China’s Great Leap Forward ends to be replaced with Mao’s Cultural Revolution (Part 5 of 6)

June 24, 2010

In 1966,  Mao’s Red Book of quotations was used as a textbook in the schools. Shao Ailing, a head teacher in Shanghai said, “The pupils began to realize that all the changes taking place in their families, in school, in Shanghai and China were brought about by Chairman Mao.”

Mao encouraged students to attack authority and the leadership of the Communist Party. This advice came from the “George Washington” of China, the man who had delivered on his promises to the peasants and brought them medicine and land reforms—something the emperors and Chiang Kai-shek had never done.

Tourist Attraction in Today's China

Zhang Baoqing, an early Red Guard member in Beijing, said, “Chairman Mao started the Cultural Revolution to keep up the momentum for change. We thought if we followed Mao, we could not go wrong.”

Mao motivated millions of students from speeches in Tiananmen Square. This time it wasn’t the rural peasants. It was China’s urban youth, who were too young to remember Mao’s mistakes from the Great Leap Forward.

Student anger focused on Mao’s rivals, President Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. Even small children were taught to denounce Liu. Then anyone in power was denounced. The structure of the Communist Party collapsed. Schoolteachers were attacked and tortured by their students. Up to a million were killed or driven to suicide.

Return to Part 4, China’s Great Leap Forward or go to Part 6

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

3 Comments | China, Chinese history, Communism, history | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1961) – Part 4 of 6

June 23, 2010

Steel production had to double in one year.  Instead of producing steel from industry, Mao wanted the peasants to build small furnaces. Again, there was competition between teams of peasants.  Forests were cut down to fuel the crude peasant furnaces.

All over China, people were neglecting their other jobs to produce steel because the people had to obey Mao. All metal was melted—including cooking woks. The steel produced was useless.

While the peasants were producing steel, the crops rotted in the fields. In 1960, there was a drought and food production fell more than 25%. Twenty million or more died from the resulting famine.

Village in Southeast China

Having failed, Mao stepped aside to let someone else run the nation. The large communes were abandoned. The peasants returned to their villages and were given land again.

Fearing the return of capitalism, Mao’s supporters printed a book with his slogans. Mao wanted to break the thinking and attitudes of old China. Using film, a propaganda campaign was launched so Mao could regain power. Then in 1966, he launched the Cultural Revolution.

Return to Part 3, China’s Great Leap Forward or go to Part 5

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, food, politics | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1961) – Part 3 of 6

June 22, 2010

The nation goes on a cleaning spree. Posters say everyone must help exterminate pests. Songs were sung, “Pest free areas are glorious. Let’s wipe out the flies, bugs, mosquitoes and rats.”

Sparrows were considered pests since they were accused of eating crops. Whoever killed the most sparrows in each village was rewarded. However, exterminating sparrows caused insect populations to explode endangering crop yields.

Cleaning Rice in Mountain Village

Then the people were asked to watch for capitalistic or counter revolutionary behavior and to denounce suspicious people.

In 1958, the boldest program was launched. Mao wanted to out-produce industrialized nations in manufacturing and crop yields. The land given to the peasants was confiscated and 100 thousand people communes were created. Mao believed that more people meant larger projects. He said,  “Revolutionary enthusiasm will triumph over all obstacles.”

To achieve Mao’s goals, the Communist Party encouraged competition between communes. Instead, overproduction caused crops to rot in the fields and the communes hid the truth by faking records.

Huge construction projects began without proper planning leading to accidents and deaths, which were hidden by the project managers. No one wanted Mao to discover the lack of proper revolutionary enthusiasm.

Return to Part 2, China’s Great Leap Forward or go to Part 4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, environment, history | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1961) – Part 2 of 6

June 22, 2010

Mao has more power than anyone since the emperors, and he wants China to be a purer, fairer more progressive state than the Soviet Union, so the peasants were the first to benefit.

As promised during the revolution, there were land reforms. Luo Shifa, a party official in Sichuan, tells his story about what happened in 1950.  Rural landlords were judged enemies of the people and hundreds of thousands were executed.

Changes in urban areas were not as violent. The owners and managers of factories were needed to keep things running but all property was signed over to the state.  Factory and business owners  who resisted were executed.

Women were given new rights at work and in marriage and foot binding was abolished. Literacy was also important. Before 1949, illiteracy in Mainland China was 80% and life expectancy was 35.  When May died, only 7% were illiterate and the average life expectancy had increased to 55—today it is 76.

To deal with disease, the Communists launched programs to improve health care that had never existed before. Millions were inoculated against the most common diseases.

Return to Part 1, China’s Great Leap Forward or go to Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, Communism, cultural differences, health care, history | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1961) – Part 1 of 6

June 21, 2010

Before reading this series about Mao’s Great Leap Forward, I recommend you first read China, The Roots of Madness to understand what led to Mao’s era as the leader of Communist China (1949 – 1976). This link will take you to that post.  When you finish, return to China’s Great Leap Forward.

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Mao’s era begins in October 1949 with victory celebrations in Beijing, as the country with the largest population in the world sees a Communist government come to power.

(when the advertisement appears, advance the video scroll bar to 2:00 minutes to avoid it)

 

Mao says, “The People’s Republic of China is founded today. China will be free of inequality, poverty and foreign domination.”  In 1950, most Chinese live as they have for centuries. The video shows what this life was like.  Before Mao, most lived in poverty and were in debt to landowners.

Hu Benxu, a peasant farmer in Sichuan says that in the past, there was justice for the rich but nothing for the poor.

President Ronald Reagan

Chiang Kai-shek believed that improvements would spread through the country (sort of like President Reagan’s trickledown theory, which didn’t work) as foreign investments poured into China. But the opposite happened. As the country industrialized, the gap between the rich and the poor grew wider. The rich held on to money and wanted more. Protests about working condition in the factories were met with death from Chiang Kai-shek’s troops.

Meanwhile, Mao promised land reforms, and his troops treated the peasants with respect. When Mao won China, he said, “We Chinese should work hard. The country is poor. Our people are uneducated.  We must make China a modern industrialized state.”

However, there would be many mistakes and much suffering during the next 27 years. After two thousand years of an Imperial system of government, China was embarking on a journey of reinventing a country and a culture without any foreign influence.

Go to Part 2, China’s Great Leap Forward

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

3 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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