolidation of communist power, the Party needed revolutionary changes in the social and 1 Zhou Xun. The Great Famine in China: (New Haven: Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2012), 1. 2 Geoffrey Francis Hudson, A.V. Sherman and Alfred Zauberman. The Chinese Communes: A Documentary Review and Analysis of the "Great Leap Forward" (London: Soviet Survey, 1959), 15. 3

4 economic structure and recognized that collectivization itself was not enough to advance the nation, thus implementing the GLF. 3 In the GLF, the Communist Party pushed for the establishment of communes among the lower class people. Rural people were forced to sacrifice their homes and possessions to form collectives in 1958; many of these survivors of the famine were left without homes, health care and food. 4 On October 1, 1958, Mao Xiansheng, who lives in south-central Sichuan, was kicked out from his house to live communally and his house was burned down to provide more land for growing crops. Meanwhile, his pans and pots were taken away because people were prohibited from cooking at home and only allowed to eat at the collective canteen. 5 Zhou Xun s family suffered severe starvation in Sichuan during the Great Famine. Zhou s grandmother paid high prices in the black market to provide eggs for Zhou s mother so that she was able to produce enough milk to feed her. 6 A Cui Ying, who lives in the Zhejiang Providence was eleven years old on the eve of radical collectivization in She recalls going to school in 1959 and having to listen to things that she had no idea about such as the mass production of iron and steel, the GLF, and to uphold the Three Red Flags, which was the Party s general line. 7 Never daring to question authority, Ying grew up in the 1950 s and 60 s believing that the Party would lead China to great prosperity. However, there were doubts and questions that she could not communicate aloud when she witnessed local townspeople starving and struggling with food despite the economic advances promised by the Party. 8 People 3 Frederick C. Teiwes. China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians, and Provincial Leaders in the Unfolding of the Great Leap Forward, (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999), Zhou Xun. Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine, : An Oral History. (New Haven: Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2013), 5. 5 Ibid, Zhou Xun. Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine, : An Oral History. (New Haven: Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2013), 1. 7 A Cui Ying, interview by author, December A Cui Ying, interview by author, December

5 interviewed by Shu Qiao in Hunan in 2012 were told by the Party that the famine was caused by a natural disaster and the Chinese debt to the Soviets. 9 Meanwhile, investments were made to foreign machinery designed to advance the industrial outputs, and very little was invested in the housing and feeding of workers. 10 This led to food wars in 1959 as peasants battled rulers for food due to extreme starvation. 11 A man in the Hunan providence recalls a villager who stole some grain and cooked it, but was later discovered by an official, who confiscated her pot. She hung herself that same night, terrified about the consequences of disobedience, as were many during the GLF. 12 Peasants were insufficiently fed for the amount of work they produced in order to meet the quotas of production. 13 The Party had convinced its people that the Great Leap Forward would bring China years ahead of its rival nations technologically and agriculturally. No one questioned the Party s plan in fear of being labeled a rebel or capitalist, as they would have been immediately removed from society. 14 People were also careful with their actions as any indication of disobedience would have resulted in harsh punishment or self imposed punishment out of fear, as seen in Shu Qiao s interview with the Hunan villager who told the story of a person who hung herself due to the fear of officials during the GLF. 15 Fear of authority became the primary influence on people s way of living and forced in them the perspective that what was good for China was good for every 9 Recording The Untold Stories of China's Great Famine." NPR. November 11, Accessed November 17, Frank Dikötter. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe. (New York, NY: Walker &, 2010), Yang Jisheng and Edward Friedman. Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), Recording The Untold Stories of China's Great Famine." NPR. November 11, Accessed November 17, Roderick MarFarquhar. The Origins of the Cultural Revolution. Vol. 2, The Great Leap Forward (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the East Asian Institute of Columbia University and the Research Institute on International Change of Columbia University, 1983), Geoffrey Francis Hudson, A.V. Sherman and Alfred Zauberman. The Chinese Communes: A Documentary Review and Analysis of the "Great Leap Forward" (London: Soviet Survey, 1959), Recording The Untold Stories of China's Great Famine." NPR. November 11, Accessed November 17,

