Following World War Two, an intensive and bloody civil war, between the nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai-shek and Mao’s communist forces, erupted. It was characterized by sieges on cities, atrocities on both sides, and large-scale suffering of the local population. The nationalist forces, although numerically superior, suffered from poor morale, lack of adequate funding, and a lack of a coherent strategy that left them often on the defensive. By 1947, the cost of living was approximately 30,000 times what it had been in 1936, a year before Japan attacked China. The cost of a pig in 1940 was the same for an egg in 1946; in 1947, these two items cost the same amount. Graft, embezzlement, and corruption became rampant. Despite large amounts of American aid at the start of the conflict, Americans became disillusioned and unhappy with the nationalists; thus, it withdrew its support in 1947. In 1949, the nationalist government fled to Taiwan, leaving the communists in charge of mainland China.

Mao, like other followers of Marxist thought, had thought that the communist revolution would come through a class struggle in which the rural landlords and the urban bourgeois would be overthrown. Industries and agriculture would then be established by the state. However, he differed from other thinkers who viewed peasants as a revolutionary force that would be led and mobilized by the vanguard of the Chinese Communist Party, and that the peasants could start a people’s war or mass uprising. Unlike the focus on industrialization and urbanization, Mao argued that an agrarian revolution was the priority and advised the party to learn from the peasants. Furthermore, Mao believed that the revolutionary struggle was continuous; hence, party leaders should be subjected to self-criticism to ensure their continued purity and dedication to the cause. Thus, determination, will power, and an adherence to Mao’s thoughts would ensure the success of his revolution and allow communism to flourish in China.

As the new leader of China, Mao viewed his role as the Chinese Stalin and following the campaigns of de-Stalinization in the USSR, as the next Stalin. His goal was to industrialize China as quickly as possible. In return for aid and technical advisers from the USSR, China exported food to the Eastern Bloc and the USSR. Thousands of civilian technicians helped build roads, bridges, factories, and industries all over the country. In the government ministries in Beijing, hundreds of them shadowed their local counterparts, coaching them in Soviet ways. However, ideological differences between Khrushchev and Mao over Stalinist ideas, supported by Mao but opposed by Khrushchev, emerged. Moreover, Khrushchev and Mao differed over who was the rightful leader of the communist world and over China’s request for more aid, especially to develop nuclear technology. These irreconcilable disagreements led to a split between these allies in 1957.

Figure 11: Soviet-Chinese Cooperation

Initially, life in China improved under Mao, although in a bloody manner and with a revolutionary spirit. Liberation was marked by celebration and the promise of a better future and a stronger China. Various groups-intellectuals, business owners, minorities, among others-were all promised better conditions. Farmers received land for the first time in generations; although this land came at the cost of denouncing their former leaders, often leading to their demise. The 1950s were marked by conflicting ideological turns. The period between 1950-1953 witnessed the Great Terror in China, designed to eliminate all the enemies of the party. Mostly targeted were the former nationalists who were hiding in the population since Mao took over power too quickly before they could go into exile. Mao’s decree that one person per thousand be killed, often in a public manner, led to the death of 2 million people by the end of 1951. The most vulnerable were the classes of people the regime perceived as threats to social order and drains on its resources. They were referred to as ‘parasites’ and ‘trash’ by the young officials who dealt with them. These groups included not only the paupers, beggars, pickpockets and prostitutes, but also the millions of refugees and the unemployed who were seen as a problem. The land reform that benefited the peasants also pitted villagers against each other as the peasants fought over the division of the spoils and over who was actually a capitalist landlord. The Chinese government curtailed the rights of farmers, forcing them to sell their grain-needed for export and for the purchase of goods for industrialization-at low prices. Intellectuals were targeted with 500,000 arrested in 1957. The Five Flowers Campaign was designed to identify those who were opposed to the new socialist culture; with Mao setting a quota of anti-revolutionaries that every district needed to fulfill.

