GREAT LEAP FORWARD

HI 168: Lecture 13Dr. Howard Chiang

Mao and Khrushchev, 1958

OVERVIEW

- Marriage Reform- Intellectuals- Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist

Campaign- The Great Leap Forward- People’s Communes- Backlash against GLF- Great Famine- Lin Biao and Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi

and Deng Xiaoping

MARRIAGE REFORM

- Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China on April 13, 1950

- Free choice of partners, monogamy, equal rights for men and women, and ‘the protection of lawful interests of women and children’

- Gave cadres the authority to act on some of the worst cases of abuse

- A serious challenge to the authority of the immediate and extended family

INTELLECTUALS

- distrust of ‘intellectuals’ (zhishi fenzi, 知識分子 , ‘knowledgeable elements’)

- Feng Xuefeng (馮雪峰 ), Hu Shi (胡適 ), and Hu Feng (胡風 ) – 5 daggers: study Marxism, live among the workers and peasants, counter bourgeois ideology, conserve national traditions, serve politics enthusiastically

- Campaign against hidden counter-revolutionaries

HUNDRED FLOWERS

- Zhou Enlai, Premier of PRC 1949-76:‘Report on the Question of Intellectuals’

- ‘sci & tech in socialist construction’- ‘let a hundred flowers bloom and a

hundred schools of thought contend’- Mao’s support – speech on May 2,

1956- Feb. 1957, Mao spoke again – “On the

Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People”

ANTI-RIGHTIST CAMPAIGN

- Students, journalists, historians, social scientists, and other academic researhcers – dissent and discontent

- Anti-Rightist Campaign – a revised version of Mao’s ‘Contradictions’

- 4-700,000 ‘rightists’ – subjected to public vilification, sent to farms where contacts with peasants ‘cured’ them

- Deng Xiaoping, secretary-general- 12,000 members of democratic

parties

GREAT LEAP FORWARD

- 3 Red Banners: General Line for Building Socialism, Great Leap Forward, and People’s Communes

- May 5-23, 1958 Second Plenary session of Eight Party Congress

- Lin Biao, Hongqi (Red Flag), Mao’s ‘Introducing a Cooperative’ (1958)

- Jun 22, Report on the Steel Output Plan:1959 – 30 million tons1962 – 50-90 million tons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60_Q-kAZbXA

PEOPLE’S COMMUNES

- Aug 1958 Mao: Hebei, Henan, Shandong- Small and rural communes (township) vs.

urban communes- Qiliying (Seven League Camp) commune:

53,200 population; 1, 394, 303 hectares of land; 56 advanced cooperatives; 38 production brigades; 298 production teams

- Communes replaced existing local government at the township level

BACKLASH AGAINST GLF

- Nov. 28-Dec. 10, 1958: 6th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee: ‘Resolution on Some Problems Concerning the People’s Communes’

- Decentralization of power in the communes and the restoration of ownership and management to the production team

- Mao replaced by Liu Shaoqi as chairman of PRC

LUSHAN CONFERENCE

- Peng Dehuai replaced by Marshal Lin Biao

- Peng’s attack on Mao- Mao linked Peng with ‘revisionist’- The 8th Plenum of the Eighth Central

Committee published on Aug 26 – some success at reducing economic targets, but ‘right opportunists’ lost their posts

Peng Dehuai

GREAT FAMINE

- Policy errors and the transfer of labor from the land to impressive construction projects of dubious practical value led to a serious shortfall in the supply of foodstuffs

- Bad weather and the withdrawal of the Soviet technicians alone could not account for more than 20 million excess deaths that were recorded between 1959 and 1961

LIN-MAO & LIU-DENG

- Lin Biao & Mao Zedong:- Selected Works by Sep. 30, 1960- Quotations from Chairman Mao – the ‘little red book’- Socialist Education Movement (1962-65) & PLA as model for everyone

- Liu Shaoqi & Deng Xiaoping- drafted a series of weighty documents with the most uninspiring titles – dull but very practical

Lin Biao

Liu Shaoqi

Deng Xiaoping