History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)

See also: took place during the foundation ceremony.

Early 1950s: Social revolution

The People's Republic of China was founded on a land that was ravaged by a

Economically, the country followed up on the Soviet model of five-year plans with its own first five-year plan from 1953 to 1957.^[18] The country went through a transformation whereby means of production were transferred from private to public entities, and through nationalization of industry in 1955, the state controlled the economy in a similar fashion to the economy of the Soviet Union.

Korean War

China's role in the Korean war has been evaluated by each participant in sharply different ways.

in September, Beijing countered by saying that ROK troops could cross into North Korea, but not American ones. MacArthur ignored this, believing that the South Korean army was too weak to attack on its own. After Pyongyang fell in October, the UN troops approached the strategically sensitive Yalu River area. China responded by sending waves of troops south, in what became known as the People's Volunteers in order to disassociate them from the PLA. The Chinese army was poorly equipped but contained many veterans of the civil war and the conflict with Japan. In addition, it possessed huge reserves of manpower. The United States was on its way to the height of military power, and historians contend that Mao's participation in the war asserted China as a new power to not be taken lightly. Known as the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign in China, the first major offensive of the Chinese forces was pushed back in October, but by Christmas 1950, the "People's Volunteer Army" under the command of Gen. Peng Dehuai had forced the United Nations to retreat back to the 38th Parallel. However, the war was very costly to the Chinese side, as more than just "volunteers" were mobilised, and because of the lack of experience in modern warfare and the lack of modern military technology, China's casualties vastly outnumbered that of the United Nations. On 11 April 1951, a U.S. Seventh Fleet destroyer approached close to the port of Swatow (Shantou), on the southeast coast of China, provoking China to send an armada of more than forty armed powered junks to confront and surround the destroyer for nearly five hours before the destroyer departed the area without either side widening the conflict by initiating hostile fire.^[22][23][24] Declining a UN armistice, the two sides fought intermittently on both sides of the 38th Parallel until the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. The Korean War ended any possibility of normalised relations with the United States for years. Meanwhile, Chinese forces invaded and annexed Tibet in October 1950. Tibet had been nominally subject to the Chinese emperors in past centuries, but declared its independence in 1912.

Under Mao's direction, China built its first

^: 573 it was the fifth country to conduct a successful nuclear test.

1953–1957

The Korean War had been enormously costly to China, especially coming on the heels of the civil war, and it delayed postwar reconstruction. In 1949, Mao Zedong declared that the nation would "lean to one side",^[27] meaning that the Soviet Union and the communist bloc would be its principal allies.^[28] Three months after the PRC was established in October 1949, Mao and his delegation traveled to Moscow. They were not received warmly by Stalin, who doubted if they really were Marxist-Leninists and not simply a group of Chinese nationalists. He had also recognized Chiang Kai-Shek's government, and furthermore distrusted any communist movement that was not under his direct control. After a meeting with Mao, the Soviet leader remarked "What sort of a man is Mao? He seems to have some idea of revolution involving the peasants, but not the workers." Eventually, a frustrated Mao was ready to go home, but Zhou Enlai refused to leave without a formal agreement. Thus, the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Friendship was signed and the Chinese at last departed in February 1950.

According to Hua-yu Li, writing in Mao and the Economic Stalinization of China, 1948–1953 in 1953, Mao, misled by glowing reports in History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik): Short Course, authorized by Stalin of social and economic progress in the Soviet Union, abandoned the liberal economic programs of "New Democracy" and instituted the "general line for socialist transition", a program to build socialism based on Soviet models. He was reportedly moved in part by personal and national rivalry with Stalin and the Soviet Union.^[29][30]

The Soviet Union provided considerable economic aid and training during the 1950s. Many Chinese students were sent to study in Moscow. Factories and other infrastructure projects were all based on Soviet designs, for China was an agrarian country with little established industry. In 1953, Mao Zedong told the Indonesian ambassador that they had little to export except agricultural products. Several jointly owned Sino-Soviet corporations were established, but Mao considered these to impinge on Chinese sovereignty and in 1954 they were quietly dissolved.

