NAME

COMMUNISM TRANSFORMS CHINA

I. Former Allies Become Enemies
What Caused the Chinese Civil TERMS AND NAMES
War?
Sun Yixian Founder of the Nationalist
In 1921, a group of young radicals founded the Chinese party who successfully overthrows the
Communist Party (CCP) in Shanghai. Strong feelings of corrupt Qing dynasty
nationalism led the new party to join with the more
established Nationalist Party. Sun Yixian, the leader of Jiang Jieshi Nationalist leader who
the Nationalist Party, welcomed cooperation from the sets up an anti-communist government
well-organized communists in the tumultuous years of the in Taiwan after defeat in the Chinese
young Chinese Republic. In 1923, the two parties formed Civil War
an alliance to oppose foreign domination and drive the
imperialist powers out of China. For three years, the two Mao Zedong Communist leader who
parties worked together. defeated the Nationalists and led the
People’s Republic of China
By the following spring, this combined nationalist force
had taken back all of China from foreign control, but soon The Long March Costly, but
tensions between the two parties caused problems. Sun successful escape to the safety on NW
Yixian died in 1925 and was succeeded by Jiang Jieshi China due to the effective leadership
as head of the Nationalist Party. Jiang pretended to of Communist Mao Zedong
support the alliance with the Communists. But in April
1927, he attacked the Communists in Shanghai and killed
thousands in what is called the Shanghai Massacre, bringing the Communist-Nationalist alliance to an
end. In 1928, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) founded a new Chinese republic at Nanjing without the
support of the Communists. During the next three years, he worked to reunify China under Nationalist
control.

1. Why were the Nationalists and Communists working together in the 1920’s?

After the betrayal at Shanghai, a young revolutionary named

Mao Zedong began to rise through the ranks of the
Communist party. Mao was convinced that peasants in the
countryside instead of the urban working class would be more
supportive of a communist revolution. Alarmed by Mao’s
growing popularity, Jiang Jieshi then turned his forces against
the Chinese Communist Party, surrounding Mao’s base in
southwest China. But against all odds the Communist forces
broke through the Nationalist lines and began the famous
Long March. Mao’s army traveled over 4,000 miles on foot
through mountains, marshes, and deserts. Jiang’s larger and
better equipped army chased the Communists, but Mao made
effective use of guerrilla tactics (using unexpected
maneuvers like sabotage and ambushes to fight the
enemy). One year later, they reached safety in the
mountains of North China. Only nine thousand of
the original ninety thousand survived the journey,
but the Chinese Communist movement was still
alive. In the course of the Long March, Mao Zedong
had become the sole leader of the Chinese
Communist Party and was now more popular than
ever.

2. How is the long march a major turning

point in the Chinese Civil War?

II. Mao Transforms Chinese Society

How does the Great Leap
Forward affect the economic
development of China?
By 1945, there were now two governments
operating in China. The Nationalist government of
Jiang Jieshi was based in southern and central
China. The United States supported it. The
Communist government under Mao Zedong was
based in North China, and had support from the
Soviet Union. In 1945, war broke out again
between the Nationalists and the Communists.
Many peasants joined Mao’s Communist People’s
Liberation Army, hoping that Communism might improve
their economic situation. By the spring of 1949, the People’s TERMS AND NAMES
Liberation Army had soundly defeated the Nationalists.
Jiang Jieshi and his followers fled to the island of Taiwan. The Great Leap Forward Failed
The Communist Party now ruled all of mainland China Economic program set up by Mao
(called the People’s Republic of China). Zedong to increase agricultural &
industrial production in China
Immediately in 1949, the new Chinese Communist
government began a program to build a socialist/Marxist Commune Large farm setup in China
society. Lands were taken from wealthy landlords and in which many families work the land
redistributed to landless peasant farmers. About two-thirds and live together
of the peasants received land under the new program.
Former landlords were able to keep some land, but now had The Cultural Revolution Movement
to work it themselves like everyone else. Most industry and to begin a 2nd Communist revolution
amongst the indoctrinated youth of
China to remove any anticommunist/
anti-revolutionary elements
commerce was nationalized [controlled by
the government]. However beginning in
1953, Mao’s ambitions to industrialize
China lead to a new policy of joining lands
together into farming cooperatives. By
1955 very few farmers actually owned their
land, rather most of the farmland was
collectivized [shared]. Chinese leaders
hoped that collective farms would increase
food production. They hoped that this
would allow more people to work in
industry developing steel. But food as with
the collective farms in the U.S.S.R.,
production did not increase as expected.

