Changes under Mao: 1949-1963

Learning Objectives:To examine how the agricultural reforms altered China between 1949-1957

Key Words: Common

ProgrammeAgrarian Reform

LawPeoples Courts

Speak Bitterness Meetings

Mutual Aid TeamsCo-Operatives

CollectivesFive Year Plan

What problems did Mao & the CCP face in 1949?

Starter: Discuss with the people on your table the Economic, Social, Political and Foreign issues that Mao would have faced after the end of the civil war?

Mao’s Problems in 1949

Economic?Industrial? Agricultural?

Political?

Foreign?

Social?

How did the communist flag differ from the

Republican flag?

A new start meant a new flag for China and the CCP

The Party

workerspeasants

Lower middle class

‘patriotic’ capitalists

Agricultural ReformLO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957

Stealing of harvests

Forcible conscription of peasants for military

serviceMassive

numbers of refugees

Much destruction and use of terror.

Maurding armies in the Japanes and Civil Wars had caused widespread destruction

What caused the reduction in agricultural productivity during the wars?

We communists are now in power. But China is weak after 20 years of war and civil war. We need to build up China’s strength to protect its borders from our enemies.

We need a strong army! But most of our factories have been destroyed and

China has few arms factories anyway.

We can buy weapons from our friends the Russians!

China has few resources available to sell to the Russians to buy

weapons. We also need to buy machines for our factories.

China has lots of land and millions of peasants. We will sell FOOD!

The purpose of agricultural reform?

• In 1950 Mao introduced an Agrarian Reform Law. He sent CCP workers into each village to review social class of each person.

• They took the land from landlords and shared it out amongst village peasants (2.5 acres each).

• They also got peasants to put landlords on trial in so-called ‘People’s Courts’.

How did agriculture change?

LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957

• At these trials (Speak Bitterness Meetings) the landlords were accused of charging high rents or mistreating their tenants

• Some were let off, but many landlords were imprisoned or executed. Party workers set up the courts but peasants ran them. Why?

• Between 700,000 – 3 million landlords were executed. This further increased support and faith in Mao. Why?

Peoples Courts?

Mao wanted the executions to have

maximum impact by involving peasants in the killing and having executions in public:

“Peasants who killed with their bare hands the

landlords who oppressed them were wedded to the new revolutionary order in

a way that passive spectators could never

be.”

From P. Short, Mao: A Life, 1999

LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957

• Land reform made Mao popular but in the short-term it only decreased productivity. WHY?

• Mao eventually planned to ‘collectivise’ farming to raise productivity, but this would only anger peasants who has just won their own land.

• The population was growing and to avoid famine, Mao slowly tried to persuade peasants to work together to raise food production.

Population ↑, Food Production ↓ = ?

LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957

• His first step was to introduce Mutual Aid Teams.

• Peasants worked on each other’s land, fertilising, killing pests or harvesting so that each family’s plot would become more productive.

• Government supplied extra fertiliser & tools to reward hardworking families but it did not raise productivity enough.

• Fear that peasants would become a new class society concerned with profits.

Mutual Aid Teams?How effective do you feel this would be?

“In 1951 we set up a Mutual Aid Team. The work went well, but there were

lots of quarrels about whose land should be worked on first. It was

difficult to solve all these problems. Some said ‘Why

should his field be taken first? I’ve got a bigger crop.’ Whatever

we did this went on. So we then began to talk about forming a peasant’s co-

operative.”

LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957

• From 1953, Mao encouraged peasants to form co-operatives.

• This meant land was jointly owned so one large crop could be grown efficiently. Resources could be pooled to buy equipment, fertilisers & seeds.

• Some peasants opposed this (Why?) but by 1955, over 90% of China’s peasants belonged to co-operatives.

The Co-OperativesLO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957

1955 - The ‘co-operatives’ were gathered into larger units called ‘collectives’, consisting of 200-300 families (ie. several villages). By 1956 95% of peasants were in collectives.

The Communist Party further increased its control over the peasants by:

- All peasant land had to be handed over to the collective. - Private ownership, except for small garden plots, ceased to exist.

- Peasants had to give up the title deeds to their land, surrender their animals

- Families now received a wage and were no longer paid a rent for use of their land.

- Peasants were allowed to keep only a few small square metres of land for growing vegetables, etc.

The Collectives

Qu. D – Pg. 33

f

1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 19570

50

100

150

200

250Food Production in China: Billions of Kg of Food Produced 1949-

1957

1950 - Agrarian Land Re-

form

1951 – Mutual

Aid Teams set up

1953 – All peasants

encourage to join co-operatives

1957 – Over 90% of peasants now in

co-operatives

How did Agriculture Change?

Plenary:

1. What was Chinese farming like before 1949?2. Why did Mao introduce the Peoples Courts?

3. How did farming methods change?4. What were the aims of the PRC in introducing Co-

operatives?5. Did peasants attitudes to reforms change over

time?6. Were the changes in farming successful?7. Did this achieve the stated purpose of the

Common Programme?

LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957

Review Pgs. 34-37 in Brooman and the associated website in the workbook. Complete the questions in the workbook from there.

Homework: The Great Leap Forward

LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957