By 1956, Mao was becoming bored with the day-to-day running of the state and also worried about growing red tape and bureaucracy. The 8th Party Congress that year declared that socialism had more-or-less been established and so the next few years would be devoted to rest and consolidation.

In February 1957, Mao gave one of his most famous addresses in which he said, "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend." The

" until the 1970s.

Great Leap Forward

Mao's social and cultural programs, including

seeded a novel and radical drive to reform China's economic system in its entirety. This split developed after Stalin's death in 1953 when new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced him. The "secret speech" in 1956 stunned the communist world. China rejected de-Stalinization and in fact displayed large Stalin portraits at the May Day celebrations that year. Mao declared that despite some faults, Stalin had basically been a good, well-meaning Marxist. He felt that the Soviets were not treating China as an equal partner. Cultural differences also contributed to friction between the two communist giants. Khrushchev's idea of peaceful competition with the United States rather than overt hostility did not resonate well with Beijing. Mao said that "Do you think the capitalists will put down their butcher knife and become Buddhas?"

Khrushchev's 1958 suggestion of a joint Sino-Soviet fleet to counter the US 7th Fleet was angrily rejected by Mao Zedong, who told the Soviet ambassador "If you want to talk about joint cooperation, fine. We can practice joint cooperation in government, military, cultural, and economic matters and you can leave us with a guerrilla force." When the Soviet premier himself visited China the following year, Mao again asked him to explain what a joint fleet was. He stated that the Soviets were not welcome to put any troops on Chinese soil in peacetime and added "Listen carefully. We have worked long and hard to drive out the Americans, the British, the Japanese, and others. Never again will we allow foreigners to use our territory for their purposes." Khrushchev also thought that the Chinese were too soft on the Dalai Lama (Tibet's spiritual leader) and failed to support them in a border dispute with India, saying that the territory in question was "just a frozen waste where nobody lives."

Leading into the Great Leap Forward, China experienced a population boom that strained its food supply, despite rising agricultural yields.^[31]: 81 Increased yields could not keep pace a population that benefitted from a major decrease in mortality (due to successful public health campaigns and the end of war) and high fertility rate.^[31]: 81The Chinese government recognized the country's dilemma of feeding its rapidly growing population without the means to make significant capital improvements in agriculture.^[31]: 82 Viewing human labor as an underutilized factor of production, the government intensified the mobilization of masses of people to increase labor inputs in agriculture.^[31]: 82

Under Mao's leadership, China broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the "Great Leap Forward", in 1958, aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production. Specific to industrial production, Mao announced the goal of surpassing the steel production output of Great Britain by 1968. Giant cooperatives, otherwise known as people's communes, were formed. Within a year almost all Chinese villages had been reformed into working communes of several thousand people in size, where people would live and work together as envisioned by an ideal communist society. Rather than build steel mills, small "backyard furnaces" would be used.

The results, however, were

and many deaths. A significant number of the deaths were not from famine but were killed or overworked by the authorities. According to various sources, the resulting death toll was likely between 20 and 40 million. The steel produced in backyard furnaces at low temperatures proved to be useless. Finally, the peasants hated the lack of privacy and the militarization of their lives.

One of the loudest opponents of the GLF was Defense Minister Peng Dehuai. Peng was a believer in orthodox Soviet-style economic planning and totally against experimentations. Several years earlier, he had been instrumental in trying to develop the PLA into a well-equipped, professional fighting force, as opposed to Mao's belief that soldiers who were revolutionary enough could overcome any obstacle. The army had had no ranks during the civil war and Korea. This system worked rather poorly in those conflicts, and so a rank system (modeled after the Soviet one) was implemented in 1954.

While taking a trip through the countryside, Peng was horrified at the wreckage of the Great Leap Forward. Everywhere fields were dotted with abandoned communes, ruined crops, and lumps of useless pig iron. Afterwards, he accused Mao of being responsible for this disaster and was in turn denounced as a rightist and removed from office. Peng then lived retired in disgrace for the next several years until he was arrested and beaten by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. He survived the torture, but sustained permanent injuries and died in 1974. After Mao's death, Peng was posthumously rehabilitated with full honors.

