Cultural change

"The dead still rule today" Mao

Role of Jiang Qing

• She was specifically forbidden to have a role in politics until the cultural revolution
• "Cultural tsarina"
• 1966 Jiang Qing given a place on the CCRG
• Tasked with remoulding Chinese culture
• Rivalled politburo
• Controlled the pace and direction of the cultural revolution and PLA
• Art and literature group controlled by Jiang Qing replaced the ministry of culture in controlling art, music and literature
• Central case examination Group 1966
• Investigated crimes of high ranking Party members
• evidence gathered given directly to Mao
• Helped with the purging of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping

Theatre

• Vetted all performances for revisionist content
• Nearly all foreign works banned
• Slogan 'make it revolutionary or ban it

Opera

• Only 8 official revolutionary performances allowed (5 operas, 2 ballets and a symphony)
• First were popular but people soon got bored
• Joke that the culture of the cultural revolution was "8 million people watching 8 shows"
• Mao pleased "the orientation is right"
• Existing works were rewritten with less romance and more scenes of class conflict
• Revolutionary characters e.g. the Red Detachment of Women - story of female soldiers battling nationalists

Dull

• Artists fearful and either stopped or towed the Party line
• Broadcasts so boring that second hand radio sets could be bought for less than a quarter the original price
• Michael Lynch said it was an "artistically barren land" after "terrible physical famine" China was now "subjected to an equally deprivation spiritual famine"

Madame Mao's motives

• Some argue she just wanted to destroy her shady past life as an actress
• There were rumours of her having affairs with directors to get parts in Shanghai in the 1920s
• Former friends were hunted down and purged on the pretence of representing 'revisionist elements'
• "I was chairman Mao's dog" she said "Whoever Chairman Mao asked me to bite, I bit."

Red Guard attacks on the 'Four Olds' and Anarchy

• Aug 1966 Mao launched the 4 olds campaign
• Went beyond expected and the order to give those who had made a 'mistake' a second chance was ignored
• Visitors to restaurants were forced to complete a questionnaire declaring their class origins before being served
• Owning a pet bird made you a target  as keeping birds was a traditional pastime
• Shop signs, road signs and children's names were changed
• For example Beijing University Hospital became 'Anti-Imperialism hospital'
• The Red Guards even changed the meaning of traffic lights so that red meant 'Go' until Zhou Enlai stopped it fearing chaos

Cultural destruction

• Temples desecrated, statues, sculptures and artefacts defaced and burned
• Zhou Enlai sent the PLA to protect the treasures of the Forbidden city but across China priceless antiques were destroyed
• By the of the Cultural Revolution one-third of China's libraries had been closed and more than 7 million library books had been lost, stolen or destroyed in the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, Henan, Jiangxi and Guizhou alone

Confucius temple in Shandong

• Priceless cultural relic and resting place of Confucius
• The temple was attacked by 200 teachers and students from Beijing Normal University
• Encouraged by Chen Boda
• In 4 weeks of the stay they joined with local cultural activists to destroy 6618 registered cultural artefacts including 929 paintings and 2,700 books whilst 2000 graves were defaced
• Even then they were still denounced by other red guards

Wu Xu

• 19th Century cultural hero
• Corpse exhumed from his grave in Beijing by middle school students
• They took his corpse to a public square and sentenced him for a failure to challenge the imperialist system
• The broke the corpse into little pieces and burned it

Filming

• A group of Red guards took a film crew with them to record the destruction of Buddhist statues and incense burners in monasteries in the hills outside Beijing

The West

• Sites linked to national embarrassment caused by the West were destroyed
• For example a 200-year old Qing arch that was smashed into a pile of broken stones
• because it was 'under the Qing that the Western powers had begun to subjugate China with opium and gunboats'

Tibet

• Long hair ordered to be cut
• Many monasteries and shrines looted and destroyed
• Buddhist scriptures were torn up and used as inner-soles by Chinese and even toilet paper
• Chinese soldiers were ordered to empty the contents of monasteries of valuables such as precious metal, rare scroll painting and statues
• These were taken by corrupt officials who sold it on the international art market
• Traditional jewellery had to be handed over to the Chinese state bank

Terror

• Autumn and Winter 1966 it spiralled out of control - known as red terror
• Started as denunciations and intimidation ended in brutality
• 'class enemies' sent for 'reeducation' in labour camps
• Many took their own life
• For example the playwright Lao She
• His house had been burned by middle school Red Guards and denounced at struggle meetings and made to wear a dunce hat
• Drowned himself in Taiping Lake near Beijing in Late August 1966
• Ding Ling who had been purged in the hundred flowers campaign was targeted
• Denounced in a struggle meeting and forced to stand in the 'airplane' position for hours with her arms behind her back and at night was forced to sleep in a barn

Contract workers

• By the end of 1966 had also spread to workers
• 25th December short-term contract workers were angry at bad pay
• They criticised the manager and well paid workers and seized the ministry of labour
• A day later Jian Qing arrived and described it as a 'ministry of lords'
• Contract workers across the country rose up demanding better treatment

