For more information on China during the 1940s and early 1950s see:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ternative-cold-war.280530/page-3#post-7786930
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ternative-cold-war.280530/page-3#post-8485910
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On Contradiction The Domestic History of Maoist China (1956-1969)
With the expulsion of American forces from the Chinese mainland, the extent to which Chinese leader Chairman Mao would go in order to construct his idea of socialism in China became evident. A number of concerted campaigns rooted out opposition to Mao's most radical views and cost the lives of millions of ordinary Chinese. A polarising event even amongst ordinary Chinese, these campaigns are variously denigrated as harsh, unnecessary and flippant of the sanctity of ordinary lives, or praised as a dramatic change in the cultural landscape of China and laying the framework for rapid modernisation.
In late 1956, Mao announced the commencement of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, which encouraged citizens to openly express their opinions of the Communist Party and socialism in China. Immediately intellectuals and ordinary people began voicing their concerns. From May 1 to June 7, millions of letters were received by the Chinese authorities. The most dramatic example of freedom of speech was at Peking University[135], where students created a "Democratic Wall" on which they criticised the CCP with posters and letters. They protested government control over intellectuals, harshness of previous mass campaigns, slavish following of Soviet economic models, low living standards, proscription of foreign literature, endemic corruption among party cadres and the privileges enjoyed by party members and the communist political elite. By early July 1957, the campaign had become too difficult to control. Mao halted the campaign and followed it with the Anti-Rightist Campaign.
Maoist propaganda artwork promoting the Hundred Flowers Campaign
The first wave of persecution in this campaign began immediately after the end of the Hundred Flowers Campaign in July 1957. Privately, Mao revealed that the Hundred Flowers Campaign had served its intended purpose by "enticing the snakes out of their caves". By the end of 1957, 300,000 people accused of "counter-revolutionary sentiments" had been victimised. Most of the accused were intellectuals. Penalties included informal criticism, "reeducation through labour" and occasionally death. A primary target was the largely independent legal system. Legal professionals were transferred to other jobs and judicial power was increasingly exercised by political cadres and police.
Unfortunately, the difficulties of the Hundred Flowers Campaign was dwarfed by that of the Great Leap Forward, an economic and social campaign launched by the CCP from 1958-1961. The objective of the campaign was to accelerate the transition of China from a predominantly agrarian society to a socialist national community through rapid and widespread collectivisation. The moderate faction within the Party, headed by Liu Shao-Chi, argued that change should be gradual and any collectivisation of the peasantry should wait until industrialisation, which would provide the agricultural machinery necessary for mechanised farming. Mao's radical faction disagreed, instead claiming that the state taking control of agriculture by establishing a monopoly over grain distribution and supply would allow the state to buy grain at a low price and sell for a greater profit, thus raising the capital necessary for the industrialisation of the country.
Between 1949 and 1958, collectivisation progressed in stages from "mutual aid teams" of 5-15 households, to "elementary agricultural cooperatives" of 20-40 households, to "higher cooperatives" of 100-300 families in 1956. By 1958, private ownership was entirely abolished and households all over China were forced into state-run communes. Mao demanded greater agricultural productivity to supply cities and earn foreign exchange. These reforms were universally-unpopular with the peasants, who were coerced into joining collectives. The state introduced progressive taxation on each household's harvest, compulsory state purchases of grain at fixed prices to build up stockpiles for famine relief and meet the terms of trade agreements with the USSR. Taxation and compulsory purchases accounted for a full third of the harvest by 1957, leaving minimal surplus for the collectives. Even in the cities, rationing was introduced ostensibly to curb "wasteful consumption" and encourage savings (which were deposited in state-owned banks). In reality, the introduction of rationing freed up a greater volume of produce for sale on the international market. Although food could still be purchased from retailers, the much higher price discouraged acquisition of extra food.
Chinese workers produce pig iron in makeshift furnaces, few have any metallurgical experience
In tandem with forced collectivisation, the Party implemented harsh and wide-reaching measures to level the social infrastructure of the countryside. All religious and mystical institutions and ceremonies were banned and replaced with political meetings and propaganda sessions overseen by local cadres. This "rural revolution" is one of the more controversial subjects in the historical legacy of Mao. Whilst there was significant dislocation, some supporters put the blame for excesses on local cadres. They argue that communal life was theoretically superior, and brought previously atomised families closer together. They also point to the government's efforts to enhance rural education and the status of women, allowing them to initiate divorce, ending the practice of foot-binding, preventing child marriage and taking a harsh but effective line against opium addiction. Nevertheless, the highest priority was given to the urban proletariat and the introduction of
hukou (internal passports) in 1956 prevented inter-county travel without appropriate authorisation. Apologists have claimed this was a necessary measure to prevent the uncontrollable growth of slums attached to major cities, whilst critics have taken the
hukou as evidence that the peasantry was forced into an 'apartheid' system of subordination to the cities.
Despite all of the efforts of the central government and the dislocation of millions of Chinese peasants (or perhaps because of it), the first phase of collectivisation resulted in only modest improvements in output. Famine along the mid-Yangtze was averted in 1956 through timely allocation of food-aid, but in 1957 the Party's response was to increase the proportion of individual harvests collected by the state to ensure against further disasters. Moderates within the Party, including Chou En-Lai, argued for a reversal of collectivisation on the grounds that the claiming of the bulk of the harvest by the state had made peasants' food security dependent entirely on the constant, efficient and transparent functioning of the government. By the completion of the first Five Year Plan in 1957, the doubts in Mao's mind about the USSR's path to socialism could no longer be ignored. Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin and his proposal of "peaceful coexistence" with the West had made the Chinese leader cynical of Soviet commitment to the cause of anti-imperialism. Nevertheless, inspired by Khrushchev's slogan at the November 1957 celebrations in Moscow in honour of the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution to "surpass the United States in fifteen years in industrial output", Mao pledged that in the same time China would catch up with or exceed the United Kingdom's production output.
Poster encouraging Chinese to work hard to "overtake the British imperialists"
Mao unveiled the main phase of the Great Leap Forward in January 1958 in Nanjing. He proclaimed that the "glorious socialist future" could only be achieved with the "toils of sinews" instead of with imported machinery, which would make China "too beholden to the will of imperialist or revisionist forces". An experimental commune was established at Chayashan in Henan in April 1958. For the first time, private plots were entirely abolished and communal kitchens were introduced. At Politburo meetings in August 1958 it was decided that people's communes would become the new form of economic and political organisation throughout rural China. By the end of the year 25,000 communes had been established, with an average of 5,000 households each. The communes were relatively self-sufficient cooperatives where wages and money were replaced by work points, incentivising Stakhanovism by the peasantry. Critics of Mao have claimed that the communes were essentially a form of exploitation intended to maximise production for provisioning the cities and providing a ready source of corvee labour for constructing offices, factories, schools and social insurance systems for urban-dwelling workers, cadres and officials. Escape was virtually impossible, and those who attempted were subjected to "party-orchestrated public struggle" which further jeopardised their well-being. Mao saw grain and steel production as the key pillars of economic development. Major investments in larger-scale enterprises were made in 1958-60 but most of the increase in output came from backyard steel furnaces. In 1958, 21 million were added to non-agricultural state payrolls, and total state employment reached a peak of 50.44 million in 1960, more than doubling the 1957 level. The urban population swelled by 31.24 million. New workers placed major stress on China's food-rationing system. The government faced massive deficits and enormous ecological damage had been inflicted from cutting down trees to fuel furnaces. Mao changed his views on these furnaces in January 1959 after visiting a steel works in Manchuria and realising the sophistication of the expertise and equipment necessary for the creation of high-quality steel. Mass mobilisation on irrigation works continued unabated for the next several years and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of exhausted, starving villagers.
On the communes, a number of radical agricultural "innovations" were promoted at the behest of Mao. This includes close-cropping, whereby seeds were sown more densely than usual on the (mistaken) assumption that plants of the same type wouldn't compete. Deep-plowing was encouraged on the mistaken belief that this would yield plants with extra-large root systems and therefore greater nutrient intake and yield. Moderately-productive land was left unplanted with the belief that concentrating manure and effort on the most fertile land would lead to large per-acre productivity gains. These methods led to a decrease in grain production. Local leaders were pressured into falsely reporting increases in production. In the pursuit of greater yields to counteract the failures of Lysenkoist agricultural science, extreme cruelty was inflicted on peasants by local party cadres. Despite Lysenko-Minchurinism's introduction into Chinese agriculture, the weather in 1958 was very favourable, preventing famine-incurring decreases in production. Nevertheless, the amount of labour diverted to construction and steel production in that year meant that much of the harvest was left to rot. The problem of agricultural waste was exacerbated by negative externalities of the Four Pests Campaign, which targeted rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows (because they eat grain seeds). The comparative absence of sparrows allowed locusts to proliferate, leading them to swarm and decimate crops. Despite this, local officials continued to report record harvests. Mao refused foreign aid and despite the oncoming famine China remained a net exporter of grain. Chinese Foreign Minister Chen I refused a Japanese offer of 100,000 tonnes of wheat to be moved in secret.
A tragically inaccurate picture of harvests during the Great Leap Forward
Provinces which had adopted the agricultural reforms most vigorously were disproportionately affected, including Anhui, Gansu, Henan and Sichuan. In Janary 1961, at the Ninth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee, the Party decided to reverse the Great Leap policies. Grain exports halted and imports from Canada and Australia helped to alleviate starvation. Approximately 30 million died from famine in what is believed to have been the deadliest famine in human history. One of the most severely-affected areas was Fuyang in Anhui, which had a 1958 population of 8 million, but lost 2.4 million in the years 1958-1961. Violence was a cause of many deaths too, with at least 2.5 million people beaten or tortured to death and 1-3 million committing suicide. In Daoxian county, 10% of those who died had been "buried alive, clubbed to death or otherwise killed by party members and their militia". Iron production grew 45% in 1958 and a combined 30% over the next two years from the establishment of backyard furnaces, although this was universally low-grade pig iron, and production plummeted in 1961, not reaching the previous 1958 level until 1964. The Great Leap Forward also involved the greatest destruction of real estate in human history. 30-40% of all houses were turned to rubble, which was often used to make fertiliser, straighten roads, in construction projects etc. The impact on minority communities was especially severe, with many Taiwanese Aboriginals forced to work on communes with Han and other Chinese. These natives were typically treated far worse than the Chinese and irreparable damage was done to their traditional social structure.
As the 1960s opened, the Party leadership began to recognise the failures of the Great Leap Forward openly. Gradual decollectivisation began at the onset of that decade. Some major figures in the CCP went as far as to openly lay blame for the disaster at the feet of Mao and his supporters, taking it as proof that China must rely more on education, the acquisition of technical expertise and applying bourgeois methods in economic development, rather than relying on mere force of will and manpower. Liu Shao-Chi made a speech in 1962 at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference stating that "the economic disaster was 30% fault of nature, 70% human error". Many local officials were tried and publicly executed for giving out misinformation. The Great Leap Forward policy came under open criticism at the Lushan Party Conference. The attack was led by Minister of National Defense Peng Te-Huai, who admonished unnamed party members for trying to "jump into communism in one step". Mao defensively reacted by replacing Peng with Lin Piao. Throughout 1962, the Party rehabilitated the majority of the deposed comrades who had criticised Mao. At the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, Mao even made a self-criticism and reaffirmed his commitment to democratic centralism. Mao mostly abstained from the operations of government until the Cultural Revolution in 1966.