The already strained Sino-Soviet relationship deteriorated sharply in 1959, when the Soviets started to restrict the flow of scientific and technological information to China. The dispute escalated, and the Soviets withdrew all of their personnel from China by August 1960, leaving many construction projects dormant. In the same year, the Soviets and the Chinese began to have disputes openly in international forums. The relationship between the two powers reached a low point in 1969 with the Sino-Soviet border conflict, when Soviet and Chinese troops met in combat on the Manchurian border.

Third Front

After the failure of the Great Leap Forward, China's leadership slowed the pace of industrialization.^[32]: 3 It invested more on in China's coastal regions and focused on the production of consumer goods.^[32]: 3 After an April 1964 General Staff report concluded that the concentration of China's industry in its major coastal cities made it vulnerable to attack by foreign powers, Mao argued for the development of basic industry and national defense industry in protected locations in China's interior.^{[32]: 4, 54} This resulted in the building of the Third Front, which involved massive projects including railroad infrastructure,^{[32]: 153–164} aerospace industry including satellite launch facilities,^{[32]: 218–219} and steel production industry including Panzhihua Iron and Steel.^[32]: 9

Development of the Third Front slowed in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution, but accelerated again after the Sino-Soviet border conflict at Zhenbao Island, which increased the perceived risk of Soviet Invasion.^{[32]: 12, 150} Third Front construction again decreased after United States President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China and the resulting rapprochement between the United States and China.^{[32]: 225–229} When Reform and Opening up began after Mao's death, China began to gradually wind down Third Front projects.^[33]: 180 The Third Front distributed physical and human capital around the country, ultimately decreased regional disparities and created favorable conditions for later market development.^{[33]: 177–182}

Cultural Revolution

Urban–rural divide

The urban–rural divide was the most important division in Maoist China when it came to the distribution of food, clothing, housing and health care.^[37] Rural status carried no entitlement to a state ration card, wages or social security. As a result, Maoist China is sometimes described as a dual society.^[38] The model of development in Mao's China was to develop heavy industry through the exploitation of the rural population. In order to minimize the cost of staple foods for the urban population, farmers were compelled to sell any agricultural surplus above a specified level to the state at artificially low prices.^[38] In some regions the state also ate into the rural grain supply, causing shortages for the locals.^[39] The rural population endured the worst of the Great Leap Famine in part because the state could seize as much grain as it needed, even under starvation conditions. The appropriated grain was largely used to feed the urban population, although some of it was exported.^[40]

The difference in treatment of urban and rural areas was a major push factor for internal migration, which lead to increased restrictions on mobility. The ways to acquire an urban hukou were limited, including serving in the People's Liberation Army, passing the national university entrance examination or being recruited by an urban work unit as a permanent worker.^[37] Because of these restrictions, the rural proportion of the population was higher in 1978 than it had been in 1958.^[41]

Mao Zedong's legacy

The history of the People's Republic from 1949 to 1976 is accorded the name "Mao era"-China. A proper evaluation of the period is, in essence, an evaluation of Mao's legacy. Since Mao's death there has been generated a great deal of controversy about him amongst both historians and political analysts.^[42]

Mao's poor management of the food supply and overemphasis on village industry is often blamed for the millions of deaths by famine during the "Mao era". However, there were also positive changes as a result from his management. Before 1949, for instance, the illiteracy rate in Mainland China was 80%, and life expectancy was a meager 35 years. At his death, illiteracy had declined to less than 7%, and average life expectancy had increased by 30 years. In addition, China's population which had remained constant at 400,000,000 from the

• 
  Birth and death rate in China
• 
  China's population growth
• 
  Life expectancy by world region