Anarchy

• Red guards started denouncing each other
• Radical groups sprang up joining the struggle
• Many motivated by political interest - in Shanxi the provincial governor joined the red guard in an attempt to purge rival Party leaders
• "Everywhere people were fighting, divided into two factions" - on the brink of civil war
• "It could not be controlled because attempting to control it would undermine the movements raison d'être" Shaun Breslin

'January Storm'

• Shanghai early 1967
• Red Guards made of unprivileged workers destroyed party establishment and created own form of control based on Paris commune of 1871
• 30th Dec 1966 100,000 of these radical rebel Red Guards defeated 20,000 other Red Guards known as Scarlet guard
• Violence and torture - believed was Mao's bidding

More violence

• April told the Red Guard to "have no fear of chaos. The more chaos you dish out the better. Disorder and chaos are always good things"

Wuhan Summer 1967

• Army sided with the Party to protect them from the Red Guards
• By the spring the PLA had arrested 500 leaders of radical Red Guard and workers for attacking the Party
• Protests and hunger strikes
• Summer armed clashes - PLA killed 1,000 protesters
• Governments members flew in to criticise the PLA for their brutality
• PLA supporters kidnapped them from their hotel and only released them when military reinforcements arrived

Restoration of order

• by 1968 Mao worried foreign nations might take advantage
• Ordered PLA to crush Red Guards and reestablish central Party control
• Great brutality - as hinted at by corpses washing up on the shores of Hong Kong

'Cleansing the class ranks"

• Cultural revolution group headed by Jiang Qing launched the campaign dedicating to 'eradicating... any signs of capitalism'
• Wave of terror headed by PLA unit 8341 Maos own security force
• 1.84 million arrested and thousands were imprisoned, beaten to death or took their own lives
• In Yunnan 6979 by by what Party records showed as 'death by enforced suicide'

End of violence

• Ended April 1969 with the Ninth Party Congress

Health Provision

• Party wanted to improve whilst not spending money needed for economic and military reconstruction
• Party decided priority was prevention rather than expensive cures
• Patriotic health campaign sent teams of Party workers into countryside to educate illiterate peasants
• One campaign focused on a microscopic worm spread by snails
• Campaigns used lectures, film shows, posters and radio broadcasts
• Effective!
• Cholera, smallpox,typhus, typhoid fever, plague and leprosy practically eliminated
• Terror campaign against drug suppliers had effect of greatly lowering the number of drug addicts

Slowly began to improve

• GLF communes had medical clinics
• State investment built 800 western-type hospitals
• The number of doctors trained in modern techniques rose from 40,000 in 1949 to 150,000 in 1965
• By 1960s medical schools were graduating 25,000 new doctors per year

Results

• In 1949 life expectancy was 36 years in 1957 it was 57

Turning Point - Antis Campaigns of the 1950s

• Many medical professionals labeled bourgeoisie
• More denounced in cultural revolution

Inequality

• Western hospitals in cities while in countryside paramedics were first line of care (not fully trained doctors)
• Mao denounced hospitals as 'hospitals for urban lords only'

Barefoot Doctors

• Young people sent to receive medical training to become 'bare foot doctors'
• 'It is not at all necessary to have so much formal training' Mao
• Trained for six months
• Could only provide rudimentary healthcare and village clinics had little equipment and low supplies of medicine
• Jung Chang called the scheme 'propaganda and one of 'Mao's political manoeuvres'

Impact of BD

• Provided best healthcare many rural peasants had ever experienced
• Challenged traditional practices and spread modern medical knowledge and basic care to rural areas
• In total by 1973 over a million new doctors had been trained

The Great Leap Forward 1958-1964

Absurd targets - Jan 1958

• Ministry of Metallurgy said they would more than double steel production to 20 million tonnes by 1962 and 100 million by 1970

Mao lost all sense of reality

• When reviewing steel production target to raise production from 6 to 9 million
• "Make it snappy! Why dilly-dally? Let's make it 11 million tonnes"
• After purges of enemies in the campaigns of the 1950s no one dared challenge
• The Anti-Rightist campaign meant no intellectuals or experts to provide advice or rational economic planning

Failures

• Many factories closed because of the shortage of raw materials
• By 1962 industrial production had declined by 40% from 1968-9 levels

The Great Famine

'Winds of Exaggeration'

• Scared of being labeled 'rightist' local party cadres exaggerated their production reports
• Party officials in turn demanded greater results based on the inflated figures
• Believed there was surplus so orders given to leave a third of the farmland fallow because the storage facilities would be insufficient to contain it
• Between 1958 and 1961 the amount of land used in grain production was reduced by 9%
• Grain exports to USSR to pay for more industry continued to rise
• Grain sent abroad to communist countries like North Korea and North Vietnam as a free gift

Death toll

• 30-50 million people died
• Anhui was self-sufficient but so much grain taken that 8 million died
• In Tibet 1 million people died the greatest amount by proportion of the population - the communist party intentionally took lots of grains and gave only meagre amounts of rations in return as didn't trust them as were loyal to the Dalai Lama

Not Just Mao

• Typhoons caused flooding in South China
• 8 out of 12 main rivers in Shandong dried up
• More than 60% of land was affected by either floods or drought
• 2 million drowned or died when the crops were destroyed
• Summer 1960 1,400 Soviet scientists by September there were none

Party Cadres

• As the people of Henan starved the local party boss built 7 luxurious villas for high ranking guests
• In Sichuan the population fell by 6 million between 1957 and 1961 - the local party secretary  commented "Which dynasty has not witnessed death by starvation?"

