Abstract
In 1949 when Mao Zedong announced that the Chinese people had stood up1 they had stood up to face a country which was economically backward, predominantly agrarian and within which there remained substantial opposition to communist rule. This chapter considers the way in which the leadership set about solving these problems and the divisions that arose among the leadership as a result of the policies devised to cope with a changing situation. Initially the leadership was relatively united but as China moved from consolidation and socialist transformation to socialist construction differences of opinion began to appear within the leadership. The major problem concerned the attempt to find the correct Chinese path to socialism. This has remained one of the major issues dividing the leadership since the mid-fifties when China abandoned the Soviet model of development. Although there has been and still is agreement about what the final goal should be, there has been and still is bitter debate about the means by which it should be achieved.
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References
Mao Zedong, ‘The Chinese People Have Stood Up’ in Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), vol. 5, pp. 15–18.
The transformation of Chinese agriculture is covered in greater detail in chapter 10.
The campaigns are often referred to in the literature by their Chinese names San Fan (Three-Antis) and Wu Fan (Five-Antis). The targets of the Five-Antis Campaign were bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts and stealing state economic information. See J. Gardner, ‘The Wu-Fan Campaign in Shanghai: a Study in the Consolidation of Urban Control’ in A. Doak Barnett (ed.), Chinese Communist Politics in Action (University of Washington Press, 1969), pp. 477–539.
See Mao Zedong, ‘On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship’ in Selected Works, vol. 4, pp. 411–23.
Figures from Xue Muqiao, ‘Economic Work Must Grasp the Laws of Economic Development’, translated by the author in Documents on Communist Affairs (Macmillan, 1980).
Gao Gang was the head of the Party and state apparatus in the north-east, the most industrialised area in China, and in November 1952 he was made head of the newly created State Planning Commission which oversaw the Five-Year Plans. Rao Shushi was the Director of the Central Committee’s Organisation Department and was Party and state leader of the East China Region.
Mao Zedong, ‘On the Ten Major Relationships’ in Selected Works, vol. 5, pp. 284–306.
Mao Zedong, ‘On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People’ in Selected Works, vol. 5, pp. 384–421.
See Ye Jianying’s speech at the Meeting in Commemoration of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing Review (BR), no. 40 (5 October 1979), p. 14.
These two solutions have been termed ‘Decentralisation 1’ and ‘Decentralisation 2’ by Schurmann. See F. Schurmann, Ideology and Organisation in Communist China (University of California Press, 1968), pp. 175–8.
See S. Andors, ‘Revolution and Modernisation: Man and Machine in Industrializing Society, the Chinese Case’ in E. Friedman and M. Selden (eds.), America’s Asia: Dissenting Essays on Asian-American Relations (Vintage Books, 1971), pp. 393–444.
See, for example, Xue Muqiao, ‘Economic Work Must Grasp the Laws of Economic Development’ in Documents on Communist Affairs.
In total output, not output per capita.
For a more detailed discussion of the theory of ‘permanent revolution’ see chapter 4.
Extracts of the former are in S. Schram (ed.), Mao Unrehearsed (Penguin Books, 1974), pp. 91–5.
The latter can be found in J. Chen, Mao Papers (Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 57–76.
In particular see V. Lippit, ‘The Great Leap Forward Reconsidered’ in Modern China, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 1975), pp. 92–115.
From a report of Li Xiannian’s interview with the American journalist Harrison E. Salisbury in The Times (28 July 1980).
See The Case of Peng Teh-huai (Peng Dehuai) 1956–68 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968), pp. 7–13.
See Mao Zedong, ‘Speech at the Lushan Conference’ in S. Schram (ed.), Mao Unrehearsed, pp. 142–6.
Ibid., p. 139.
This information was supplied by David S. G. Goodman, who, at the time, was a student at Beijing University.
People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao) (8 March 1979). Before the Cultural Revolution Lu Dingyi was the CCP Director of Propaganda and Minister of Culture.
The rural sector of Chinese society is organised into three levels. The lowest level is the production team, above this is the production brigade which consists of a number of teams. The third level is the commune which is the basic level of government in the countryside. For a fuller explanation see chapter 10.
See Mao Zedong, ‘Speech at an Enlarged Central Work Conference’ in S. Schram (ed.), Mao Unrehearsed, pp. 158–87. This speech is also referred to as the ‘7,000 Cadres Speech’.
Mao Zedong, ‘Speech at the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee’ in S. Schram (ed.) Mao Unrehearsed, p. 189.
See E. Snow, China’s Long Revolution (Pelican Books, 1974), p. 26.
Selected further reading
A. Doak Barnett, Communist China: The Early Years, 1949–55 (New York: Praeger, 1964).
R. Baum, Prelude to Revolution: Mao, the Party and the Peasant Question, 1962–66 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975).
R. Baum and F. C. Teiwes, Ssu-Ching: The Socialist Education Movement of 1962–66 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968).
R. Bowie and J. Fairbank, Communist China 1955–59: Policy Documents with Analysis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962).
P. Bridgham, ‘Mao’s Cultural Revolution: Origins and Development’ in China Quarterly, no. 29, pp. 1–35.
L. Dittmer, ‘Line Struggle in Theory and Practice: the Origins of the Cultural Revolution Reconsidered’ in China Quarterly, no. 72, pp. 675–712.
J. Gray, ‘The Two Roads: Alternative Strategies of Social Change and Economic Growth in China’ in S. R. Schram (ed.), Authority, Participation and Cultural Change in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 109–58.
V. Lippit, ‘The Great Leap Forward Reconsidered’ in Modern China, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 92–115.
R. MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution: 1 Contradictions Among the People 1956–57 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974).
C. Neuhauser, ‘The Chinese Communist Party in the 1960s’ in China Quarterly, no. 32, pp. 3–36.
S. R. Schram, ‘The Cultural Revolution in Historical Perspective’ in S. R. Schram (ed.), Authority, Participation and Cultural Change in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 1–108.
R. L. Walker, China Under Communism: The First Five Years (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1956).
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© 1981 Tony Saich
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Saich, T. (1981). The first seventeen years: revolutionary consolidation or revisionist restoration ?. In: China: Politics and Government. China in Focus series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16590-2_2
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