The Effects of Changes from 1949 to the Beginning of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 on the Lives of the Chinese People China

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The Effects of Changes from 1949 to the Beginning of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 on the Lives of the Chinese People China

Under the lead of Mao, China had been released by the old imperial

system, and through a civil war, China has turned into a communism

state called the new People’s Republic of China. During the time Mao

was in power, he introduced a great variety of changes, ranging from

political and economic to social. The major and the most effective

ones were The Rights of Women, Land Reform, Industrial Reform, The

Hundred Flowers Campaign, Education and Health. However, did these

policies affect the majority positively, or were there any negative

effects.

The primary change brought by Mao was the Marriage Law in 1950.

According to Brooman Josh, it had a huge direct social impact on the

rights of 270 million females. (Brooman Josh 2000:30) The Marriage Law

was aimed to free women from the old traditional Chinese society.

Throughout the history, the situation had been that the male was the

head of the family, had complete control of his wives and property,

and this tradition is what the Chinese had had for thousands of years.

The law is based on “free choice of partners, on monogamy, on equal

rights for both sexes, and on protection of the lawful interests of

women and children shall be put into effect.”

This change must have seriously shocked the majority of the Chinese,

because accepting the law means to break away from the tradition. From

the outline of the law, it seems that women were the only ones being

affected, but in fact, men were also being influenced. To some extent,

both women and men had been affected bo...

... middle of paper ...

...f speech and the introduction of censorship

made Mao even less popular amongst his people. The only changes

without any negative outcomes would probably be health and education.

However, the success in economic improvement indicates that these

changes were nevertheless worth it. All success has brought China into

a new era, becoming more and more industrialized, and competitive with

the rest of the world.

Appendix 1—

[IMAGE]

Bibliography—

l Brooman, Josh. 2000. China Since 1900. New York, United States of

America. Longman Inc.

l Chang, Jung. 1991. Wildswans. Great Britain. Harper Collins

publishers

l Walsh, Ben. 1998. Modern World History. Great Britain. Butler and

Tanner Ltd.

l Morcombe Margot and Fielding Mark. 1999. The Spirit of Change, China

in Revolution. Australia. McGraw-Hill.

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