The Lushan Conference 1959 - The letter

• Peng wrote a private letter to Mao
• Mao accused him of forming "a right opportunistic clique" and denounced him for having gone "behind the backs of our fatherland to collude with a foreign country"

First Five Year Plan 1952-6

Soviet influence

• Closely mirrored the Soviet industrialisation model
• 'The communist party of the Soviet Union is our best teacher and we must learn from it' - Mao
• 'The Soviet Union's today is our tomorrow' slogan

Soviet Support

• Sino-Soviet Mutual Assistance Treaty 1950
• Help included
• Construction/reconstruction of 156 major industrial enterprises
• 24 powerstations
• 63 machinery plants
• 11,000 Soviet and Eastern European industrialist experts sent
• Inviting 28,000 Chinese technicians to study in Russia
• Loans of $300 million dollars over next 5 years

Results

• Annual growth rate around 16%
• Industrial output grew by 15.5% a year (target 14.7)
• Heavy industrial output nearly tripled
• Industrial working class grew from 6 to 10 million

Reaching socialism

• In 1953 private firms began being converted into joint state-private ownership
• By 1956 private sector industry had been abolished
• Large retail firms under state ownership while small shops and services were converted into cooperatives

Standard of living for industrial workers improved

• Greater job security
• Work guaranteed all year round

Failures

• Dependent on loans with high interest loans from the Soviet Union
• Supply of consumer goods was low - helped because people instead bought government bonds
• Little investment in improving education or healthcare
• Poor living standards e.g. shortage of doctors and most peasants received only basic education
• Value of the agricultural output grew at an average of 2.1% - had been 14.1% during 1949-52

Timeline

1949

• PRC proclaimed

1950

• Land reform applied
• New Marriage Law
• Alliance with USSR
• China intervenes in Korean War

1952

• Three Antis (1951-52)
• Five Antis

1953

• Drive for APCs
• Rash advance
• First 5yp (1953-57)
• Gao and Rao denounced by Mao

1954

• All documents through Mao
• Country reorganized to 24 provinces

1955

• 'The peasants want freedom, we want socialism'
• Conerfence of local party secretaries
• China develops rockets and missiles

1956

• New code of conduct for PLA
• 8th Party Congress - ref to Mao removed

1957

• The Hundred Flowers Campaign
• Anti-rightist campaign

1958

• Fisrt commune
• Great Leap Forward
• Clash with USA over off shore islands

1959

• Famine begins
• Lushan Conference: Peng Dehuai tries to reason with Mao

1960

• Natural disasters and famine worsens
• Break with USSR
• Russians withdraw experts
• Great Leap Forward ends

1961

• Period of recovery

1962

• 7,000 cadres and Mao makes self criticism

1963

• Socialist education movement
• Whole series of documents (1963-5)

1966

• Launch of the Cultural Revolution

1967

• Violence reaches height

1968

• PLA restores order

1969

• Lin Biao named as Mao's heir at 9th Congress

1971

• Detente with USA (peace)
• Death of Lin Biao

1976

• Death of Mao
• Gang of four arrested

Reasons for launching the Cultural Revolution

Slights

• Liu had spoken against the Great Leap Forward at the 7000 cadres conference in 1962 dismissing
• Mao’s claims it was caused by bad
• Jealous – New economic policy ‘Walking on two legs’ seeming successful
• Report by Party propaganda department 1960 warned against using Mao’s writings to explain achievements
• Liu declared that the phrase “thought of Mao” should not be used in propaganda for foreign audiences
• Party leaders stated that Mao Zedong thought should not be said to surpass Marxism-Leninism
• Mao complained that he was being “treated like a dead ancestor”

Permanent Revolution

• Party bureaucratised – some exploiting power
• Mao said “a proletariat party must also get rid of the stale and take in fresh, for only thus can it be full of vitality

Ideologues and pragmatists

• Mao was an ideologue whilst Liu, Deng and Zhou were pragmatists that moving towards communism too quickly would have damaging consequences
• “It doesn’t matter if the cat id white or black so long as it catches rats” Deng
• Anyone that didn’t stick to his interpretation of communism was a ‘capitalist roader’

Ten Points

• In Feb 1963 Mao drafted the ‘Early Ten Points’
• It proposed masses should mobilise to criticize corrupt party cadres
• Autumn 1963 Deng revised it calling it ‘Later Ten Points’
• Rewrote it to de emphasise class struggle
• Campaign wasn’t a success and Mao blamed Lui