HISTORY OF CHINA

HISTORY OF CHINA

Introduction

Mao Zedong had a significant impact on the Chinese revolution of 1949, which created a new political history in China that continued until 1976. Thus, the historians differentiate Chinese history after 1949 into two parts- the Mao era and the post-Mao era. Objectives of the Mao era was to establish socialism in entire China to bring socio-economic reform. The analysis of the socio-economic situation of China and the impact of political power on the socio-economic structures will be evaluated in the study properly. The effect of state cultural control over the socio-economic situation of China will be analyzed to describe the importance of cultural revolution brought by Mao Zedong. The entire history of Mao Zedong era has been analyzed in six parts- social revolution, Korean war, the history between 1953 to 1957, great leap forward, cultural revolution and Lin Bao and the gang of four. A political and cultural analysis can be practical to assume the impact of this era in succeeding time.

Analysis

The socialist history of China started after the 1949 revolution under the leadership of Mao Zedong. The early 50s era of the twentieth century can be considered as a time for social revolution of China. A political approach-socialism drove the social revolution of China. The prime focus of Zedong in this time was to establish socialism in entire China through the equal distribution of state wealth (Schoppa, 2017). Initially, the mainland of China was ravaged by the spectral effects of foreign invaders and civil war. However, the socialist leadership of Mao Zedong helped the nation to head towards the development of both urban and rural communities. Apart from developing communities, Mao used socialism to improve the infrastructure of both industry and agricultural fields between 1949 to 1959 (Yang and Yan, 2017). The political control of socialism played a significant role in shaping up land reform. The land reform was a collectivist approach of the socialist political leaders where land was improved and distributed equally. Hence, the land reform system was implemented into reality through the laogai camp system. The control over the people was conducted entirely using the political ideology of socialism. The socialist ideology leads the country to bring economic reform in China. The blueprint of economic reform in China was derived from Russia that depicted the transformation of the economy from the private economy to the public economy. The financial reform in China was brought during 1955, which completely changed the socio-economy scenario of China (Yin and Flew, 2018).

The political power of the state entirely controlled most of the socio-political activities conducted between 1949 to 1959. Mao Zedong was at the top of the legislative authority which managed all these activities to bring china on track after the devasted situation of foreign invasion and civil war (Schoppa, 2017). People of China was deeply influenced by the socio-political and economic reforms of the existing ruler party. The nationalization pf private properties encouraged the job-security of people which properly ensured financial security. Not only domestic politics but also China took part in international politics by playing a significant role in the Korean war during 1950. The 1950 war became almost a prestige fright for both China and the USA (Yin and Flew, 2018).

The joint force of China and soviet union tried to support North Korea for belonging to the same political ideology-communism. Later, cold-war affected Russia left the field, and China countered the USA by sending people’s volunteered troops south. It established china to be the next big thing in international politics (Yang and Yan, 2017). The establishment of China as a super political power paved a new way of political tyranny. Socialism became the central ideology in Chinese politics under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Later in 1964, China became one of the few countries which had tested nuclear power officially.

However, China faced the adverse effect of Korea from 1953 to 1957. The significant financial, human resource expenses during the reconstruction of the country led China to economic devastation. The socio-economic situation started deteriorating after the significant social reforms, and the ideological contrast between Stalin and Mao Zedong misled stopped the initial growth of the country (Yin and Flew, 2018). Mao intended to establish China as the communist nationalist who was desperately on developing nationalism among the people of China with a socialist approach. The communist nationalism approach of Mao Zedong promoted the country to adopt a new democratic rule for the social transition. The development of social transformation drew the attention of Soviet Russia to provide financial aid for socio-economic improvement. The complex political turmoil from 1953 to 1957 ended with the financial assistance of Russia, which helped to establish the socio-economic efficiency of the country (Schoppa, 2017). Hence, the ‘Hundred power campaign ‘ of Mao Zedong encouraged the people of China to re-establish the social ideology through a transparent debate.

