changes under mao - agriculture
TRANSCRIPT
Changes under Mao: 1949-1963
Learning Objectives:To examine how the agricultural reforms altered China between 1949-1957
Key Words: Common
ProgrammeAgrarian Reform
LawPeoples Courts
Speak Bitterness Meetings
Mutual Aid TeamsCo-Operatives
CollectivesFive Year Plan
What problems did Mao & the CCP face in 1949?
Starter: Discuss with the people on your table the Economic, Social, Political and Foreign issues that Mao would have faced after the end of the civil war?
Mao’s Problems in 1949
Economic?Industrial? Agricultural?
Political?
Foreign?
Social?
How did the communist flag differ from the
Republican flag?
A new start meant a new flag for China and the CCP
Agricultural ReformLO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957
Stealing of harvests
Forcible conscription of peasants for military
serviceMassive
numbers of refugees
Much destruction and use of terror.
Maurding armies in the Japanes and Civil Wars had caused widespread destruction
What caused the reduction in agricultural productivity during the wars?
We communists are now in power. But China is weak after 20 years of war and civil war. We need to build up China’s strength to protect its borders from our enemies.
We need a strong army! But most of our factories have been destroyed and
China has few arms factories anyway.
We can buy weapons from our friends the Russians!
China has few resources available to sell to the Russians to buy
weapons. We also need to buy machines for our factories.
China has lots of land and millions of peasants. We will sell FOOD!
The purpose of agricultural reform?
• In 1950 Mao introduced an Agrarian Reform Law. He sent CCP workers into each village to review social class of each person.
• They took the land from landlords and shared it out amongst village peasants (2.5 acres each).
• They also got peasants to put landlords on trial in so-called ‘People’s Courts’.
How did agriculture change?
LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957
• At these trials (Speak Bitterness Meetings) the landlords were accused of charging high rents or mistreating their tenants
• Some were let off, but many landlords were imprisoned or executed. Party workers set up the courts but peasants ran them. Why?
• Between 700,000 – 3 million landlords were executed. This further increased support and faith in Mao. Why?
Peoples Courts?
Mao wanted the executions to have
maximum impact by involving peasants in the killing and having executions in public:
“Peasants who killed with their bare hands the
landlords who oppressed them were wedded to the new revolutionary order in
a way that passive spectators could never
be.”
From P. Short, Mao: A Life, 1999
LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957
• Land reform made Mao popular but in the short-term it only decreased productivity. WHY?
• Mao eventually planned to ‘collectivise’ farming to raise productivity, but this would only anger peasants who has just won their own land.
• The population was growing and to avoid famine, Mao slowly tried to persuade peasants to work together to raise food production.
Population ↑, Food Production ↓ = ?
LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957
• His first step was to introduce Mutual Aid Teams.
• Peasants worked on each other’s land, fertilising, killing pests or harvesting so that each family’s plot would become more productive.
• Government supplied extra fertiliser & tools to reward hardworking families but it did not raise productivity enough.
• Fear that peasants would become a new class society concerned with profits.
Mutual Aid Teams?How effective do you feel this would be?
“In 1951 we set up a Mutual Aid Team. The work went well, but there were
lots of quarrels about whose land should be worked on first. It was
difficult to solve all these problems. Some said ‘Why
should his field be taken first? I’ve got a bigger crop.’ Whatever
we did this went on. So we then began to talk about forming a peasant’s co-
operative.”
LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957
• From 1953, Mao encouraged peasants to form co-operatives.
• This meant land was jointly owned so one large crop could be grown efficiently. Resources could be pooled to buy equipment, fertilisers & seeds.
• Some peasants opposed this (Why?) but by 1955, over 90% of China’s peasants belonged to co-operatives.
The Co-OperativesLO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957
1955 - The ‘co-operatives’ were gathered into larger units called ‘collectives’, consisting of 200-300 families (ie. several villages). By 1956 95% of peasants were in collectives.
The Communist Party further increased its control over the peasants by:
- All peasant land had to be handed over to the collective. - Private ownership, except for small garden plots, ceased to exist.
- Peasants had to give up the title deeds to their land, surrender their animals
- Families now received a wage and were no longer paid a rent for use of their land.
- Peasants were allowed to keep only a few small square metres of land for growing vegetables, etc.
The Collectives
Qu. D – Pg. 33
f
1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 19570
50
100
150
200
250Food Production in China: Billions of Kg of Food Produced 1949-
1957
1950 - Agrarian Land Re-
form
1951 – Mutual
Aid Teams set up
1953 – All peasants
encourage to join co-operatives
1957 – Over 90% of peasants now in
co-operatives
How did Agriculture Change?
Plenary:
1. What was Chinese farming like before 1949?2. Why did Mao introduce the Peoples Courts?
3. How did farming methods change?4. What were the aims of the PRC in introducing Co-
operatives?5. Did peasants attitudes to reforms change over
time?6. Were the changes in farming successful?7. Did this achieve the stated purpose of the
Common Programme?
LO: To examine how the agricultural and industrial reforms altered China between 1949-1957