Mao Zedong's Second Five Year Plan in 1958

Mao Zedong's Second Five Year Plan in 1958

China is a gigantic country and historians can study and trace their

civilisations as far back as five thousand years ago. The Manchu

emperors had ruled China since 1644. At the end of the nineteenth

century and leading up to the twentieth century the emperor of China,

Guangxu, was dominated by his aunt, the empress Ci xii. For forty

years she ruled for her nephew.

China entered the twentieth century on a wave of reactionary terror,

as the loose affiliation of north-east Chinese Secret Society groups

known as the "Boxers" began a protracted attempt to destroy all

Chinese Christian converts, and the missionaries who preached to them.

Openly encouraged by a number of conservative officials, most of them

from ruling Manchu minority, which had controlled the Chinese

government since the seventeenth century, the Boxers entered Peking in

mid 1900 and laid siege. In the meantime, pro Boxer generals and their

followers in Shanxi and other northern provinces had conducted a

brutal round-up and massacre of missionary families and their

converts. By the terms of the vindictive Treaty Settlement that

followed, several senior pro-Boxer Quing dynasty officials were

executed, pro-Boxer areas were penalised, and the Chinese government

was compelled to promise to pay a colossal £67 000000 for the lives

and property destroyed. The Chinese felt the foreigner had exploited

them and their country. For years therefore that Chinese peasants

lived in dire poverty and under the rule of cruel dictatorship.

In 1908 empress, Ci xi died, her successor was her nephew, a three

year old boy named Pu Yi. His uncle, ...

... middle of paper ...

...nd afford new

things. People were given more responsibility in the workplace and

were free to make their own decisions. The younger generations were

helped to educate themselves and given a free choice as to what they

wanted to do with their lives. Peoples social life was improved, they

had more time and they were happier. Because of the change in the

economy they had more money to spend. Politically China had changed,

communism was still there but the beliefs had lessened a bit to allow

people to be able to live in the world comfortably, however the main

points are still in focus. The people's army is still running as it

was in Mao's day but it is now much less of a force. China Still had a

long way to go to become a democracy. These changes maybe a long time

coming but at least they escaped Mao's restrictive control.