China D. Emphasis on - The Mao Years 1949 Maoism 1976 1. Observe how Mao gained the love and support of the Peasants during his Long March 2. Examine the ideology and indoctrination of the Chinese people by Mao s Little Red Book 3. Examine power of propaganda - censorship and other tools of persuasion such as concentration camps 4. Analyze the purpose and implementation of the Great Leap Forward. Examine the reality. 5. Analyze the purpose and implementation of the Cultural Revolution and Red Guards. Examine the reality. 6. Role of China in the Korean War (1950) and the invasion of Tibet (1959) 7. Historical significance of President Richard Nixon s visit to China February 1972
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
In Following the Revolutionary Road, Strive for an Even Greater Victory Mao as the Reddest Red Sun in people's hearts, floating above Tiananmen Square, At the front of the huge, Little Red Book-wa\ang crowd are the figures of a worker, peasant, and soldier, while representatives from other occupations stand just behind. The Book was compiled bom Mao's Selected Works by Lin Biao in the early.1960s to be used for propaganda work in the People's Liberation Army After the Cultural Revolution began, it became an integral part of the ritual of Mao worship. By 1970, this kind of orchestrated adulation [staged praise] and the power of Lin Biao were both at tlieir zenith [height]. Source: Picturing Power: Posters from the Chinese Cultural Revolution Exhibit, Indiana University According to this document, what was one way that Mao's government attempted to influence die people of China? [l] In an attempt to break with the Russian model of Communism and to catch up with more advanced nations, Mao proposed that China should make a "great leap forward" into modernisation. He began a militant Five Year Plan to promote technology and agricultural selfsufficiency. Overnight, fertile rice fields were ploughed over, and factory construction work began. Labour-intensive methods were introduced and farming collectivised on a massive scale. The campaign created about 23,500 communes, each controuing its own means of production. But former farmers had no idea how to actually use the new factories and what was once fertile crop land went to waste on a disastrous scale. The Great Leap Forward was held responsible for famine in 1960 and 1961. Twenty million people starved, and Mao Zedong withdrew temporarily from public view. Source: BBC News, Special Reports, China's Communist Revolution (Based on this BBC News article, what is one effect the Great Leap Forward had on China's economy? [l]
This selection is an excerpt from a memoir of Nien Cheng, who is describing the personal experiences of a friend during the Great Leap Forward, an industrialization program after the Chinese Communist Revolution. When Li Zhen [a Chinese woman] returned to Shanghai, the city was suffering from a severe food shortage as a result of the catastrophic economic failure of the Creat Leap Forward Campaign launched by Mao Zedong in 1958. Long lines of people were forming at dawn at Shanghai police stations, waiting to apply for exit permits to leave the country. This was such an embarassment for the Shanghai authorities that they viewed Li Zhen's return from affluent Hong Kong to starving Shanghai as an opportunity for propaganda... to help project an image of popular support for the Communist Party.... The government granted members of this organization [the Communist Party] certain minor privileges, such as better housing and the use of a special restaurant. Life and Death In Shanghai, Cheng, 1986 What was the effect of the Great Leap Forward on the people? ^ - How did the Chinese Communist Party treat members of its organization differently from nonmembers? How would an official of the Chinese Communist Party react to this excerpt? A revolution is an uprising, an act of violence whereby one class overthrows another A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows the authority of the feudal landlord class. If the peasants do not use the maximum of their strength, they can never overthrow the authority of the landlords which has been deeply rooted for thousands of years. Mao Zedong, 1927 According to Mao Zedong, a revolution would involve struggle between which two classes of people
This is an excerpt from Chapter 1, Ceneral Principles, of the 1954 "Constitution of the People's Republic of China." Article 1 The People's Republic of China is a people's democratic state led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.... Article 6 The state sector of the economy is the socialist sector owned by the whole people. It is the leading force in the national economy and the material basis on which the state carries out sociahst transformation. The state ensures priority for the development of the state sector of the economy. AH mineral resources and waters, as well as forests, undeveloped land and other which the state owns by law, are the property of the whole people. resources Article 7 The co-operative sector of the economy is either sociahst, when collectively ovraed by the masses of working people, or semi-sociahst, when in part collectively owned by the masses of working people. Partial collective ownership by the masses of working people is a transitional fonn by means of which individual peasants, individual handicraftsmen and other individual working people organize themselves in their advance towards collective ownership by the masses of working people.... Source: Constitutions of Asian Countries, N. M. Tripathi Private Based on these articles from the "Constitution of the People's RepubUc of China," state two characteristics of the communist economic system in China. [2] (1) (2)