The Great Leap Forward in 1958 witnessed people in the countryside being herded into giant collectives called people’s communes. Mao’s vision was to harness the potential of the Chinese people and use their energy to develop the country. The idea was simple: use human power in the countryside to create the steel needed for building and export. Instead of devoting time to growing crops, people needed to produce steel in the backyard local furnaces, find firewood for burning in the furnaces, or find metal objects to turn into steel. Because of limited manufacturing capacity, the steel created was often of poor quality and despite the huge amount of effort, little was actually produced. As a result, famine broke out throughout the countryside, entire forests were destroyed, and the pollution grew.

The Nature of People’s War, Statement of September 3, 1965: It has not only been valid for China, it is a great contribution to the revolutionary struggles of oppressed nations and peoples throughout the world. . . .The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution, This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries..Since World War II, U.S. imperialism has stepped into the shoes of German, Japanese and Italian fascism and has been trying to build a great American empire by dominating and enslaving the whole world… It is the most rabid aggressor in human history and the most ferocious common enemy of the people of the world… History has proved arid will go on proving that people’s war is the most effective weapon against U.S. imperialism arid its lackeys. All revolutionary people will learn to wage people’s war against U.S. imperialism arid its lackeys. They will take up arms, learn to fight battles and become skilled in waging people’s war, though they have not done so before. U.S. imperialism like a mad bull dashing from place to place, will finally be burned to ashes in the blazing fires of the people’s wars it has provoked by its own actions.

Figure 12: An Anti-Liu Shaoqi rally

The Cultural Revolution caused even more chaos. Mao directly encouraged the young generation to rise up and denounce their teachers, parents, and Communist Party members, anyone that could be blamed for subverting the revolution. It allowed Mao to return to power after the failures of the Great Leap Forward while millions of people were denounced, sent to re-education camps in the countryside, or otherwise imprisoned, including many of Chinese ethnic minorities. Millions more suffered the loss of property while others public humiliation. An estimated three million people died as a result of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Factional violence engulfed the country even as people focused on basic survival and little else. Historical artifacts, sites, books, and other documents throughout the county were destroyed. Economic development stagnated for the entire period as institutions were left without any functioning staff. In 1971, the army intervened to stop its excesses but it continued in part until Mao’s death in 1976.

Editorial of the Liberation Army Daily (Jiefangjun Bao): Mao Tse-Tung’s Thought is the Telescope and Microscope of Our Revolutionary Cause, June 7, 1966:

The current great socialist cultural revolution is a great revolution to sweep away all monsters and a great revolution that remoulds the ideology of people and touches their souls. . … The enemies without guns are more hidden, cunning, sinister and vicious than the enemies with guns. The representatives of the bourgeoisie and all monsters, including the modern revisionists, often oppose the red flag by hoisting a red flag and oppose Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung’s thought under the cloak of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung’s thought when they attack the Party and socialism, because Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung’s thought are becoming more popular day by day, our Party and Chairman Mao enjoy an incomparably high prestige and the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country is becoming more consolidated….The many facts exposed during the great cultural revolution show us more clearly that the anti-Party and anti-socialist elements are all careerists, schemers and hypocrites of the exploiting classes. They indulge in double-dealing…Enemies holding a false red banner are ten times more vicious than enemies holding a white banner. …We must follow the instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and never forget the class struggle, never forget the dictatorship of the proletariat, never forget to give prominence to politics, never forget to hold aloft the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung’s thought.

The Great Leap Forward destroyed the countryside and the Cultural Revolution destroyed the communist party. Ironically, people resorted to black markets and traditional practices for their own survival. The very survival of an ordinary person came to depend on the ability to lie, charm, hide, pilfer, forage, smuggle, trick, manipulate, or otherwise outwit the state; those who could not or steal died.

The independence of many African and Asian countries and the implementation of a new communist government in China created a sense of optimism among many that their children would live better lives than they did, that the economies of their new states would flourish, that they would have access to social services and that the governments would be attentive to their needs. However, the economies in much of the developing world were floundering by the 1970s, the governments were increasingly corrupt and authoritarian, and, to the dismay of many, the better life never materialized. Most leaders sought to enrich themselves and their followers or implemented poorly conceptualized ideas that resulted in economic chaos. Thus, independence resulted in a sense of continued subjugation and lack of economic improvement.