China's economy in 1976 was three times its 1949 size (but the size of the Chinese economy in 1949 was one-tenth of the size of the economy in 1936), and whilst Mao-era China acquired some of the attributes of a superpower such as: nuclear weapons and a space programme; the nation was still quite poor and backwards compared to the Soviet Union, the United States, Japan, or Western Europe. Fairly significant economic growth in 1962–1966 was wiped out by the Cultural Revolution. Other critics of Mao fault him for not encouraging birth control and for creating an unnecessary demographic bump by encouraging the masses, "The more people, the more power", which later Chinese leaders forcibly responded to with the controversial one-child policy. The ideology surrounding Mao's interpretation of Marxism–Leninism, also known as Maoism, was codified into China's Constitution as a guiding ideology. Internationally, it has influenced many communists around the world, including third world revolutionary movements such as Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, Peru's Shining Path and the revolutionary movement in Nepal. In practice, Mao Zedong Thought is defunct inside China aside from anecdotes about the CCP's legitimacy and China's revolutionary origins. Of those that remain, some regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to be a betrayal of Mao's legacy.^[44][45]

See also

• Wage reform in China, 1949–1976

Notes

References

Further reading

• Catchpole, Brian. A map history of modern China (1976), new maps and diagrams
• Cheng, Linsun (2009). Berkshire Encyclopedia of China. Great Barrington, Mass.: Berkshire Pub. Group.
  ISBN 978-1933782683
  .
• Chesneaux, Jean et al. China: The People's Republic, 1949–1976 (1977) by French scholars
• Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (2010). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 978-0521196208
  .
• Fairbank, John King and Goldman, Merle. China: A New History. 2nd ed. Harvard U. Press, (2006). 640 pp. excerpt
  pp 343–471.
• Fenby, Jonathan. The Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power 1850 to the Present (3rd ed. 2019) popular history.
• Garver, John W. China's Quest: The History of the Foreign Relations of the People's Republic (2nd ed. 2018)
• Guillermaz, Jacques. The Chinese Communist Party In Power, 1949–1976 (1977) excerpt
• Hsü, Immanuel Chung-yueh. The Rise of Modern China, 6th ed. (Oxford University Press, 1999). Detailed coverage of 1644–1999, in 1136 pp.
• Kissinger, Henry. On China (2011)
• Leung, Edwin Pak-wah. Historical dictionary of revolutionary China, 1839–1976 (1992) online free to borrow
• Leung, Edwin Pak-wah. Political Leaders of Modern China: A Biographical Dictionary (2002)
• Meisner, Maurice. Mao's China and After: A history of the People's Republic (Simon and Schuster, 1999).
• Meisner, Maurice. Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait (Polity, 2006).
• Perkins, Dorothy. Encyclopedia of China: The Essential Reference to China, Its History and Culture. Facts on File, 1999. 662 pp.
• Price, Rohan B.E. Resistance in Colonial and Communist China (1950–1963) Anatomy of a Riot (Routledge, 2020).
• Rummel, Rudolph J. China's bloody century: Genocide and mass murder since 1900 (Routledge, 2017).
• Salisbury, Harrison E. The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng (1993)
• Schoppa, R. Keith. The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History. Columbia U. Press, 2000. 356 pp.
• ISBN 978-0805066388
  .
• Spence, Jonathan D. Mao Zedong (1999) 214 pp online free to borrow
• Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China (1999), 876 pp; survey from 1644 to 1990s
• Wang, Ke-wen, ed. Modern China: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Nationalism. Garland, 1998. 442 pp.
• Zeng, Jinghan. The Chinese Communist Party's capacity to rule: ideology, legitimacy and party cohesion. (Springer, 2015).

Historiography

• Harding, Harry. "The study of Chinese politics: toward a third generation of scholarship." World Politics 36.2 (1984): 284–307.
• Wu, Guo. "Recalling bitterness: Historiography, memory, and myth in Maoist China." Twentieth-Century China 39.3 (2014): 245–268. online
• Yu, Bin. "The Study of Chinese Foreign Policy: Problems and Prospect." World Politics 46.2 (1994): 235–261.
• Zhang, Chunman. "Review Essay: How to Merge Western Theories and Chinese Indigenous Theories to Study Chinese Politics?." Journal of Chinese Political Science 22.2 (2017): 283–294. online^{[dead link]}

External links

• Farmers, Mao, and Discontent in China: From the Great Leap Forward to the Present by Dongping Han, Monthly Review, November 2009