MAO ZEDONG AND CHINA: HOW SUCCESSFUL WERE MAO'S POLICIES?

MAO ZEDONG AND CHINA: HOW SUCCESSFUL WERE MAO’S POLICIES?

Mao Zedong was one of the most important Chinese leaders, responsible for establishing Communism in China and consolidating the People’s Republic of China, which political and economical structure has remained in place from 1949 until today. During his government, Mao applied different domestic and foreign policies that had a big impact in the country’s situation. The purpose of this report is to assess how successful or detrimental were this policies.

MAO’S RISE AND MAINTEINANCE OF POWER

Though Mao had been already a minor political figure during the Warlord Era, his real participation in the politic field came after the May 4th Movement, when the CPC was established in 1921 with Mao as one of its delegates. Despite the situation that led to the establishment of the First United Front, Mao was more concerned with local issues with the warlord at Hunan. This made people see him as a protector of the peasant class, which proved to be a key element during his rise to power. After fleeing to Jiangxi province when White Terror broke out and establishing the Jiangxi Soviet, Mao began to develop his aims for a peasant-based revolution and created his own laws, like the Land Law of 1928, which redistributed land among the peasants. This helped Mao to set himself up as an independence force with military strength and peasant mass support.

Perhaps the most important event that set Mao as the leader of the CPC was The Long March. Having survived the constant attacks from the armed forces of the GMD, Mao’s leadership proved to be successful. His “Letter to All Officers and Men of the Northeastern Army” helped to unify the country once more against the Japanese with the Second United Front, and bought enough time for the Communist forces to gather support and become strong again. After the Sino-Japanese War, Mao launched a Rectification Campaign that eliminated any possible opposition to Mao within the CPC. Also, because of the events concerning the GMD and Jiang Jieshi’s participation during the Sino-Japanese War, there was a popular perception that Mao was a better leader than Jiang, and Mao took advantage of this and of the disagreements between the GMD members to win the Civil War.

Mao established the People’s Republic of China in 1949, successfully unifying the country and freeing it from all foreign influence. Mao immediately took actions to prevent the crash of China’s war-weakened economy; he introduced a new currency and reduced the amount of paper money in circulation by establishing a new price and taxation system. With this he was able to control the inflation rate, and achieved the power of China.

In order to consolidate and maintain his power, Mao then directed all his policies to a main aim: eliminating all forms of internal and foreign opposition or influence and controlling the base of Chinese economy for leading the country to industrialization. Laws like the Marriage Reform and the Agrarian Reform helped his to gain popular support and eliminate the landlord class; the Antis Movement, Cultural Revolution, Anti-Rightist Movement and Hundred Flowers Campaign targeted intellectuals, capitalists and other possible counter-revolutionaries, eliminating them and securing Mao’s position in the Government. The First Five Year Plan and the Great Leap Forward helped the country to get closer to industrialization and changing its economical situation. A deeper analysis to Mao’s policies and their success is made below.

DOMESTIC POLICIES

MARRIAGE REFORM

The Marriage Reform Law signified a change in the way in which the traditional society considered women. Women gained equity in their marriage, the right to choose their spouse, get divorced and own property and land. Also, new laws were passed, women now couldn´t be sold into prostitution, unwanted female babies had the right to live and couldn’t be disposed of, foot binding was abolished and arranged marriages were eliminated.

In the political aspect, this policy helped Mao to gain support and popularity among the people, particularly women, as this law was directed to benefit them, something that no previous government had done. Generally, this law also gave families a more stable structure by letting people choose who they wanted to marry, improving the population´s lifestyle. On the other hand, not everyone agreed with this policy, given that China had a patriarchal social structure, this law went against the traditional role of women, which caused discontent among some people. Also, there were religious groups such as the Muslim who opposed this reform. Form Mao, this meant that he still didn´t have the complete support of all the population.

AGRARIAN REFORM

The Agrarian Reform Law aimed to make a redistribution of all the privately owned land of the landlords to the peasants; this was in order to eliminate the landlord class. Peasants turned against their landlords and sometimes ended up killing them during struggle meetings. Now, peasants owned lands and had their own plots to cultivate, and the government gained rural productive forces that were essential for China´s industrialization. Also, with this policy, Mao indirectly eliminated a social stratum that opposed to his government, the landlords, and fought regionalism, unifying the country.

Politically, Mao eliminated a powerful force and source of opposition to his rule, plus, he gained popular support by fulfilling one of his initial promises, which was to give lands to the peasants. Economically, despite the fact that now the government could have more control of the peasant-owned plots’ production, the expected agricultural production rate wasn’t fulfilled, making the agrarian system inappropriate for the expected economic development that China needed in order to become industrialized.

THE GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION

After the effects of The Great Leap Forward, Mao stepped down as leader and was replaced by Liu Shaoqui, whose government, according to Mao, was leading China away from socialism. With the help of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a movement that aimed to struggle against those authorities who were taking the capitalist road and to bring an end to the Four Olds. The Cultural Revolution is an important aspect to be considered for the analysis of Mao´s government due to the social, economic and political effects it had on China from 1966 to 1976.

The social effects differ between urban and rural areas. “Educated Youths”, intellectuals, teachers and scientists in urban areas were sent into the countryside,

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