From the Great Leap to the Cultural Revolution and beyond to the eventual demise of Mao

This post is another summary of PRC history (this time taking us from the first most widely recognised failure of Maoism to the last one and finally to its end as an unreconstructed CCP party policy with Mao’s death).

Mao’s extreme belief in voluntarism seems to have been reflected in the rather wildly optimistic Chinese economic forecasting of the 1950s. The CCP was fully expecting that China would be able to overtake Britain in industrial capacity within 15 years. As examples the predicted annual growth rates for the period 1955 to 1958 issued in the years 1955 and 1956 and in March 1958 as the Great Leap was commenced were revised upward dramatically with each new estimate. In 1955 in the first five-year plan as revised the predictions for industry and agriculture were 14.7 and 4.3 percent growth respectively. One year later as the second plan was being prepared, those figures had increased to 20.0 and 7.0 and by the time of the GLF in March 1958 they were a crazy 33.0 and 16.2.

As I’ve already suggested in an earlier post this kind of boosterism as I characterised it tended to produce an unrealistic atmosphere in which it seemed appropriate to misreport production: exaggerated targets produced exaggerated, unreliable reports, which then fed further distortions into the planning process.

The party organisation was made chaotic, the plans were undermined and a massive famine was the major result. Both the transportation and storage systems failed and the commune system contributed to massive wastage of resources. The grain harvest actually fell dramatically in the GLF years, 1958/59 to 1961, and estimates of the famine’s death toll range from 15 million to 45 million. In the period from 1952 to 1958 per capita grain tonnage had actually increased from around 0.325 tonnes to around 0.36 tonnes but had dipped to 0.26 tonnes by 1960 and didn’t recover to 1958 levels until around 1974.

A final result of this massive failure was Khrushchev’s order in July 1960, partly because he saw any further connection with the fiasco and a recalcitrant Mao as embarrassing, to withdraw all soviet assistance (experts fled China hurriedly, shredding blueprints as they went).

There were recriminations within the party in the early 1960s and even Mao resigned as head of state and chief economic planner in favour of his deputy, Liu. Mao had accepted some of the blame and Liu, Zhou and Deng began to reinstitute soviet-style planning infrastructure and to get the economy moving again.

Smaller scale agricultural collectives were re-established and small family plots (and small private incomes) were even permitted again. In the factories the use of material incentives for production that had fallen out of favour was also again in favour. At the same time, peasants and others who had been overworked for years were again allowed spare time.

Officially, though, everything was conveniently blamed upon the Russians (from whom the 1960 split had just occurred) and an actual significant drought.

Mao spent some of the early 1960s mainly studying Chinese classics and other works and partying at his dances (that he increased in frequency from once a week to twice a week) but by 1963 he yearned to return to power.

He was 70 years of age but still dreamed of Communism and believed that virtually he alone knew how (and truly wanted) to bring it about. He was still, of course, revered by the masses and a particularly important supporter in the early 1960s was Lin Biao, whom he had made Minister for Defence. In 1964, Lin arranged for the publication of a book of Mao quotations called “Quotations from Chairman Mao” that many know now as the ‘little red book’. This publication and the deliberate inculcation of children in a Mao personality cult contributed to a resurgence in Mao’s potential power base. The children were taught to revere and trust Mao.

Liu, Zhou and Deng may have felt this process weakened them but never felt able to directly resist it. The Mao cult may have also contributed to their own legitimacy (so long as they didn’t fall foul of Mao, publicly, of course). Publicly they all acknowledged Mao but privately they all tended to ignore his advice (which tended to be too radical).

Mao soon came to think the party needed to be publicly attacked and proceeded to do that via a newspaper ‘piece’. This was the origin of what came to be simply called the Cultural Revolution (CR). He adopted a tactic he had used before of bypassing the party and speaking directly to the most disadvantaged of the masses in order to gain control of the party. They naturally trusted him because of the effect of the long-standing personality cult enhanced in more recent times by the new education and publication of the ‘little red book’.

This foray into political oppositionism led at first to demonstrations and poster campaigns and soon schools and universities were in chaotic disarray (from a traditional educational perspective).

Mao made a point at around this time to publicly go swimming in the strong-flowing Yangzi to demonstrate that he still ‘had it’ even at his advanced age. When Liu, Zhou and Deng (who had previously not wanted his advice finally sought it, he pointedly refused to give it to them. Mao denounced Liu as a counter-revolutionary but as he didn’t yet have the power to remove him to a labour camp or have him executed he was only able to have him demoted to number eight in the regime. Deng was demoted to number six. With Mao’s support Lin Biao became the new head of state (Mao’s old role and Liu’s – Mao had still not formally returned to holding any position).

Groups calling themselves Red Guards formed and in speeches Mao praised their revolutionary spirit and blessed the movement. They were given free travel rights on public transport. In the year 1966 the new school year never started. In October of that year on China’s national day Mao addressed a spectacular and climactic rally at which thousands of ‘little red books’ were raised to salute him.

