China under Mao Zedong1949 - 1976

Outline

• GMD-CCP Civil War (1946-1949)

• Recovery and Socialism (1949-1956)

• Rethinking the Soviet model (1956-1957)

• Great Leap Forward (1958-1961)

• Recovery & growing elite division (1962-5)

• Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

Mao Zedong

• A revolution to remove “3 big mountains”– imperialism– feudalism– bureaucrat-capitalism

• A “United Front” of …– workers– peasants– petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie

People’s Republic of China

• 1949-10-01, PRC, Beijing

• Chairman: Mao Zedong

• 5-Star Red Flag

• Republic of China government retreated to Taiwan

Economic Reconstruction 1950s

• Soviet Union model and assistance

• land reform (eliminate landlord class)

• heavy industry (state-owned enterprises)

• First National People’s Congress (1954)– PRC Constitution

• Zhou Enlai– Premier– Foreign Minister

Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)

• abandon the Soviet model of economic development– Soviet “scientific planning”

• mass mobilization

• people’s communes

Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)

• unrealistic output targets– industry– agricultural and human disaster

Growing Division (1962-1965)

• Mao Zedong vs. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping

• charismatic leadership vs. bureaucracy

Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

• Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution– commitment to revolution and “class struggle”– power struggle to succeed Mao

• Phase I: the rise and fall of “red guards”

• Phase II: the rise and fall of Lin Biao

• Phase III: the rise and fall of the “Gang of Four”

Phase I: Red Guards (1966-69)

Phase I: Red Guards (1966-69)

• Purge of party cadres– Liu Shaoqi and Deng

Xiaoping

• Purge of intellectuals

Phase II: Lin Biao (1969-71)

• the putative successor to Mao Zedong– the cult of personality around Mao

• In 1971 Lin allegedly tried but failed– to assassinate Mao– to flee to Soviet Union (“9.13”)

• “9.13” eroded the credibility– of the entire leadership– of the Cultural Revolution

Phase III: the “Gang of Four”

• 1972 – 1976

• power struggle between– the radical “Gang of Four”,

led by Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife

– the “moderates”, led by Premier Zhou Enlai

• the fate of Deng Xiaoping

Diplomatic Breakthrough

• 1971, PRC became the representative of China in UN (replaced ROC)

Diplomatic Breakthrough

• 1972, President Nixon visited Beijing

Mao and Zhou Died in 1976

• Turning point in China’s postwar era

• “Gang of Four” were arrested

• End of the Cultural Revolution

Mao’s legacies

Reforms and Opening up

• The 3rd Plenum of the 11th CCP Central Committee in 1978– Deng Xiaoping’s ascendancy– economic modernization became focus

• US-PRC diplomatic relations in 1979