The Weight of History

Consolidation of the Chinese Communist State (1949-1961)

7 min read

5.01 Authoritarian States, 🇨🇳 Communist China

Consolidation of the Chinese Communist State (1949-1961)

under Mao Zedong

Background

  • October 1949: PRC declared
    • Mao and the CCP took steps to secure full political control of the country
    • their goals:
      1. Remove the yoke of foreign imperialism
      2. Remove classes – wage class warfare upon the bourgeois
      3. Further the Chinese revolution
    • the problems faced, despite relief at the communist victory:
      1. Their legitimacy and recognition as a state
        • the UN recognized only the exiled government in Taiwan as the legitimate government of Chinese
      2. Strength of government to run the country
        • opposition parties within China threatened the CCP
        • lack of manpower – former CCP fighters were only trained to be soldiers, not government officials
      3. Unification of the country (they aren’t a one-party state yet at this point)
        • some areas weren’t under full CCP control – Xinjiang (Uighur Muslim), Tibet (Buddhist Tibetan), Guangdong (resistant to land reform), remnants of the KMT/Nationalist forces, Taiwan (Nationalist government’s new base)
          • beyond just ethno-cultural concerns, the CCP despised religion as an ‘addiction’ that poisoned the mind and linked it to opium
        • the CCP feared border areas would try to separate themselves from the Chinese state
      4. The economy – in shambles
        • Chiang Kai-Shek and KMT officials fled with all of China’s foreign reserves and a large quantity of treasures
      5. Security of the country
        • border disputes/troubles with huge countries – India, USSR
        • Tibet as ‘the rooftop of the world’ is a highly strategic location for the People’s Liberation Army – next to Nepal and India, on the Himalayas, and in high altitude
          • only specially-trained troops can fight there without altitude sickness
    • the goal of the communists was to stabilize China, so they asked former government servants and police to stay and help
      • the Chinese middle class was asked to stay and help, providing government workers and industrial managers
      • only the most hardened enemies were kicked out at this stage; everyone was indispensable

PRC Structure

  • China divided into six key regions, each governed by four officials:
    1. Chairman
    2. Party secretary
    3. Military commander
    4. Political commander
  • officers in the PLA filled the Military and Political Commander slots, putting China under military control
  • China’s government was centered under the Central People’s Government Council
    • 56 party members
    • 6 of them served directly under Council Chairman Mao, comparable to Russia’s Politburo or Hitler’s inner circle
  • Mao was the undisputed leader.

Key Policies

  • justice was served via The People’s Court – similar to the show trials
    • satisfies the bloodthirsty populace – you become part of the revolution as you heckle the bourgeois class
    • you champion the cause, it’s in your interest to protect and safeguard the Chinese Revolution
    • sense of belonging
    • people would wear signs with 黑帮分子 on it – a bad term
  • 1950-1952 Agrarian Land Reform Policy
    • another 2 movements, set in urban areas
  • The Anti- Movement
    • counter-revolutionaries and reactionaries (middle-class capitalists, conservative thinkers) are enemies of the state
    • English was the language of ‘foreign exploitation’ (no English translations tolerated)
    • streets named in English, German or French were renamed in Chinese
    • in tandem with the land reforms, focused on solidifying and strengthening the CCP state
    • make reference to what they ask in an exam, but generalise the impact
      • specific goals, general results
  • [[Reunification Campaign]
  • 1956 Hundred Flowers Campaign
  • The Great Terror
    • household registration system as a matter of control
    • households and workplaces were given a class label and ranked as “good”, “middle” or bad
      • created pressure to rise up in ranks and contribute; competitive
    • children of these households would inherit these labels
    • local party officials turned Chian into a nation of informers
      • showing allegiance and gaining rewards were main motivators – children reported their own parents, people turned on neighbours, friends told on each other
      • every street had ‘watchers’ who kept the CCP informed of anyone suspicous
    • vulnerable classes like beggars, pickpockets and prostitutes were seen as a drain on resources
  • One-Party State – established by 1952. the 10 parties present in 1949 were removed under the political purge, labelled as imperialists and counterrevolutionaries

Political Reform

  • PLA won the war with 5 million soldiers and played a key role in government
  • six new regions of China were co-managed by PLA committees
    • each region had a Party Congress, a People’s Congress and a PLA committee
    • PLA only answered to the head of the Military Affairs Commission (MAC) – Mao Zedong
  • PLA was initially

Censorship and Propaganda

  • filial piety and worshipping ancestors came from Confuciousism – the people should be loyal to Mao only, and be building the country
    • double standard – he wanted the people’s piety and loyalty
    • many already respected him strongly, because he did what so many could not – break China out of international humiliation, defeat the Japanese and get rid of the foreigners
  • “thought reform” – lots of people were re-educated, so they could learn to self-censor (journalists especially)
    • many were forced to write confessions and admit past mistakes, often in public
  • by 1952, almost every student and teacher were loyal to the state
  • New Socialist Man – Wikipedia
  • Literature in China
    • Wu Xun faced fire for his film for showing that change came about from education rather than revolution – it was seen as an intellectual and thus anti-Communist State stance
    • campaign levelled mainly against non-communist writers; though another campaign began against left-wing writers, many of whom were communist
    • an attempt by the party to reign in and control thought → sent a message to keep quiet to academics and intellectuals
      • but later in the Five-Year Plan, it wants everyone to take part – resulting in another campaign to encourage intellectuals back into the fold
    • ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’ – social commentary reflecting the decay of feudal society, shedding light upon the corruption of the rich
      • Yu refused the re-interpretation demand and published his original manuscript in a different magazine, sparking anger not because of the wrong-think but because he disobeyed a direct order
      • Yu was Western-educated and considered his freedom of thought more important than advancing the party’s aims
      • discrediting attempts – a responding editorial responding that the author’s thoughts on interpretations were underdeveloped in certain arenas
    • Hu Feng campaign – used to butt heads
    • this was an ideological contest – what was knowledge? Who defined this knowledge? How is knowledge produced? Who has the right to produce that knowledge, and is that knowledge authoritative knowledge?
      • in the eyes of the Party, the content produced by some Chinese writers were aberrant, veering from their envisioned Chinese path
      • an attempt to control knowledge, and the creators of said knowledge
      • also, an attempt by Mao to eliminate political opponents

Mao’s portrayal in propaganda

Summar

Almost god-like as a supreme leader; the best of them all.

  • next in a line of great men (Marx, Frederic Engels, Lenin, Stalin)
  • as the Sun
  • as the champion of workers
  • international friendship – standing together with Stalin in political drawings

Labor Camps

  • 劳改 lao gai – Chinese equivalent of Soviet gulags
    • correct yourself through labour
  • meant to “reform” people through labour
  • 1955 – 2 million people sent to a camp, mostly political prisoners who were loyal to and wanted the previous government back
  • conditions were harsh, with torture and hunger common
  • as many as 10 million people in these camps at any given time while Mao was in power

Mao Zedong Thought (or, Sinified Marxism)

  • A.S. China 2024, page 72-73 (table)
  • Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Five-Year Plans were driven by a desire to compete with the Soviets’ industrial might and capitalist West’s influence

Graph View

Backlinks