by Norman Lowe
(c) Reasons for the CCP triumph
The communists continued to win popular support by their restrained land policy, which varied according to the needs of particular areas: some or all of a landlord’s estate might be confiscated and redistributed among the peasants, or there might simply be rent restriction; communist armies were well disciplined and communist administration was honest and fair.
On the other hand the KMT administration was inefficient and corrupt, much of its American aid finding its way into the pockets of officials. Its policy of paying for the wars by printing extra money resulted in galloping inflation, which caused hardship for the masses and ruined many of the middle class. Its armies were poorly paid and were allowed to loot the countryside; subjected to communist propaganda, the troops gradually became disillusioned with Chiang and began to desert to the communists. The KMT tried to terrorize the local populations into submission, but this only alienated more areas. Chiang also made some tactical blunders: like Hitler, he could not bear to order retreats and consequently his scattered armies were surrounded, and often, as happened at Beijing and Shanghai, surrendered without resistance, totally disillusioned.
Finally the CCP leaders, Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai, were shrewd enough to take advantage of KMT weaknesses and were completely dedicated. The communist generals, Lin Biao, Chu Teh and Ch-en Yi, had prepared their armies carefully and were more competent tactically than their KMT counterparts.
FURTHER READING
Bergère, M-C., Sun Yat-sen (Stanford University Press, 2000).
Felber, R. (ed.), The Chinese Revolution in the 1920s: Triumph and Disaster (Routledge, 2002).
Fenby, J., Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China he Lost (Free Press, 2005 edition).
Fenby, J., The Penguin History of Modern China, 1850–2009 (Penguin/Allen Lane, 2009).
Fenby, J., Tiger Head, Snake Tails: China Today, How it Got There and Where it is Heading (Simon & Schuster, 2012).
Jung Chang and J. Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (Cape, 2005).
Lynch, M., China: From Empire to People’s Republic (Hodder & Stoughton, 1995).
Martin, M., Strange Vigour: a Biography of Sun Yat-Sen (Read Books, 2006).
Mitter, R., A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2004).
Snow, E., Red Star Over China : The Rise of the Red Army (Read Books, 2006 edition).
Taylor, J., The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2011).
Wilbur, C. M., The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923–1928 (Cambridge University Press, 1984).
QUESTIONS
Explain why there was a revolution in China in 1911 and assess the consequences of that revolution.
Explain why it took the Nationalists (Kuomintang) so long to establish their authority over China after the revolution of 1911.
‘Chiang Kai-shek was popular during the second half of the 1920s, but after he came to power, his Kuomintang government proved to be a disappointment to the majority of Chinese people.’ How far would you agree that this is a fair assessment of the career of Chiang Kai-shek?
‘The communist victory in 1949 was due as much to the shortcomings of the Kuomintang as it was to the leadership of Mao Zedong.’ How far would you agree with this assessment?
Assess the view that popular support was the main reason why the communists were able to achieve power in China in 1949.
There is a document question about the communist victory in China on the website.
Chapter 20
China since 1949: the communists in control
SUMMARY OF EVENTS
After the communist victory over the Kuomintang in 1949, Mao Zedong set about rebuilding a shattered China. At first he received Russian advice and aid, but in the late 1950s relations cooled and Russian economic aid was reduced. In 1958 Mao introduced the ‘Great Leap Forward’, in which communism was adapted – not altogether successfully – to meet the Chinese situation, with the emphasis on decentralization, agriculture, communes and contact with the masses. Mao became highly critical of the Russians, who, in his view, were straying from strict Marxist–Leninist principles and following the ‘capitalist road’ in both foreign and domestic affairs. During the 1960s these disagreements caused a serious rift in world communism, which was only healed after Mikhail Gorbachev became Russian leader in 1985. With the Cultural Revolution (1966–9), Mao tried successfully to crush opposition within the Party and to keep China developing along Marxist–Leninist lines.
After Mao’s death in 1976, there was a power struggle from which Deng Xiaoping emerged as undisputed leader (1981). Much less conservative than Mao, Deng was responsible for some important policy changes, moderating Mao’s hardline communism and looking towards Japan and the capitalist West for ideas and help. This aroused resentment among the Maoist supporters, who accused Deng of straying along the ‘capitalist road’; in 1987 they forced him to slow down the pace of his reforms.
Encouraged by Gorbachev’s glasnost policy in the USSR, student protests began in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in April 1989, continuing through into June. They demanded democracy and an end to corruption in the Communist Party. On 3–4 June the army moved in, attacked the students, killing hundreds, and restored order. The communists had regained control. The economic reforms continued with some success, but there was no political reform. Deng Xiaoping continued as supreme leader until his death (at the age of 92) in 1997. The first few years of the new century saw more economic changes, including the opening up of the party to capitalists. By 2012, with the Communist Party still supreme, it seemed that China might soon supplant the USA as the world’s most powerful nation.