6 individual. Raised with this fear, children committed to everything they were taught in the Partymonitored education system. Such way of life for ordinary people during the implementation of the GLF would have very much shaped their perspectives on the plan itself because they were only exposed to a society in which the CCP told them what to think and believe. Virtually every institution was led or overlooked by the CCP during this time period, fostering a society where individualized ideas were prohibited and punished for. Many of the primary source accounts including the NPR podcast reflect the difficulty people had in expressing their real beliefs on the GLF although they knew factually that their family members and neighbors had been killed and harmed by the GLF. The Chinese people who have survived the GLF reflect on the period with recollection of extreme starvation and forced collectivization. Starvation was the most pressing and direct effect on every day lives of the Chinese people as they were always working while hungry and constantly witnessing people in their villages passing away from starvation. 16 Under these conditions of food shortages, some stole and obtained food illegally out of desperation, despite their fear of officials finding out and subjecting them to harsh punishment. As China was and presently is still a Communist nation, many sources of information are concealed by the government from its people and foreigners. Most of the primary and secondary sources that are accessible, but banned in mainland China today, have been shared by people who have left China and currently live in a different country. Sources are also written by historians who have accessed the recently opened Chinese Archives which contain historical Chinese documents, which had been previously closed off. This thus greatly limits the knowledge that people have access to in China as well as outside of China about the GLF. The GLF was a failed plan that the Communist Chinese government attempts to restrict the spread of 16 A Cui Ying, interview by author, December

7 information about its negative outcomes as an immense failure. It is imperative to consider that the information that the Chinese government now shares, or allows to be released, may be slanted and continue to diverge from the real truths in history. Mao Zedong s GLF was a disaster for the Chinese people and society as the initial plan to improve the economy had completely failed. Instead, millions of lives were destroyed during the Great Famine by starvation, random killings by law enforcers and punishment for those who indicated signs of rebellion against the Party. The propaganda message, to some extent, had failed in China because some Chinese people began doubting their faith in the CCP, as proven by interviews conducted recently and primary source accounts of the Great Famine survivors. Although the Party had not mentioned deaths and blamed famine on natural disasters, people were unsettled by all the deaths from starvation they witnessed in their communes as well as all the unjustified deaths imposed by the government on those who seemed suspicious of being anti- Communist and rebels. There may still be information and truths behind the GLF that the Party continues to keep hidden today, but the social sufferings and economic failure have been irrefutably experienced by those who were alive during the time. Section 3: Reflection This investigation has allowed me to gain an understanding of some of the methods used by historians, the challenges they face in their historical investigations and how the reliability of these sources can be evaluated. In conducting research on my historical topic by using a variety of sources, I have developed my skills in discerning the perspectives of each source and evaluating their values and limitations from a historian s position. To execute the investigation, I read interview transcripts and books that contained first person accounts. I also listened to podcasts of oral interviews and conducted an interview with an individual who lived through the 7

8 historical event concerning this investigation. As many historians do, I focused on mainly primary sources in order to gain insight into the social consequences of the particular historical time period. When I began to read sources on my research topic and analyzing the information provided by each source, I became more aware of the challenges that historians face. Although primary sources, such as interviews and first person narratives, are considered to be very accurately reflective of people s experiences with a particular event, they are still heavily influenced by the circumstances and conditions under which the individuals lived. For example, in the NPR podcast, Recording The Untold Stories of China's Great Famine, one survivor of the Great Famine had believed the Chinese Communist Party when they told people the famine was caused by a natural disaster and the Chinese debt owed to the Soviets. Consequentially, many of the primary source accounts were limited to the knowledge and information the person had access to in a heavily censored society. This is challenging for the historian in determining the reliability of such sources while attempting to reach a general conclusion about the historical period. Despite my initial challenges in determining the type of information I found in my research that would be useful in reaching a conclusion, I later came to realize that an effective historian seeks the truth given the information that is accessible to him or her by comparing and contrasting the evidence and drawing inferences. Different sources came with contrasting perspectives, but each source was to be assessed for its origins, purpose, limitations and values in order to understand the nature of the evidence in relation to the topic of study. For example, Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe by Frank Dikötter illustrates information collected by the author from the formerly closed off Chinese archives, 8

9 which contains facts and decisions made by the CCP during the Great Leap Forward that was censored in the public eye. This source provides a completely different perspective from that of a primary source account from a survivor of the Great Famine, but each perspective is essential in understanding the overall effect of the Great Leap Forward on the Chinese people during 1958 through

10 Bibliography Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, New York, NY: Walker &, Hudson, Geoffrey Francis, A.V. Sherman and Alfred Zauberman. The Chinese Communes: A Documentary Review and Analysis of the "Great Leap Forward" London: Soviet Survey, MacFarquhar, Roderick. The Origins of the Cultural Revolution. Vol. 2, The Great Leap Forward Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the East Asian Institute of Columbia University and the Research Institute on International Change of Columbia University, "Recording The Untold Stories of China's Great Famine." NPR. November 11, Accessed November 17, Teiwes, Frederick C., and Warren Sun. China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians, and Provincial Leaders in the Unfolding of the Great Leap Forward, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Yang, Jisheng, and Edward Friedman. Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Ying, A Cui. "Effect of Great Leap Forward on Chinese Life." Interview by author. Zhou, Xun. Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine, : An Oral History. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, Zhou, Xun. Great Famine in China, : A Documentary History. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press,