Mao came out against what he called the ‘four olds’ and western influence of any kind. In response, guards searched and looted homes and temples and destroyed property and people that appeared to represent these things. They encouraged peasants to attack officials.

The labels of old were brought up to persecute even the grandchildren of representatives of former ‘bad’ classes such as the landlord and rich peasant classes and to prevent them having contact with their parents who had at worst been the children of those representatives.

Various old scores were able to be settled under the cover of all of this. Even the expression of sympathy for those who were persecuted brutally in this period was suspected by many to be the expression of a bourgeois emotion.

While violence ruled in some ways in this early part of the CR it appears that going into 1967 there was a fair degree of centralised control exercised notably by Lin and Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. Zhou had attempted to mediate between the sides but had finally been forced (or chose) to side with Mao. When a group of guards finally came for Liu and his wife, Zhou’s intercession on their behalf was to no avail. Deng was exiled. Liu was beaten and placed under house arrest before eventually being imprisoned. His wife was humiliated and sent to a camp never to see her husband again.

Meanwhile at the mass pointy end, guards’ factions began to turn on each other. Groups called ‘rebels’ also began to form (supported by Mao and Jiang) with membership drawn from young people who for class reasons had not been allowed to join the guards. One way or another the factions became armed and certain army units supported certain factions. Factions attempted to take over the party and pitched street battles were fought between various groups. Embassies were also attacked as the complex civil war gained steam.

Mao sought to end all of this in 1968 and the end finally had to be accomplished by the PLA. Mao was still revered in the army. The guards were finally ‘sent down’ to labour in the countryside with the peasants from late in that year.

In April 1969, Mao opened the 9^th Party Congress. The Chinese were fighting the Russians over borders. In these circumstances Mao, quietly at first, made peaceful overtures to the US. He would never publicly admit that this was what he was doing.

Lin opposed this attempt at rapprochement and suffered for it dying while fleeing from the consequences of Mao’s wrath. His death served as the catalyst that woke up large numbers of Chinese people to Mao’s folly of the last few years.

Meanwhile, Nixon visited Beijing in February 1972. The worst of the CR was now over and the ‘barefoot doctor’ scheme of the period was actually found to have been something of a success in getting better health care to rural areas. Many including Deng were later rehabilitated. Mao at 81 was a shadow of his former self but remained a major player until his death.

The year 1976 proved a fateful year. Zhou had become ill with cancer two years earlier and finally died on 8 June 1976. Mao was too ill to attend his funeral. A Tiananmen Square tribute to Zhou turned into a protest against the so-called “Gang of Four” but indirectly against Mao, too. It was violently dealt with and at about that time an earthquake killed about 400,000 people. Traditionally in China such an event portends a change of dynasty and in fact it did. Mao’s death followed close behind it. He never publicly accepted that he had committed any substantial errors.

Overview of the Early Years of the PRC

The CCP rode to power on a wave of popular support. Mao, the Supreme Ruler, was first in command with Liu Shaoqi, his deputy, and Zhou Enlai his Prime Minister (Premier) and head of government. Deng Xiaoping was already in the leadership mix as a junior minister who had also survived the Long March but his final ascendency would have to wait three more decades. The corrupt and virtually incompetent GMD had left China with much of its state treasure, leaving it bankrupt (and hoping to return to rule it again). The CCP wanted to remedy all of this as quickly as possible with much of the world seeming to want it to fail. They sought modernisation, strength and industrialisation.

They set to work in the country remedying vast inequalities between landlords and peasants and between men and women with much success from the beginning. Women had been regarded as chattels or slaves by their parents, then their spouses and finally their sons and this changed abruptly. Peasants gained equality (hundreds and thousands of the most despised landlords paid with their lives – in a short period, half of the then arable land in China was distributed directly to the poorest peasants) but soon surrendered it to the collective. Women too had some reversals in fortune. In the cities, workers ceased to be slaves of their bosses only to quickly become effectively the slaves of their workplaces. Everybody became slaves to development (except perhaps party bosses).

What was going on was that Mao began to seek only the advice of Moscow and Marx, virtually the only friends China seemed to have, and thus began to sacrifice the Yan’an spirit (for reasons I outlined in the last few posts). Who else could the Chinese trust (it seemed not even themselves)? Mao himself visited Moscow in 1950 (in his first trip ever outside China – he only ever took one other journey outside China in his eighty-two years before his death in 1976). In that trip he sealed a military and aid deal, though Mao and Stalin didn’t especially get on. He was playing the supplicating vassal in terms of the Chinese cultural tradition.

