China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1976

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China under Mao Zedong1949 - 1976
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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)

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WW2 in China 1937-1945
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Civil War (1946 1949)

• GMD Guomindang (Nationalist Party)
• Chiang Kai-shek (President)
• CCP Chinese Communist Party
• Mao Zedong

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War of Liberation
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Mao Zedong

• A revolution to remove 3 big mountains
• imperialism
• feudalism
• bureaucrat-capitalism
• A United Front of
• workers
• peasants
• petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie

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Peoples Republic of China

• 1949-10-01, PRC, Beijing
• Chairman Mao Zedong
• 5-Star Red Flag
• Republic of China government retreated to Taiwan

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Economic Reconstruction 1950s

• Soviet Union model and assistance
• land reform (eliminate landlord class)
• heavy industry (state-owned enterprises)
• First National Peoples Congress (1954)
• PRC Constitution
• Zhou Enlai
• Premier
• Foreign Minister

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Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)

• abandon the Soviet model of economic development
• Soviet scientific planning
• mass mobilization
• peoples communes

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Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)

• unrealistic output targets
• industry
• agricultural and human disaster

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Growing Division (1962-1965)

• Mao Zedong vs. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping
• charismatic leadership vs. bureaucracy

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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

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Phase I Red Guards (1966-69)
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Phase I Red Guards (1966-69)

• Purge of party cadres
• Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping
• Purge of intellectuals

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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

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Phase III the Gang of Four

• 1972 1976
• power struggle between
• the radical Gang of Four, led by Jiang Qing,
  Maos wife
• the moderates, led by Premier Zhou Enlai
• the fate of Deng Xiaoping

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Diplomatic Breakthrough

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

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Diplomatic Breakthrough

• 1972, President Nixon visited Beijing

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Mao and Zhou Died in 1976

• Turning point in Chinas postwar era
• Gang of Four were arrested
• End of the Cultural Revolution

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Reforms and Opening up

• The 3rd Plenum of the 11th CCP Central Committee
  in 1978
• Deng Xiaopings ascendancy
• economic modernization became focus
• US-PRC diplomatic relations in 1979