20.1 HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS MAO IN DEALING WITH CHINA’S PROBLEMS?
(a) Problems facing Mao
The problems facing the People’s Republic in 1949 were complex, to say the least. The country was devastated after the long civil war and the war with Japan: railways, roads, canals and dykes had been destroyed and there were chronic food shortages. Industry was backward, agriculture was inefficient and incapable of feeding the poverty-stricken masses and inflation seemed out of control. Mao had the support of the peasants and many of the middle class, who were disgusted by the miserable performance of the Kuomintang, but it was essential for him to improve conditions if he were to hold on to their support. To control and organize such a vast country with a population of at least 600 million must have been a superhuman task. Yet Mao succeeded, and China today, whatever its faults, is still very much his creation. He began by looking closely at Stalin’s methods and experimented, by a process of trial and error, to find which would work in China and where a special Chinese approach was necessary.
(b) The constitution of 1950 (officially adopted 1954)
This included the National People’s Congress (the final authority for legislation), whose members were elected for four years by people over 18. There was also a State Council and the Chairman of the Republic (both elected by the Congress), whose function was to make sure that laws were carried out and that the administration of the country went ahead. The State Council chose the Political Bureau (Politburo), which took all the main decisions. The whole system was, of course, dominated by the Communist Party, and only party members could stand for election. The constitution was important because it provided China with a strong central government for the first time for many years, and it has remained largely unchanged (see Fig. 20.1).
Figure 20.1 How the government of China works
(c) Agricultural changes
These transformed China from a country of small, inefficient private farms into one of large co-operative farms like those in Russia (1950–6). In the first stage, land was taken from large landowners and redistributed among the peasants, no doubt with violence in places. Some sources mention as many as two million people killed, though historian Jack Gray, writing in 1970, when Mao was still alive, claimed that ‘
the redistribution of China’s land was carried out with a remarkable degree of attention to legality and the minimum of physical violence against landlords’. Recently, however, during the atmosphere of goodwill and openness surrounding the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese authorities decided to declassify some secret archives and make them available for historians. These show that the official accounts of a number of events and policies do not tell the whole truth; achievements were exaggerated and unpleasant events were either toned down or not reported at all. Professor Frank Dikotter of the University of Hong Kong has shown that in some areas there were very few wealthy landowners, since the land was already fairly equally divided between the peasants. What actually happened was that their land was taken away from them and redistributed to communist party activists, with considerable violence, torturing and execution. One document from the Hebei archives reported that:
When it comes to the ways in which people are killed, some are buried alive, some are executed, some are cut to pieces, and among those who are strangled or mangled to death, some of the bodies are hung from trees or doors.
By 1956, whatever the methods used, about 95 per cent of all surviving peasants were in collective farms with joint ownership of the farm and its equipment.
(d) Industrial changes
These began with the government nationalizing most businesses. In 1953 it embarked on a Five Year Plan concentrating on the development of heavy industry (iron, steel, chemicals and coal). The Russians helped with cash, equipment and advisers, and the plan had some success. Before it was complete, however, Mao began to have grave doubts as to whether China was suited to this sort of heavy industrialization. On the other hand he could claim that under his leadership the country had recovered from the ravages of the wars: full communications had been restored, inflation was under control and the economy was looking much healthier.
(e) The Hundred Flowers campaign (1957)
This seems to some extent to have developed out of industrialization, which produced a vast new class of technicians and engineers. The party cadres (groups who organized the masses politically and economically – the collectivization of the farms, for example, was carried out by the cadres) believed that this new class of experts would threaten their authority. The government, feeling pleased with its progress so far, decided that open discussion of the problems might improve relations between cadres and experts or intellectuals. ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend’, said Mao, calling for constructive criticism. Unfortunately he got more than he had anticipated as critics attacked:
the cadres for incompetence and over-enthusiasm;
the government for over-centralization;
the Communist Party for being undemocratic; some suggested that opposition parties should be allowed.
Mao hurriedly called off the campaign and clamped down on his critics, insisting that his policies were right. The campaign showed how much opposition there still was to communism and to the uneducated cadres, and it convinced Mao that a drive was needed to consolidate the advance of socialism; so in 1958 he called for the ‘Great Leap Forward’.
