1950-1953: New Democracy Period 1953-1958: First 5 Year Plan/Soviet Model

2. 1950-1953: New Democracy Period • 1953-1958: First 5 Year Plan/Soviet Model • 1958-1960: Great Leap Forward

3. 1949-1953: Honeymoon or State Terror? • Early 1950s ‘Honeymoon’: Stability, Rebuilding, Inclusive rhetoric of ‘new Democracy’ • ‘State Terror’: 1949-1950: Anti-prostitution, anti-drug campaigns in major cities • 1950: Campaign to Suppress Counter-Revolutionaries • 1951: Three Antis Campaign (campaign to eliminate corruption, waste, obstructionist bureaucracy among party members and factory managers • 1952: Five Antis Campaign ( campaign attacking those industrialists and capitalists that had stayed in China after 1949)

4. The Soviet Model and the First Five Year Plan 1953-1958 --This is a development model that stresses technology and organization, not ideology --prioritizes industry over agriculture—main source of capital accumulation taken from agriculture to serve industry (to feed it) --Stress on large-scale units—integrated production plants—factory as community and work unit --Emphasis on Material incentives for workers (as opposed to moral/ideological) --City prioritized over countryside

5. The Hundred Flowers Campaign • 1957: Mao encourages ‘one hundred flowers to bloom, one hundred schools of though to contend’ • A period of liberalization in which criticism of the Chinese Communist Party was encouraged • Mao hoped that the criticisms would match his own distaste of the Soviet model • Intellectual’s criticisms go far beyond this and Mao orders an ‘anti-rightist’ crackdown against those who put for criticism

6. Collectivization in the Countryside • 1950-1953: Land Reform, “Honeymoon” Period Removes traditional rural elites Restoration of markets Distributes land to all individuals Does not: Increase agricultural production

7. Mutual Aid Teams • Mutual Aid Teams (MAT) A voluntary policy Farmers encouraged to pool resources—tools, labor, farm animals—to increase production Land still privately owned Typically involve 5-15 families

8. Small Agricultural Producer Cooperatives (APC) • Land Still Privately Owned, but pooled and collectively farmed. • Distribution of harvest (profit) based on combination of your land contribution and labor contribution • 20-40 families • Hope was that by 1957, 1/3 of agricultural households would be in small APC

9. Large Agricultural Producer Cooperatives • NOT voluntary • abolished land ownership • rewards for labor input, not land input • Highly unpopular

11. Towards Disaster: Carrying out the “Great Leap Forward” • Return to the core qualities of revolution loved by Mao—speed, rural focus, mass action • China= “poor and blank”—this is powerful, not negative • People power, not industrial/bureaucratic expertise will propel China to a utopian future

12. People’s Communes • Highest stage of collectivization in the countryside=communes • Comprise many villages, tens of thousands of people • Elimination of ALL private property, destruction of ALL rural markets, elimination of money. • “to each according to their needs”—the state provides for all—no matter what you do!

14. Furnaces and Communal Dining • Backyard furnaces—we don’t need expertise or large factories to make steel—farmers can do it! • Eat all you want, for free, abundant harvest is just around the corner • Communal mess halls—no more cooking for your family

20. The Consequences: THE WORST FAMINE IN RECORDED HUMAN HISTORY • Communes have unprecedented power to mobilize people—but do so recklessly, exhausting people on pointless projects • Nobody farming enough • Communes inflating harvest figures to look good to the state • No tools or fuel—burned up in furnaces

21. Famine • No food= 30 MILLION DEATHS between 1959 and 1961 • No relief—a nationwide catastrophe • People forced to eat bark, grass, finally dirt, and even other people