Years+of+great+change,+1950-53


 * Agrarian Reform Law || The law set up on June 30th of 1950 which speeded up the process of land reform. Under the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950, the property of rural landlords was confiscated and redistributed, which fulfilled a promise to the peasants and smashed a class identified as feudal or semifeudal. ||
 * Mutual aid teams || A team of around ten housholds which worked together on the land, sharing their animals and their equipment. ||
 * Mass campaigns || Party organised campaign mainly concentrated on a specific problem. Example "anti corruption campaign", and "anto bribery campaign" ||
 * "Speak bitterness" || Meeting in which peasants could talk about about their poverty and denounce their lanlords. ||
 * Reactionaries || Anybody opposed to the Communist ||

toc = The rights of women = Before 1950 women in China have no rights of choosing a husband and was usually arranged marriages. "Women were deprived of all rights and were present mainly to serve men. Women served as slaves, concubines, and prostitutes." [] The torture foot binding was also view as a tradition to the Chinese. However, the role of women began to change in the year of 1950 when Mao Zedong and the communist party outlawed the Chinese tradition because the tradition was nopt viewed as benefit to the state. Mao Zedong believe that by forcing gender equality China would be more powerful so he introduced the Marriage Law in April 1950. This law ened the bigamy, arranged marriages and also the killing of unwanted female babies. Mao Zedong also encourage women to work outside and giving them more and more confidence. As a result women was a new work force in 1950 for Mao Zedong.

This picture is a picture that shows the women's work force. Women were encourage by Mao Zedong to work for the country

= Land reform = In China the land reform was one of the main area where the government change the system of the land ownership. During the year of 1950-1953 many parts of land were taken from landlords and was given to landless peasants. In 1950 there was also a new law called Agrarian Reform Law which state that the property of the rural landlords will be redistributed to the landless peasants. Between 1950 to 1952 about 47 millions hectares of land was taken from the landlords and rich peasants, these land were all given to around 300 million peasants. However after many peasants get their land, many realise that they don't have enough equipment and money to start a farm so some of the peasants set up a mutual aid teams which consist of about 10 families joined together sharing their equipment.

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= This pictures shows the mutual aid teams where many households joined and work together in a group. = "Speak bitterness" = "Speak bitterness" was an acitivity during the land reform period. In this acitvity there would be a mass meetings and the poor peasants could speak about how incompetent their landlords were and denounce those who treated them very harshly in the past. Later on the "speak of bitterness" became very violent and many landlords ended up being executed.By the end of 1953 there was an estimate of between 2-4 millions death of lanlords.

= The economy = During the year 1950-1953 the economic problems in China was quickly solved by the government. The government starts of by taking all the major banks in the country, the railway networks and the heavyindustry into a state property. By this the profits of the of these properties went direct into the State Treasury which government uses to help the poor peasants in the process of land reform. During this time the government also made a law that state that "farmers had to sell 15 to 20 percent of their grain to the government at a fixed low price", so the threat of food shortage was also solved. The farmers in this time also had to pay the Agriculture Tax which the party members will be collecting it.

= The organisation of the people = During 1950-1951 the communist party put many effort on streangthening the government because they were aware of the "reactionaries" or the people who oppose communist. One of these effort contained a creation of "mass campaigns" which is a campaign that focus ona specific problems. In 1951 3 antis campaign was launched to solved the corruption, waste and too much 'red tape'. In 1952 there was also 5 other campaign created to solve bribery, tax evasion, fraud, and spying.

= 10 key terms = = Challenge Questions =
 * Mao Zedong || Chinese Communist leader and theorist. A founder of the Chinese Communist Party (1921), he led the Long March (1934-1935) and proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949. As party chairman and the country's first head of state (1949-1959) he initiated the Great Leap Forward and the founding of communes. He continued as party chairman after 1959 and was a leading figure in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969). In the 1970s he consolidated his political power and established ties with the West. ||
 * Guomindang || The political party founded in 1911 by Sun Yat-sen; it governed China under Chiang Kai-shek from 1928 until 1949 when the Communists took power and subsequently was the official ruling party of Taiwan ||
 * Land Reform || The process of taking land from the rich peasants and landlords to give to the landless peasants. ||
 * Communism || A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people. ||
 * The Great lead forward || The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social plan used from 1958 to 1961 which ostensibly aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform China from an agrarian economy into a modern communist society . ||
 * Stalin || The successor of Lenin, he was general secretary of the Communist Party (1922-1953) and premier (1941-1953) of the USSR. His rule was marked by the exile of Trotsky (1929), a purge of the government and military, the forced collectivization of agriculture, a policy of industrialization, and a victorious but devastating role for the Soviets in World War II. ||
 * Lenin || Russian founder of the Bolsheviks, leader of the Russian Revolution (1917), and first head of the USSR (1917-1924). As a communist theoretician Lenin held that workers could not develop a revolutionary consciousness without the guidance of a vanguard party and that imperialism was a particular stage of capitalist development. ||
 * Provisional Governmet || The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917 (Nicholas' manifest of abdication). On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was declared the Russian Republic (, Rossiyskaya respublika). ||
 * Tsar Nicholas ll || Nicholas II ( – 17 July 1918) was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias ||
 * NEP || Economic policy of the Soviet Union (1921–28). A temporary retreat from the failed [|War Communism] policy of extreme centralization and doctrinaire socialism, the new measures included the return of most agriculture, retail trade, and light industry to private ownership and the reintroduction of money into the economy. ||

Compare and contrast the success and failure of Mao Zedong and Stalin's social policies?

Mao Zedong and Stalin's social policy were different from each other because Stalin concentrated his policies on the factory workers but Mao Zedong concentrated his policies on his peasants and farmers. When China was turned into a communist state, Mao Zedong state many policies to help his lower class peasants because he believed that in order to modernise China he need to improve the quality of his peasants first. As you can see some of Mao Zedong's social policies were the land reform and the rights of women which would help improve life of his peasants. Stalin however believe that the power of the Russia come form industries so his policies such as the Five-Year plan concentrated on the workers. His policies had help many workers living conditions but the 5 year plan of Stalin lead to a famine compare to Mao's 5 year plan which only lead to a food shortage problem. Stalin also took many actions to opposed religion and band religion during the 1930s so many religious people didn't like him as much. However both Stalin and Mao also have some similar social policy such as the change of women rights in which women has the rights to work in factory equally to men.

To what extent was the communism successfull in both China and Russia.

Unit Two- The Rise of Communism Pre-Communist China and China under Communist rule home