History of China under Mao Zedong The Great Leap Forward programme was introduced in 1958 when Mao saw that a new middle class of "experts" growing up, calling the shots in high places of society. He also wanted to increase the country's production and catalyse industrialisation. Seeing an urgent need to lead China back to "true" Communism, he announced the "Great Leap Forward". The Great Leap Forward programme is said to be an economic failure, as it did not meet its initial aims. The changes that were to be made were too sudden and the lack of expert knowledge was too great. There was poor weather from 1959-1961, causing a massive famine, which saw a total of 25 million deaths. Much of the iron and steel produced from "backyard" blast furnaces were of inferior quality and was of no use. Also, Russia withdrew all help in 1960 due to their differences. By 1961, China was forced to buy grain form abroad, and only strict rationing prevented the famine from continuing. As we can see, the ambitious Great Leap For...
Mao Zedong was born December 26, 1893 and lived until September 9 in 1976 when he died in Beijing China. Mao Zedong died from the Motor neuron disease. Mao Zedong was born into a peasant family in the place Shoshanna near Hunan. During the years of 1928 throughout 1931. Mao Zedong and others that worked with Mao Zedong established armies in the hinterlands and created the Red Army which was known as the most feared “army” in china during the time of the revolution.
Following the Chinese Revolution of 1949, China’s economy was in ruin. The new leader, Mao Zedong, was responsible for pulling the economy out of the economic depression. The problems he faced included the low gross domestic product, high inflation, high unemployment, and high prices on goods. In order to solve these issues, Mao sought to follow a more Marxist model, similar to that of the Soviet Union. This was to use government intervention to develop industry in China. In Jan Wong’s Red China Blues, discusses Maoism and how Mao’s policies changed China’s economy for the worse. While some of Mao’s early domestic policies had some positive effects on China’s economy, many of his later policies caused China’s economy to regress.
Success, as defined by the Oxford English dictionary, is the prosperous achievement of an objective. (Oed.com 1968) Conferring to this definition, the 1949 Chinese revolution was certainly a successful revolution. The communist party of China (CCP) was incredibly successful in its attempt in replacing the bourgeoisie dominated nationalist government – The Kuomintang (KMT) - with a proletariat class lead communist government. However, whether the achievement of such objective proves to be prosperous for China and its peoples requires further analysis. Ever since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the legitimacy of the revolution of which it was built upon has perennially been in question. For example, in a 1999 issue of the
The negative circumstances surrounding China in the 19th century were critical in driving masses out of the country. For one thing, China is no stranger to droughts, in fact “The four famines of 1810, 1811, 1846 & 1849 are reported to have killed no fewer than 45 million people in China over a 39-year period” (Barnes, 2011). The droughts across parts of the mainland during the 1840’s had left farmlands badly infertile and arid. Lack of rain caused provinces such as Guangxi and Henen to suffer crippling famines, leaving many malnourished and/or dead. The unpreparedness ...
China's Economy and Society in the Late 1940's and 1950's. In 1945, the war with Japan ended. It left China's economy and society in a ruins. The country is divided into two.
China's transition from the leadership under the iron fist of Mao Zedong to the more liberal Deng Xiao Ping gave the People's Republic a gradual increase in economic freedom while maintaining political stability. During Mao's regime, the country focused on bolstering and serving the community, while subsequently encumbering individual growth and prosperity. Deng advocated a more capitalist economic ideology, which established China as an economic force in the global community while endowing its citizens with more liberties and luxuries than previously granted.
People are equal. In a communist regime, people are treated equally in the eyes of the government regardless of education, financial standing, etcetera. Economic boundaries don’t separate or categorize people, which can help mitigate crime and violence(The Benefits of Communism). Having communism would make everyone has the same rights and no one will be left out. Chinese Communism has its ups and downs because you have an opportunity but you don’t choose that option.
While in China a similar problem became evident, the farmers of China began to notice the deterioration of agriculture and while they had no money because the lack of food they were also being pushed off their lands by the Qing (Bulliet, Crossley, Hedrick, Hirsch, Johnson, and Northrup).... ... middle of paper ... ... Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
The second major movement began in 1958 and lasted through 1959. It was the "Great Leap Forward." This movement was one of the most destructive to China. It was a movement that w...
When Stalin became leader of the USSR the quality of life and standard of living dropped considerably. For instance the people had no personal freedom. Meaning that they had to worship Stalin as all other religions had been abolished and most churches had been demolished. The people who went into those churches that were left standing were arrested or punished otherwise. Soon there were food shortages. Somewhere between 1932 and 1933 over 6 million people died of starvation. This was the greatest man made famine in history. The famine came as a result of Stalin’s unrealistic goals . Also, people had poor family lives. Abortions came a dime a dozen as did divorces. Wedding rings were banned. There was insufficient housing, as some people had to live in tents. This may be because of workers not working hard enough. Maybe if the workers worked harder they could have received better housing.
Communism is a system of government, a political ideology that rejects private ownership and promotes a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of all property and the means of production, where by all work is shared and all proceeds are commonly owned. Communism is practised in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba. However most of the world’s communist governments have been disbanded since the end of World War II. Soon after the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II, Communist forces began a war against the Kuomintang in China. The Communists gradually gained control of the country and on the 1st October, 1949, Mao Zedong announced the victory of the Communist party and the establishment of the People's Republic of China. China has been ruled by the Communist party ever since.
happened ? What did the Soviet Union do wrong to cause a breakdown of their
The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had emerged eventually into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union was crumbling at this period both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government. The soviet economy was highly centralized with a “command economy” (p.1. fsmitha.com), which had been broken down due to its complexity and centrally controlled with corruption involved in it. A strong government needs a strong economy to maintain its power and influence, but in this case the economic planning of the Soviet Union was just not working, which had an influence in other communist nations in Eastern Europe as they declined to collapse.
Dressed in the drab military uniform that symbolized the revolutionary government of Communist China, Mao Zedong's body still looked powerful, like an giant rock in a gushing river. An enormous red flag draped his coffin, like a red sail unfurled on a Chinese junk, illustrating the dualism of traditional China and the present Communist China that typified Mao. 1 A river of people flowed past while he lay in state during the second week of September 1976. Workers, peasants, soldiers and students, united in grief; brought together by Mao, the helmsman of modern China. 2 He had assembled a revolutionary government using traditional Chinese ideals of filial piety, harmony, and order. Mao's cult of personality, party purges, and political policies reflect Mao's esteem of these traditional Chinese ideals and history.
people on to the side of the CCP. The CCP’s victory was also down to