Mao’s Five Year PlanJordan Greco, Sean Brady, Taylor Caba, Jessa Holehan

Thesis Rationale

• Mao, the well-known, and demigod figured Chinese leader, had many ideas that benefitted China. One of these includes his ‘First Five Year Plan’, which was made to industrialize and to modernize.• “The process in which a society or country transforms itself from a

primarily agricultural society into one based on the manufacturing of goods and services.” Industrialization. Industrialization benefitted China because only 10% of China’s land was capable of good farming, so it opened possibilities of profit to more than farming.• Modernization is updating society to new, bigger and better things,

which is what Mao was trying to do with the plan.

“It will take many years to raise China from her low economic position. China must use elements of urban and rural capitalism which help the national economy. Our present policy is to control not eliminate capitalism.” Mao speaking in the early 1950’s

Thesis: Mao’s Five Year Plan positively benefited China by helping their economy, growing their industry, and modernizing the culture.

“Serve the people.”- Lei Feng (1940-1962)

“It is good to use wall posters in our campaigns in factories. The more we use the better.”

Key• Mao with Citizens: In Mao’s first ‘Five Year Plan’, Mao wanted to give

everyone equal everything, so he made it seem as though he worked with the people to do so as it shows in the picture. It is a picture showing Mao with a bunch of citizens, and was used for a propaganda technique, showing citizens how well Mao works with people like them.• Worker holding steel (no writing): The picture shows a Chinese man who

is working, which represents how China is modernizing while keeping manual labor, like Mao wanted, and how they are industrializing.• Citizens following Mao (middle, skinny, long picture):The picture shows

Mao, and how the citizens idolized and followed him. Mao was represented as a demigod in the eyes of the citizens.

Key

• Picture of a man holding steel • This picture represents the industrial changes during the First Five Year Plan. The Chinese translates

to “Accelerate Socialist construction steel.” The phrase has to do with the fact that during the Five Year Plan it was important to improve China very quickly by making profit fast and producing items quickly, especially heavy industries like steel and oil. China had support from Russia which helped China rebuild itself in a short amount of time. The first plan was introduced in 1957 and doubled Chinese output in the economy. Early efforts to build the economy were very successful.

• Picture of factories and markets• The picture represents the team effort in China where villages and towns would pitch together to

help rebuild China. Influences came from Russia but China applied these ideologies to their country to rebuild it and the whole idea of Communism is that the people pitch in to help the government and that’s basically what happened during the First Five Year Plan. The Great Leap Forward really used the idea of Communism where farmers would join farms together into units called communes. All of the farmers basically acted as a catalyst for China’s trading output.

• Everyone also worked for the state and that would help rebuild China’s economy.

Key • Photo in the lower left hand corner of Mao smiling• In this photo Mao is making a speech about the future of China by using the Five Year Plan. The Five Year Plan was first introduced

in 1952 and was used to help build back up the economy which had been in a bad state after years of war. • Mao’s smile in the photo before preparing his speech shows his faith in the Five Year Plan and in China. He believed that this plan

would help grow China into a more modern, industrial, and growing economy. • Quote by Mao in the early 1950’s in yellow• Mao’s quote during one of his speeches is in yellow which is supposed to represent one of the three yellow stars on the Chinese

flag. His speech relates to the picture in the left hand corner as well. • Mao said that the Five Year Plan is supposed to help China’s economic downfall and control capitalism, not eliminate it. Capitalism

is “an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.” Mao was trying to control this so that China could improve and improve the wellbeing of others. Which over time, had achieved great success.

• Photo on lower right third to the right• This illustration is a cartoon drawing of a city being build up from the bottom. The wood planks on the bottom of the city are being

built by people (the Chinese) to hold up the city. The city itself shows how it has developed, mark the steel and the large buildings, and planes.

• The wood planks on the bottom could represent the old China, culturally and economically. The new buildings’ show new industrial China during and after the Five Year Plan. China had to rebuild itself from the beginning after the war and this illustration shows how they did so.

Key • Quote in Yellow: This is a quote on the amount of propaganda posters in factories. Propaganda was a strategy used

during the Five Year Plan in order get people to believe the idea. Factories were used during the Five Year Plan to build more steel to industrialize China. Mao would use propaganda in order to get people to be together and work together through Communism.

• Factory Picture: represents the new and improved factories Mao had built during the first Five Year Plan. Factories like these were built all over China and large amounts of money was spent on these big industrial products. Mao had intentions on tackling the problems of the economy with these factories. The aim of Mao’s plan was to improve Chinese industry very quickly, especially coal, steel and oil. Because of factories were built all over China Industry, especially heavy industry, significantly improved over the five years.

• The picture of the working woman: represents Mao’s encouragement of women working and getting involved with industry and modernization. All over China it was for the interest of the nation to get women working more. Before women stayed at home and didn’t have much importance, but during the Five Year Plan propaganda like this was made to encourage women to take on jobs so more people overall would be working and contributing.

• The quote by Lei Feng(blue text): represents the goals of the Five Year Plan, to make a better economy for the people and do so by work. Mao’s main aim was to industrialize China and he achieved this by making industries. Feng captures how this worked with his quote because “serve the people” means working for the people. The people were the Chinese and they worked for each other and served each other.