DBQ
Question:
Explain how the reforms under mao zedong effected the chinese people?
Document 1: Impact of the Cultural Revolution
Background: Throughout history, nations have sought to modernize, fortify nationalistic ideals, and define their place in the world. The Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s is an example.
"With the aid of Soviet advisors, Mao set up a Chinese Gulag - an empire of slave labor camps filled with poorly fed “counter-revolutionaries.” As under Stalin, the prisoners could be anyone: former landlords, better-off peasants, civil servants under Chiang’s regime, and eventually out-of-favor members of the Communist Party itself. By most estimates, the typical slave labor camp population during Mao’s reign was between 10 and 15 million . . . Mao initially let peasants keep their land; then Mao began to seize the land that he had promised the peasants, and force them into collective farms along Stalinist lines. The job was basically complete by 1956. These collective farms seemed too individualistic to Mao, so he went one step further in 1958 and forced the peasants into “communes.” The difference was mainly that all property, not merely the land, became state property."
Source link: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/comfaq.htm
Source link: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/comfaq.htm
Document 2: 1969 Cultural revolution
Background Information: "The poster was created during the Cultural Revolution and depicts Mao and his Chinese soldiers, who are holding a copy of the "Little Red Book" - which was a collection of Mao Zedong’s writings and political ideas. "The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is the great school of Mao Zedong thought," is written on the bottom.
document 3: 1958-1961 the great leap forward
Background Information: Mao Zedong saw the success of his Five Year Plan and decided to announce the Great Leap Forward. This Great Leap Forward called for communes, or collective farms, that each would support 25,000 people. The people would live on the farm and own nothing individually. Everything was owned by the government and therefore the workers lost their desire to work hard. The workers work no longer influenced them as individuals therefore their drive to do a good job was lost, and The Great Leap Forward failed. This was significant because as a result China suffered from famine and Mao lost influence over his people.
Picture A
Picture B
Chinese communes are depicted above.
Document 4: 1953-1957 Mao's Five year plan
Background Information: "The Five Year Plan was an attempt by China to boost her industry and set her on the path to become a world class power. When Mao came to power in 1949, China was many years behind the industrial nations of the world. Mao wanted this to change.
Influenced by the Russian engineers, and also by the success of Stalin’s Five Year Plans, China introduced her own Five Year Plan in 1953. Heavy industry was targeted as being in need of major reform. The Five Year Plan attempted to tackle steel, coal and iron production. As in the Russian model, each factory or mine was given a target to achieve. Failure to meet a target was the equivalent of failing your people."
Influenced by the Russian engineers, and also by the success of Stalin’s Five Year Plans, China introduced her own Five Year Plan in 1953. Heavy industry was targeted as being in need of major reform. The Five Year Plan attempted to tackle steel, coal and iron production. As in the Russian model, each factory or mine was given a target to achieve. Failure to meet a target was the equivalent of failing your people."
Citation/Reference: "China and the First Five Year Plan". HistoryLearningSite.co.uk. 2005. Web.