• Industries:

Great Leap Forward

• New industries were set-up in cities to solve unemployment, Impacts:
increasingly higher targets for production were set. 1. Members could not own private property, all
• Central, rational planning was abandoned in favor of local received the same wages and families were
organization. Small commune factories were set up to make all kinds broken up. This meant that members had no
of products like cement, ball-bearing and fertilizer. incentive to work hard and production
actually fell.
• Great underlining was placed on the production of steel and the
establishment of 600,000 ‘backyard’ steel furnaces in towns and 2. Food production slumped because too
villages. many peasants had moved into industry.
3. By 1961, China was having to import grain
• Agriculture:
and impose rationing. Bad farming methods,
• Collectivization campaign with introduction of land reforms and floods and droughts caused bad harvests for
mass mobilisation was achieved by a new method of organising three years. During the period of 1959-1961,
peasant life – the commune. He wanted to abolish the private, family it had caused a famine in countryside.
sphere of peasant life. 4. Most proved too large to be run efficiently
• They seemed the ideal way to organise China’s peasant labour force: as they were hurriedly constructed by Party
• They were large enough to tackle large projects like irrigation cadres keen to impress.
and could run their own local schools and clinics. 5. Thousands of small factories was just
• They also set up their own local industries to mine coal and iron wasteful and inefficient. Most of the steel
and make steel in blast furnaces. produced in ‘backyard’ furnaces was rubbish.
 Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)
• Phase I: Red Guards (1966-69)
• Galvanized by the August 1966 Rally, the Red Guards
became the primary instruments of the Cultural Revolution
• Red Guard denounce teachers, parents, school leaders in
public facing hundreds of people for crimes against Mao
and the Revolution.
• Phase II: Lin Biao (1969-71)
• The putative successor to Mao Zedong, Lin Biao had
developed the cult of Mao in China. He had
formulated The Little Red Book of Mao's sayings and
allocated it all over the country. He was the head of the • Due to the abandonment of the birth control
army. However, in August 1970, Mao began to suspect
him.
• Phase III: the “Gang of Four”
• During China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Zhang
Chunqiao, Jiang Qing, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang
Hongwen, developed a series of radical political
campaigns with the support of Communist Party leader
Mao Zedong.
• Impacts:
• The political stability and zigzags in economic
policy produced economic stagnation.
• An entire generation lost much of its schooling.
• The Cultural Revolution led many citizens to lose
their possessions. Politicians, landowners, and the
high class society lost their jobs and properties.
• More citizens became peasants and worked in the
farms in order to afford foods and earn money for
their families.
programs, many families increased and birth rates
went up.
• Confronted with imminent anarchy, the PLA--the
only organization whose ranks for the most part had
not been radicalized by Red Guard-style activities--
emerged as the principal guarantor of law and order
and the de facto political authority.
 Communist Party
• The Chinese system is partitioned into three nation-wide
of China
hierarchies: party, military, and govt. Each civilian hierarchy is
dispersed over five important regional entities: the National or the
Centre (zhongyang), the Provinces (sheng), the Counties (Xian)
and the Cities (shi). Politburo standing
committee
• A fifth major regional level of political administration is the
prefecture, treated as “transferred organs” of the provinces and
varies in importance from province to province.
• The Politburo also functions as a committee –smaller and more Politburo
powerful. It is considered as the command headquarters of the
Party.
• The truly powerful inner circle is the Standing Committee of the Central Committee
Politburo that meets weekly.
• The NPC has a Standing Committee that meets more
frequently and has set up its permanent committees which
function on a regular basis with their own hired staff. The NPC National Party Congress
theoretically chooses the State Council headed by a premier
and comprising additionally, vice-premiers, state councilors
and virtually all heads of commissions and ministries
 Leadership Style of Mao-Zedong

Autocratic Ruthless

Moral Methodical
 Sino-Soviet Relationship 1949-1961

Korean War USSR cancels Sino Soviet

disagreements agreement on atomic
cooperation
Khrushchev's Secret
Speech
USSR pulls out all economic
Treaty of Friendship, aid and advisers from China
Alliance and Mutual
Assistance Albania government refused to
obey Moscow, USSR withdrew
financial support, Mao gave
Albanians money and technical
aid

1949 1950-1953 1956 1958 1960 1961

 Relations with Neighboring countries from 1949-1976
Countries Relations

1. Japan A cornerstone of the PRC legitimacy rests on the claim

that it played the leading role in the eight-year war of
resistance against Japan from 1937 to 1945.

2. US In the pre-Korean War, Mao showed intense curiosity in

creating cordial relations with the US, given that it recognized
the independent sovergnity of China, incorporating Taipei.
3. India In September 1959, there were border rattles between the PRC
and India, and the Soviets called on both sides to cease, which
Mao saw as a betrayal.
4. Vietnam The first stage, which ran from 1949 to 1978, was characterized
by ideological companionship, mutual trust and support.
5. Soviet Union Mao visited to Moscow in late 1949 and Finally, in February
1950, he signed a Treaty of Friendship and Assistance with the
Soviet Union.
6.North Korea China’s support for North Korea dates back to the Korean War
(1950–1953), when its troops flooded the Korean Peninsula to
Education policies under Mao-Zedong (1949-
1976)
1958-65 1966-76
1949-57 (First
(second five (Cultural
Five Year Plan)
year plan) Revolution)

Change the focus on

Nationalization of
Emphasis on the goals and
Education Institution
Socialist education methods of
at various levels
education

Soaring enrollment
Policy of Universal in primary education Sharp modifications
Primary Education with the aim of in higher education
eradicating illiteracy

Enlargement of
Restructuring and Revert back policies
access, quality ,
adjustment in of diversification
diversification of
secondary and and promotion of
curriculum in
higher education technical schools
secondary education

Diversification and
vocationlization of
education system
 Trade Partners from 1949-1973:

Since, rapid Major items During 1960-1965, Throughout the China trade with
industrialization was imported from the China imported large period of 1965-1970, America commences
fundamental USSR were quantities of grain total PRC trade in 1973, following
economic policy of machinery and from Canada and reached its previous the relaxation of
china, there were equipment, while Australia due to GLF back of $ 4.29 embargo, American
large-scale imports china reciprocated and china moved to billion. The exports to china
of complete plants with foodstuffs, its “agriculture first composition of trade amounted to $ 0.7
from the soviet consumer goods and policy, it imported activities from the bn, with major items
union. raw materials. chemical fertilizer import of foodstuffs including grains ($
Chinas exports to the and other plants from to manufactures 410 mn), feed grains
USSR is 1.1 bn Japan and Western accounts for $ 795 ($ 61 mn) and cotton
during 1960 and it is Europe with million to the export (100 mn).
slashed to meagre of technical assistance. of foodstuff and
$ 20 million during crude material for $ 1
1970. bn as well as the
Economic Indicators: