Mao- Tse Tung

A detailed Summary of Mao- Tse Tung

Q-How far did Mao Tse-tung solve the political, economic and social problems that faced him?

Mao was faced with a variety of problems. Firstly her had to deal with the aftermath of the Kuomintang. He tried to maintain peace and unity, and he also realised this could only be achieved by a strong central government. The communist party provided this for the first time in China in the twentieth century. They laid emphasis on persuasion rather than force. The communist's under Mao aimed for what they called " democracy for the people and dictatorship for the reactionaries" and Mao understood that in order to stay in power he must oppose all opposition. He did so by the elimination of offices in the party leadership, e.g. the minister of defence and The minister of Finance were removed from office on charges of corruption whereby they were expelled from the party and sent to re- education camps, were given prison sentences which were followed by death.

He encouraged the redistribution of land; but he also understood that the upheaval caused by this could encourage reactionary forces to attempt a counter-revolution. To combat this the Communist government began a reign of terror. This resulted in no majo

In the mid 1960's China was convulsed by a movement known as the Cultural Revolution. Mao had always been a firm believer in continuous revolution; a permanent struggle. This movement began as a result of him feeling that his power and authority was diminishing. The revolution entailed the purging of China of all influences of the west. All western ideals and objects were denounced. This was an attempt to turn the clock back and hence remove and traces of western culture to enable the Chinese to follow their own culture. To further implement this plan of continuos conflict he gave supreme power to young people(they were known as the red guards, and the " thoughts of Mao" was their bible), he endowed them with the ability to judge who was influenced by western culture and so eliminate then. This was an extremely hair brained idea that resulted in masses of young people having extreme power, education was halted for about the period of about 4 years 1963-1967., and no one!

The first Five year plan was a success, as it entailed the redistribution of land with the Land Reform (1950), this was the first time in the history of China that peasants were given land ownership. There was also significant help from the U.S.S.R (till about 1960) and for a time there was only Russia as a source of capital. Russia also gave China equipment . Mao also was interested in a variety of large scale projects which were hugely successful . These included the building of bridges and damns, and railways. These opened up communication throughout the country and provided Mao with the ability to keep a better check on his peoples, it also offered people with a newer and better way of life, with the damns and railways. This first five year plan also included the development of the nuclear bomb (1964). China was now finally on the same level as the west , it had already exploded a hydrogen and atomic bomb.

, not even family were safe from the red guards. This could be most simply be described as a failure of Mao because of the extreme after effects. ( e.g. when education was re introduced a lot of money had to go for the implementation of an education, there was the loss of life, unrest within the country, chaos, and hards

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Approximate Word count = 1499
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History