To speed up economic growth, Mao began

a radical [extreme] program known as the
Great Leap Forward. Like Stalin, Mao had initiated a 5 year plan to increase both agricultural and
industrial production, but China’s lack of industrial machinery had held the program back. Now Mao
planned to mobilize China’s vast human resources to catch up to the economies of the industrialized
West. In order to accomplish this Mao needed to transform China socially and economically. In 1958
all Collective farms were combined into vast Communes. Each commune contained between 30 - 75
thousand farmers who lived and worked together. Each family also received a small private plot of land
to work on the commune with a backyard furnace. Families were expected to produce industrial goods
following their normal work day in the fields. However, the communes consistently came up short of
their production quotas and the goods that were produced
were of poor quality.

After only a couple years into the economic experiment, it

had become apparent to Communist leadership that the Great
Leap Forward was a complete disaster. The peasants hated
the new system and wanted to return to their traditional farms.
Bad weather and the peasants’ lack of motivation caused even
food production decline. As a result, almost fifteen million
people died of starvation. In 1960, the government began to
break up the communes and returned to collective farms and
some privately owned lands.

3. What 2 governments existed in China in 1945 as civil war ensued?

4. Which side did the large peasant population choose to support in the Chinese Civil War?

5. What was the purpose of the Great Leap Forward?

 6. Why did the Great Leap Forward to fail to meet its goals?

III. The Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution

How does Mao use the youth of China to eliminate opposition to
his power?
In spite of the commune failure, Mao still dreamed of the final
stage of communism—a classless society. Mao believed that
only permanent revolution (an atmosphere of constant
revolutionary fervor) would make it possible for the Chinese to
overcome the past and reach this final stage. The problem was
that Mao had lost much of the support of his fellow Communist
due to the failure of the Great Leap Forward. Mao still had a
trick up his sleeve though, the Chinese youth that had grown up
in Mao’s China and had been educated in his school system.
The generation that was born in the 1940’s and later
viewed Mao as infallible [incapable of error] due to the
constant indoctrination they received in the Communist
controlled schools.

In 1966, Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural

Revolution. (“Proletarian” means the working class.)
Mao called this a second communist revolution, to
allow the young generation the opportunity to purge
China of the uncommitted communists of the older
generations. A collection of Mao’s thoughts, called the
Little Red Book, became the most important source of
knowledge in all areas. Actual education all but disappeared
throughout China, replaced instead by the philosophies of
Mao Zedong. Young Chinese were expected to carry the little
red book at all times and commit all of Chairman Mao’s
many teachings to memory.

To promote the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards were

formed. These were revolutionary groups that were made up
primarily of young people who had been completely
indoctrinated using Mao’s Little Red Book. Each unit
consisted of older members in their late teens and early
twenties as well as students as young as middle school age.
The Red Guards received personal support from Mao, and the
movement rapidly grew.
Red Guard units were sent throughout the country to eliminate
the “Four Olds”—old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old
habits. Mao made use of the group both as a propaganda tool,
and to accomplish goals such as destroying symbols of China's
pre-communist past. This including pre-Communist cultural
symbols such as ancient artifacts, gravesites of notable figures
from China’s dynastic past, and holy sites & houses of
worship. The Red Guard also targeted non-Chinese culture
like books written by foreigners and popular foreign music.

The Chinese government was very permissive of the Red

Guards, who were even allowed to inflict bodily harm on
people viewed as dissidents. People who had not followed
Mao’s plan were attacked by the Red Guard, sometimes
even their own family members. Intellectuals and artists
accused of being pro-Western were especially open to
attack. Even personal pets were targeted as they were seen
as symbol of wasteful wealth.

But there were groups within the country that did not share
Mao’s desire for permanent revolution. Even some
Communist leaders were upset by the Red Guards’ attacks
and began to turn against the movement by the late 1960’s.
The movement quickly grew out of control and became. Finally Mao was
pressured to dissolve the movement in late 1968, but it was too late for many
Chinese. Historians believe somewhere between 500,000 and two million
people lost their lives as a result of the Cultural Revolution.

The millions of radicalized young people who participated in the Red Guard
Units were now viewed as a threat to public security. Many of the students
were sent to poverty stricken parts of the rural countryside to be re-educated
in the ways of rural Communism. Many of these former members of the Red
Guards were never seen from again, some did return to their home cities after
Mao’s death almost a decade later. In the end the Cultural Revolution did
allow Mao Zedong to retain power until his death, but the long-term result
will be China’s eventual rejection of radical communism by the 1980’s.

7. What is the purpose of Mao’s Cultural Revolution?

8. Who enforced the strict communist policies of Mao during the Cultural Revolution?

9. Who and what in China is targeted during Cultural Revolution?

BACK
CRITICAL THINKING (8pts)
TASK: Analyze the success of Mao’s strict Communist government (1950-1976) using at least 2
pieces of evidence from the reading to support your opinion.

______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________