Consolidating Communist China: Mao's New State, 1949-1961
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Question
When was the People's Republic of China founded, and by whom?
Answer
1 October 1949, declared by Mao Zedong from Tiananmen Gate, Beijing.
Question
What was the Agrarian Reform Law (1950)?
Answer
Law confiscating landlords' land and redistributing it to poor and landless peasants, enforced through public struggle sessions.
Question
Why were struggle sessions politically useful to the CCP?
Answer
They made peasants active participants in destroying the landlord class, tying their loyalty to the new regime, not just redistributing land.
Question
Name the three campaigns used to root out opposition and corruption, 1950-1952.
Answer
Suppression of Counter-Revolutionaries (1950-51), Three-Antis Campaign (1951), Five-Antis Campaign (1952).
Question
What was the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956)?
Answer
Mao's invitation for open criticism of the CCP ('let a hundred flowers bloom'); intended to improve the party but produced a flood of unexpected criticism by spring 1957.
Question
What was the Anti-Rightist Campaign?
Answer
The 1957 crackdown following the Hundred Flowers Campaign that purged over 500,000 critics labelled 'rightists', through labour camps and job dismissals.
Question
What was the First Five-Year Plan (1953-1957)?
Answer
Soviet-style economic plan investing heavily in heavy industry (steel, coal, machinery) alongside collectivization of agriculture; industrial output roughly doubled.
Question
What was the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961)?
Answer
Mao's Second Five-Year Plan aiming to rapidly industrialize and collectivize China at once, using people's communes and backyard steel furnaces; ended in catastrophic famine.
Question
What caused the Great Chinese Famine (1959-1961)?
Answer
Exaggerated harvest reports led to excessive grain requisitioning while labour was diverted from farming to steel-making and public works, leaving villages without enough food.
Question
How many people are estimated to have died in the Great Chinese Famine?
Answer
Historians estimate 15 to 45 million deaths, mostly from starvation.
Question
What did the Marriage Law (1950) change for women?
Answer
Banned arranged marriage, child betrothal and concubinage; gave women the right to choose a spouse, own property and initiate divorce.
Question
Compare the First Five-Year Plan and the Great Leap Forward.
Answer
First Five-Year Plan (1953-57): measured, Soviet-style planning, real industrial growth. Great Leap Forward (1958-61): rapid mass mobilization, exaggerated reporting, led to the Great Chinese Famine.
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Topic 20.14 hub
The People's Republic of China (1949–2005)
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