Communist Revolution

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Communist Revolution
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Chinas Civil War

• In 1911, after thousands of years of being ruled
  by emperors, the last of Chinas royal dynastys
  was toppled
• Over the next 15-20 years, China was in chaos as
  different groups struggled to control the country
• By the 1930s, China entered a period of civil war
  between 2 main political parties to determine who
  would control the country

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2 Political Parties Fight for Control

• Nationalist Party (KMT)
• led by Chiang Kai-shek
• wanted democratic govt

• Communist Party (CCP)
• led by Mao Zedong
• wanted communist govt

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Communists Win

• After years of civil war, the Communist Party
  wins the fight for control
• In 1949, Mao Zedong officially declared China a
  Communist nation called the Peoples Republic of
  China
• Chiang Kai-shek and
  his nationalist party
  were forced to flee to
  the tiny island of
  Taiwan

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Chairman Mao

• Mao Zedong head of Chinese Communist Party
  (CCP) govt
• Communist party set ALL govt policies, giving
  Chairman Mao nearly absolute power

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Communisms Goal

• The goal of communism is to make everyone as
  equal as possible, to have a classless society
• There is no private ownership of property (ex.
  land, businesses)
• Everything is run by the govt, like factories,
  schools, hospitals
• The govt provides jobs for everyone and pays
  everyone the same amount of money, no matter what
  their job or how well they do it

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The Chinese Communist Party . . .

• took land from the wealthy and gave it to the
  poor
• took control over Chinas factories and
  businesses, determining what and how much should
  be made
• forced peasant farmers to combine all their land
  together into collective farms and work
  together to grow food

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Great Leap Forward (1958)What was it?

• A program meant to speed up Chinas economic
  development
• Goals were set for agriculture (farming) and
  industry (factories) production
• All small farms were combined into larger farms
  called communes where all ownership and
  decisions were in the hands of the govt

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The Communes

• Each contained about 5000 families
• People gave up their ownership of tools, animals,
  etc. so that everything was owned by the commune.
  People now worked for the commune and not for
  themselves. The life of an individual was
  controlled by the commune.
• The commune provided all that was needed
  including schools, nurseries, and entertainment.
• Communist Party members oversaw the work of a
  commune to ensure that decisions followed the
  correct party line.
• Propaganda was everywhere including in the
  fields where the workers could listen to
  political speeches as they worked.
• Everybody involved in communes was urged not only
  to meet set targets but to beat them. If the
  communes lacked machinery, the workers used their
  bare hands.
• By the end of 1958, 700 million people had been
  placed into 26,578 communes.

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• Mao had toured China and concluded that the
  Chinese people were capable of anything

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• Propaganda poster of the steel production
  objective. The text reads "Take steel as the key
  link, leap forward in all fields",

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Backyard Furnaces

• The Great Leap Forward encouraged communes to set
  up "back-yard" production plants. The most famous
  were 600,000backyard furnaces which produced
  steel for the communes.

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Cultural Revolution (1966)

• A program to increase support for and remove
  opposition to the Communist party
• All parts of life were suppose to be about
  communism work, school, personal beliefs, art,
  etc.

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• Chinese poster saying
• "We'll destroy old world and build new."
• A worker crushes the cross, Buddha, and classical
  Chinese texts with his hammer

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• Chinese poster showing Jiang Qing, saying"Let
  new communist culture conquer every stage."

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Cultural Revolution cont.

• Mao set out to rid the Chinese Communist Party of
  anyone who did not fully support him
• Red Guards (groups of students) patrolled for
  people Mao concerned uncommunist

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Cultural Revolution cont.

• Anyone who was thought to have developed a
  superior attitude was considered an enemy of the
  party and the people
• Mao wanted to create a China in which peasants,
  workers, and educated people worked together
  no-one was better than anyone else and all
  working for the good of China a classless
  society

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Tiananmen Sqaure

• student protests in 1989 in Beijings Tiananmen
  Square against the corruption repression of
  Chinas communist government

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• Goddess of Democracy
• modeled after Americas Statue of Liberty

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an unarmed student stands up against communist
soldiers