(Estimates of the number of deaths have ranged from 2 million to 50 million.) Finally, the worsening situation forced the government to reduce the size of the communes, restore family farm plots, and put into place work bonuses and other incentives.įive years later, Mao decided that too many were betraying the Communist Revolution by leading China back down the road to capitalism.
Crop and industrial production plummeted and a famine resulted, causing millions of deaths. The Great Leap Forward ended in disaster in 1961. People lived in dormitories and ate meals in common mess halls. The communes not only operated huge farms but also factories, trade networks, banks, schools, and militias. The government sent young people from the cities to the communes to learn farm skills. In 1958, Mao abolished household farm plots and reorganized collective farms into "communes," each with about 5,000 families. Only a few remnants of private enterprise, what communists called the "rattail of capitalism," still existed in China.ĭissatisfied with the progress of the economy toward a fully Marxist system, Mao turned to a more intensive approach he called the Great Leap Forward. In the cities, the state owned and operated most factories and other businesses.
#Democracy 3 communism free
Consequently, industrial production declined.īy the late 1950s, Mao had banned free markets in rural China, where peasants used to sell farm products from little household plots. Chinese workers called this the "iron rice bowl." But again workers had little incentive to be efficient, productive, or even care about the amount or quality of their work. The state guaranteed workers a job along with benefits like health care for life. Most city workers became employees of these state-owned enterprises. The state set production goals, wages, and prices. In the cities, Mao began to put factories and other businesses under state (government) ownership. But since the peasants worked for the collective rather than on their own farms, there was little incentive to work hard. The income of the families was in theory equal. During the 1950s, Mao formed "collective farms," each worked by over 100 families. Mao confiscated these lands and executed thousands of landlords who resisted. Most Chinese were peasants, poor farmers who worked on land owned by wealthy landlords. He followed the ideas of Karl Marx, who envisioned a communist society where all would equally share in prosperity. Mao wanted to eliminate capitalism and its emphasis on property rights, profits, and free-market competition. They also chose government officials and nominated those who ran unopposed for seats in China's legislature, the National People's Congress. Communist Party leaders decided China's laws and policies. Under Mao, China's Communist Party ruled as a "democratic dictatorship" in the name of the workers, peasants, and small merchants. He set up a regime similar to that established by Vladimir Lenin in the Soviet Union, following the Russian Communist Revolution.
Mao Zedong concentrated all political power in the Chinese Communist Party. On October 1, 1949, Mao declared victory for the Communist Revolution and proclaimed the People's Republic of China. Mao's experienced peasant fighters finally defeated the nationalist forces under Chiang, who fled with them to the large island of Taiwan. Unlike Western names, Chinese family names come before given names.)Īfter the defeat of Japan, the Chinese civil war resumed. When the Japanese invaded China in World War II, Mao and Chiang agreed to an uneasy truce. On the other side were the nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek. Led by Mao Zedong, they supported adapting the economic ideas of Karl Marx to China's mainly rural peasant society. Fighting on one side were the communists. Will the surprising success of capitalism in China eventually lead to democracy?įollowing World War I, China entered a long period of civil war. In recent decades, China's Communist Party has increasingly adopted capitalist models for its economy, and its economy has boomed. Communism, Capitalism, and Democracy in China | Upton Sinclair's The Jungle | John Dewey and the Reconstruction of American Democracy Communism, Capitalism, and Democracy in China
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