(f) The Great Leap Forward
Mao felt that something new and different was needed to meet China’s special problems – something not based on Russian experience. The Great Leap Forward involved further important developments in both industry and agriculture, in order to increase output (agriculture in particular was not providing the required food) and to adapt industry to Chinese conditions. Its most important features were:
The introduction of communes. These were units larger than collective farms, containing up to 75 000 people, divided into brigades and work teams with an elected council. They ran their own collective farms and factories, carried out most of the functions of local government within the commune and undertook special local projects. One typical commune in 1965, for example, contained 30 000 people, of which a third were children at school or in crèches, a third were housewives or elderly, and the rest were the workforce. This included a science team of 32 graduates and 43 technicians. Each family received a share of the profits and also had a small private plot of land.
A complete change of emphasis in industry. Instead of aiming for large-scale works of the type seen in the USSR and the West, much smaller factories were set up in the countryside to provide machinery for agriculture. Mao talked of 600 000 ‘backyard steel furnaces’ springing up, organized and managed by the communes, which also undertook to build roads, canals, dams, reservoirs and irrigation channels.
At first it looked as though the Great Leap might be a failure: there was some opposition to the communes, a series of bad harvests (1959–61) and the withdrawal of all Russian aid following the breach between Russia and China. All this, coupled with the lack of experience among the cadres, caused hardship in the years 1959–63; statistics which emerged later suggested that some 20 million people may have died prematurely as a result of hardships, especially the disastrous famine of 1959–60, caused by the Great Leap. Even Mao’s prestige suffered and he was forced to resign as Chairman of the People’s Congress (to be succeeded by Liu Shaoqi), though he remained Chairman of the Communist Party. Professor Dikotter’s researches in the newly opened archives reveal that the situation was much worse than the official account shows. Towards the end of the Great Leap Forward, special teams were sent out to discover the extent of the disaster around the country. Their findings included reports on peasant resistance during the collectivization campaign, reports about mass murders, confessions of leaders responsible for millions of deaths and reports about working conditions. In the words of Professor Dikotter:
What comes out of this massive and detailed dossier is a tale of horror in which Chairman Mao emerges as one of the greatest mass murderers in human history, responsible for the premature deaths of at least 45 million people between 1958 and 1962. It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang, forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. … The killing of slackers, weaklings, those too ill to work, or otherwise unproductive elements, increased the overall food supply for those who contributed to the regime through their labour. At one meeting Mao announced: ‘It is better to let half the people die so that the other half can eat their fill’.
However, in the long term the importance of the Great Leap became clear. According to the official account, by the early 1970s both agricultural and industrial production had increased substantially, and China was at least managing to feed its massive population without any further famine (which had rarely happened under the KMT). The communes proved to be a successful innovation. They were much more than merely collective farms – they were an efficient unit of local government and they enabled the central government in Beijing to keep in touch with local opinion. They seemed to be the ideal solution to the problem of running a vast country while at the same time avoiding the over-centralization that stifles initiative. The crucial decision had been taken that China would remain predominantly an agricultural country with small-scale industry scattered around the countryside. The economy would be labour-intensive (relying on massive numbers of workers instead of using labour-saving machines). Given the country’s enormous population, this was arguably the best way of making sure that everybody had a job, and it enabled China to avoid the growing unemployment problems of the highly industrialized western nations. Other genuine benefits were the spread of education and welfare services and a reduction in infant mortality, which fell from 203 per thousand births in 1949 to 84 by the end of the 1960s. There was also a definite improvement in the position of women in society. Again, however, the true picture may well not be quite so rosy as it appears. In 2012 Jonathan Fenby, an expert in Chi
nese affairs, making use of the latest research, claimed that Mao ‘had brought the country to its knees’ and that China was virtually bankrupt in 1976 when Mao died.
(g) The Cultural Revolution (1966–9)
This was Mao’s attempt to keep the revolution and the Great Leap on a pure Marxist–Leninist course, and to hit back at what he considered to be an over-bureaucratic party leadership under his deputy, Liu Shauqi. In the early 1960s, when the success of the Great Leap was by no means certain, opposition to Mao grew. Right-wing members of the Party believed that incentives (piecework, greater wage differentials and larger private plots, which had been creeping in in some areas) were necessary if the communes were to function efficiently. They also felt that there should be an expert managerial class to push forward with industrialization on the Russian model, instead of relying on the cadres. Even Deng Xiaoping, one of Mao’s most loyal supporters, had grave doubts about the wisdom of the Great Leap. But to the Maoists, these ideas were totally unacceptable; it was exactly what Mao was condemning among the Russians, whom he dismissed as ‘revisionists’ taking the ‘capitalist road’. The Party must avoid the emergence of a privileged class who would exploit the workers; it was vital to keep in touch with the masses.