From February 1965, Mao began to sideline political opponents. He fired Yang Shang-Kun, director of the Party's General Office which controlled internal communications and installed in his place staunch loyalist Wang Tung-Hsing, head of Mao's security detail. Mao's allies saw their opportunity, a precedent having been set to move against political rivals. In December, Defense Minister Lin Piao accused General Luo Jui-Ch'ing, Chief of Staff of the PLA, of being anti-Mao, claiming he spent too much time on training at the expense of proper Maoist political discussion. The pressure put on General Luo lead to his suicide in December. Mao then turned his attention to P'eng Chen. On February 12th 1966, the "Five Man Group", headed by P'eng, issued a report known as the "February Outline". The Outline defined Hai Rui, a play which appeared to criticise Mao, as constructive academic discussion and aimed to formally distance P'eng Chen from political implications. Nevertheless, Chiang Ch'ing and Yao Wen-Yuan continued their denunciation of P'eng. Mao also sacked Propaganda Department director Lu Ding-I, an ally of P'eng. His removal put Mao's clique firmly in control of the state media. The final blow to P'eng was delivered by loyalists Kang Sheng and Chen Bo-Da. They accused P'eng of opposing Mao, labelled the February Outline "evidence of P'eng Chen's revisionism" and grouped him with other disgraced officials. On May 16th, the Politburo formally condemned P'eng and his "anti-Party allies", disbanding his Five Man Group and replacing it with the Cultural Revolution Group (CRG) of Maoist lackeys.
On the same day, the May 16th Notification was presented to the Politburo summarising Mao's ideological justification for a Cultural Revolution, claiming that the CCP was infiltrated by bourgeois elements. Beginning at Peking University, students began to revolt against their respective universities' party establishment. Mao thus utilised youthful rebellion against opposition within the party such as Tong Shau-Ping, who had sought to follow a more pragmatic, less ideological line. By early June, throngs of young demonstrators lined Peking's thoroughfares holding giant portraits of Mao, beating drums and shouting slogans against perceived enemies. After seeking Mao's guidance in Hangzhou, Liu and Tong decided to send in "work teams", effectively ideological guidance squads of cadres to the universities and People's Daily to restore order. They were not well-received by the demonstrators. On July 16th, Mao took to the Yangtze River in Wuhan with the press in tow, in what became an iconic swim across the Yangtze to demonstrate his battle-readiness. He subsequently returned to Peking to criticise the government for its handling of the work teams issue. Being outmaneuvered by Mao in this manner was a major political loss for Liu . On August 1st, the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee was hastily convened to advance Mao's political agenda. For several days, Mao insinuated that the Party's leadership had contravened his revolutionary vision. Three days earlier, representatives of the emerging "Red Guards" factions of students wrote to Mao urging rebellion to safeguard the revolution. Mao responded with a
dazibao (big-character poster) entitled "Bombard the Headquarters" rallying people to target the "bourgeois" political elite. Liu and Deng were sidelined from day-to-day affairs in the Politburo Standing Committee. Lin Piao was elevated to the number-two position in the party, whilst Liu dropped from second to eighth place in the Party hierarchy. Mao's re-centralisation of power in his own person paralleled a shake-up in the entire bureaucracy. The Organisation Department, in charge of party personnel, ceased to exist. The CRG was propelled to prominence, and took over most of the functions of the Propaganda Department.
Taken at Mao Tse-Tung's famous "Swim across the Yangtze"
On August 8, 1966, the Central Committee of the CCP passed it's "Sixteen Points", calling for the destruction and reconstruction of the cultural superstructure which guides individual and mass behaviour. Ten days later, over a million Red Guards gathered in and around Tienanmen Square in Peking for a personal audience with Mao. Lin Piao denounced all manner of perceived enemies that were impeding the "progress of the revolution". Between August and November 1966 the Square saw eight mass rallies, with more than 12 million Red Guards participating. Travel expenses for Red Guards from other parts of the country were born by the government. Lin Piao made a further call, for the destruction of the "Four Olds": customs, culture, habits and ideas. Historical sites nationwide were ransacked and destroyed, thousands in Beijing alone. Books were burned, the tomb of Confucius desecrated and religious buildings shut down. 350 million copies of Mao's Little Red Book was printed by December 1967. August 22nd 1966 saw a central directive issued to stop police intervention in Red Guard activities. Hsieh Fu-Chih, the national police chief, remarked that it was "no big deal" if Red Guards were beating "bad people" to death. These comments were relayed to the Red Guards, who went into a nationwide frenzy, driven by zealous revolutionary fervour. In August and September alone, 1,772 people were killed in Peking, mostly by Red Guards.