One further complication to the first years was the invasion of South Korea by the North Koreans and the subsequent Korean War. Once General Macarthur had become involved and began to insist into northern Korea, the US seemed to threaten to expand its efforts into northern China. Macarthur’s aim actually was apparently to provoke war with China and ultimately re-install the GMD on the mainland. The Chinese secretly added a quarter of a million Chinese to the forces opposed to Macarthur now in North Korea for a surprise attack. The US was, of course, forced into a retreat and ultimately a Korean armistice along the pre-war lines by this action. In the meantime, Mao had asked Chinese civilians for their financial support in the war effort and China had suffered around a million casualties all up but military success against a Superpower was a great fillip. Mao also used the situation as an excuse to clamp down on anti-revolutionary elements and encouraged informers. Thousands of people were denounced.

Mao’s China may have been a tough place to be for many but his doctor of the time, Li Zhisui, reported on Mao’s penchant for western dancing (which he organised for his associates and himself regularly) and other perks and peculiarities of being Mao. The peasants were performing their roles, however, and two thirds of them were already collectivised by the end of 1955. They were led to expect that the final abolition of private plots would improve their circumstances. Various grain and other production quotas proved a greater priority for Mao than ensuring the peasants were all adequately fed, however. Productivity had not in fact increased very much.

Artistic and other expression was strictly controlled from the beginning which made Mao’s apparently liberal call for ‘a hundred flowers to bloom’ in 1956 tempting for many formerly stifled artists and intellectuals. The outbursts of expression that followed the calls for them from the centre including Mao’s may have shocked Mao. Corruption and inefficiency had been major gripes in the period. Many criticisms of the party were tolerated but this proved a brief period of unfettered expression. Mao later claimed he had instituted the period simply to draw anti-revolutionary elements into the open so that he could punish them.

Punish many of those who had taken the CCP at its word the CCP duly did. Many were first denounced as class enemies from 1957 in the usual ‘struggle’ meetings. Ge Peiqi, an academic, was one well known example of a relatively mild criticism being radically dealt with. There were effectively ‘rightist’ quotas that had to be met in the crackdown period as leaders in workplaces that hadn’t denounced a sufficient number of ‘rightists’ were likely themselves to be denounced as ‘rightist’ by some radical or even an opportunist or perhaps a personal enemy. This new purge continued into 1958 and by the end of it nearly a million people had been denounced. The campaign had been partly motivated by anti-intellectualism per se.

On the international front Mao hosted Khrushchev in 1958 but failed to mention his intention to attack the GMD in Taiwan. Once he attacked and the US responded vigorously he backed down. In the following year he met Khrushchev again and in 1960 the Sino-Soviet split occurred. I’ll discuss much of this some more in later posts but suffice it to say Mao and the USSR never seemed to work as more than a short-term and pragmatic pseudo union of purpose. The USSR tended to seem to Mao as at least as imperialist as any other outside power. Also in 1959, Mao crushed a revolt in Tibet. The Chinese have always tended to regard Tibet as a rightful province of China but this strong action further harmed Mao’s international reputation.

Back at home, Mao, never satisfied with growth levels, prepared the ground for what he called the Great Leap Forward (GLF) in 1958. Everybody was asked to work day and night for the revolution and the slogan ‘catch the stars and moon’ was used to emphasise the need to work through the night to build China. The people were promised that they were a great people capable of the rapid growth Mao was calling for (and consequent rapid improvement in their conditions of living under Mao’s direction). Mao in turn was held in awe by his people as suggested by one anecdote of the time. It is said that he was in the country and happened to read aloud a sign that read “people’s communes are good”. This one action supposedly led to the immediate formation of many communes throughout the country as news of it travelled.

One of the more foolhardy but perhaps relatively benign projects of the period inspired by all this boosterism (aided by the stifling of any criticism wrought by the recent anti-rightist campaigns) was the attempt by cooperatives throughout the country to smelt new steel by melting down old scrap metal (that naturally turned out to be quite substandard steel). Such projects were seen as ‘real revolution’ and a thing of pride by the masses

There was worse to come. In the frantic process of attempting to increase yields, for example, many cooperatives planted crops too close together and over fertilized with the predictable end result of counterproductive waste.

Two features of the new China combined to create the calamity that was the Great Leap Forward: the competitive urge between collectives created by the boosterism and insufficient verification by the centre of truth telling in reporting of yields. The liars reported greater and greater yields and the centre relied upon those reports to squeeze further quotas. As a result there was soon mass starvation in parts of the countryside as the still actually quite inefficient farmers fed others as best they could (and better) before feeding themselves.

Mao first began to realise what was actually occurring on a visit to his home town of Shao Shan. Even so, he was still too ready to see any criticism of what had occurred even from personal friends as an act of treachery. His abject treatment of a long-time fellow Xiangtanese (Xiangtan being the Hunanese county they both hailed from) and formerly somewhat close friend as a result, Marshall Peng, after receiving his unpalatable advice is a case in point. Even someone as senior as Premier Zhou who sympathised with Peng’s view of the situation was not willing to speak out at the time for fear of the consequences of Mao’s wrath.