The socio-economic reforms turned China towards collectivized approach. Mao developed a steady relationship with the Soviet Union to reform its economic stabilization. Mao announced the ‘Great leap forward’, a financial program to reform and restructure on the existing economic situation under the light of Marxism (Yang and Yan, 2017). Industrialization, agricultural development, development of industrial production and rapid steel production became the initial focus of Mao Zedong. The rapid growth of the farm output, productivity in the industrialization and creation of new job market were a significant outcome of the great-leap progressive approach of Mao Zedong (Yin and Flew, 2018). Thus, the influence of domestic and international politics impacted on the lives of Chinese. Communism became the driving force of all the socio-economic aspects of China.

Apart from political influence, cultural influence also impacted n the lives of china after the revolution of 1949. The cultural force in China was also influenced by a communist ideology which intended to expand the socialist culture across the nation. The cultural reform started in 1962 after the great leap forward. A pragmatic economic culture was adopted by the president of China Liu Shaoqi and general secretary Deng Xiaoping (Yin and Flew, 2018). The practical culture became a national economic policy of China when the president and general secretary allowed the street vendor business and allowed peasants to sell the surplus amount of crop. However, the commercial culture existed only for three years as Mao started making social policy and culture again from 1965 and appointed Jiang Qing as the culture minister of China (Yang and Yan, 2017). Thus, cultural turmoil impacted on the socio-economic lives of the people of China. People was confused between two cultural forms of the same ruler party. It declined the cultural reform of China for a few years from 1965.

Later,  Jiang Qing returned the pre-1962 economic culture along with purging art on the context of bourgeoisie theme. The culture was named as Great Proletarian cultural revolution that exaggerated on class struggles (Schoppa, 2017). Mao formed a cultural group and started a rally against the existing previous cultural norms of china that created massive chaos in the socio-political, economic and cultural arena of China. Hence, Mao brought complete cultural reform in the later part of 1966 that strongly opposed all kinds of capitalist ideas. Mao developed a new cultural army called ‘Red guards’ who used to eliminate revisionists and capitalists from the throne (Yang and Yan, 2017). The revisionists were forced to write self-criticism where they opposed their mistakes and took of the oath of not repeating the same. It almost created a situation of cultural tyranny under the leadership of Mao, who was the last chief of the red army. However, red guards went out of control from the hands of Mao after a few years of cultural revolution. The ordinary people of china felt culturally insecure. The red guards applied violent force and tried to control the cultural lives of every single people of china (Yin and Flew, 2018). The exaggeration of the cultural revolution estranged China from the contemporary world except for some diplomatic relation with a few communist countries. Jiang Qing and  Bin Biao tried to control the cultural turmoil of China. Mao cancelled the previous cultural revolution, and he discredited the power of the red army.

The activities of Lin Biao and gang of four started cultural torment again in China after the devasted experience of the red army. The group of four were Ling Biao, Wang, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan who started criticizing and castigating various cultural officials of china through both violent activities and chastise statements (Yang and Yan, 2017). Mao had no control over these activities as his healthcare situation was declining consistently. Hence, the era of Mao and his people ended in 1976, keeping a strong political and cultural impact.

Conclusion

The entire study has described the history of China from 1949 to 1976 under the leadership of Mao Zedong. The socialist approach of Mao successfully changed the socio-economic perspectives of china through political, social, cultural and economic reforms. China evolved as a political superpower. In spite of frail performance during the cultural revolution, the era of Mao Zedong changed the socio-political stance of not only China but also the entire world.

Reference List

Schoppa, R.K., 2017. Revolution and its past: Identities and change in modern Chinese history. Routledge.

Yang, W. and Yan, F., 2017. The annihilation of femininity in Mao’s China: Gender inequality of sent-down youth during the Cultural Revolution. China Information, 31(1), pp.63-83.

Yin, L. and Flew, T., 2018. Xi Dada loves Peng Mama: Digital culture and the return of charismatic authority in China. Thesis Eleven, 144(1), pp.80-99.