In October, Mao convened a "Central Work Conference", essentially to convince those in the party leadership who had not yet fallen in line with the Cultural Revolution. Liu was placed under house arrest, then sent to a detention camp where he was denied medicine and died in 1969. Tong Shau-Ping was sent away for reeducation 3 times, and was sent to work in a Jiangxi engine factory, where he lost his life when an engine fell on him, crushing his torso and fatally rupturing several vital organs[136]. On 3rd January 1967, Lin Piao and Chiang Ch'ing employed local media and grassroots organisations to generate the so-called "January Storm", during which the Shanghai municipal government was essentially overthrown. This allowed Wang Hong-Win to personally take charge of the city as leader of the so-called Shanghai People's Commune, which was later renamed the Municipal Revolutionary Committee. Many local governments followed Shanghai's example, with Red Guards or other revolutionary groups "seizing power" from the established party and governmental organs. In February, Chiang and Lin Piao insisted that class struggle be extended to the military. Many PLA generals voiced their opposition to the Cultural Revolution. Foreign Minister Chen I and Vice Premier Chan Hsieh-Lin vocally-denounced the events in Shanghai, stating that the movement was going to destroy the Party. This group of Party leaders were subsequently denounced as the "February Countercurrent", falling into political disgrace.
At the same time, some Red Guard organisations rose in protest against other Red Guard organisations over ideological differences. In April, Chiang tried to rein in internecine Red Guard conflicts by issuing an order to stop all "unhealthy activity". On April 6th, Liu Shaoqi was openly and widely denounced by Party officials, including Chiang Ch'ing, Kang Sheng and even Mao himself. On July 22nd, Chiang Ch'ing directed the Red Guards to replace the PLA "if necessary". The Red Guards started to steal and loot from barracks and other army buildings. This continued through to the Autumn of 1968. In Wuhan and many other cities, two major revolutionary organisations emerged, one supporting the establishment and the other opposed. Local commander General Chen Hsai-Dow helped suppress the anti-establishment demonstrators. Mao flew to Wuhan to secure military loyalty in the area. In response, local agitators kidnapped Mao's emissary Wang Lee in what became known as the Wuhan Incident. General Chen was dragged to Beijing and denounced by the CRG. Chinese New Year celebrations were also banned in 1967.
In the Spring of 1968, a massive campaign began, aimed at further promoting Mao's cult of personality. On July 27th 1968, the Red Guards' power over the army was officially ended and the central government sent in PLA units to protect many areas that remained targets for Red Guards. A year later, the Red Guard factions were disbanded, having served their purpose to Mao. In early October, Mao began a campaign to purge disloyal officials. Many were sent to the countryside to work in labour camps. Liu was "forever expelled" from the CCP at the Twelfth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee in September 1968 and labelled the "headquarters of the bourgeoisie". In December 1968, Mao began the Down to the Countryside campaign, forcing young intellectuals to go to work in the countryside, "intellectual" being interpreted in the broadest sense to mean anyone that had recently completed a middle school education. This was at least partially a means to neutralise Red Guards by sending them to the countryside, where they could work of their zeal and had less opportunity to cause damage.
"Ruralise the Intellectuals"
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[135] ITTL, Wade-Giles Romanisation remains more common. This is because OTL pinyin became more common after the Sino-American rapprochement due to it being officially sanctioned by the PRC government. Without that rapprochement, Wade-Giles remains the dominant form of rendering Chinese in the Anglophone world.
[136] Not sure how James Dean's car's engine ended up in China, but hey, butterflies.
Guide to imperfect Wade-Giles:
Mao Tse-Tung = Mao Zedong
Chiang Ch'ing = Jiang Qing (Madame Mao)
Liu Shao-Chi = Liu Shaoqi
Chou En-Lai = Zhou Enlai
P'eng Te-Huai = Peng Dehuai
Lin Piao = Lin Biao
Chen I = Chen Yi
Tong Shau-Ping = Deng Xiaoping
Yang Shang-Kun = Yang Shangkun
Wang Tung-Hsing = Wang Dongxing
P'eng Chen = Peng Zhen
Hsieh Fu-Chih = Xie Fuzhi
Chen Hsai-Dao = Chen Zaidao
Wang Lee = Wang Li
