Mao zedong during cold war

Concerned with the high concentration of industry and infrastructure in the hard-to-defend littoral provinces, Mao pushed for the strategic relocation of industries — many of them crucial to national security — into the deep valleys in the hinterland and even into the interior of mountains. In either scenario, Chinese forces would have to retreat to the interior, similar to the Guomindang in in the face of the Japanese advance, and the Soviet Union in in the face of the German offensive.

The chairman hence wanted to be prepared for that event, unlike Chiang Kai-shek and Joseph Stalin who had failed to do so at their own peril, as Mao concluded. Shortly thereafter, it saw the establishment of strategic infrastructure railroads and roads in often hostile mountain terrain and over long distances. The lack of labor at most of the sites — some were even totally unpopulated — required the transfer of specialists and workers from cities.

Party and state used a whole array of methods — from revolutionary enticement to administrative orders — to make skilled labor leave the relative comforts of Chinese city life to go to places that lacked adequate housing, working conditions, or entertainment for many years. Most specialists and workers were young and male, which led to frustrations among those who went into the wilderness for many years at the beginning of their professional lives and of marriage age.

Unskilled labor was brought in from adjacent rural areas, usually during the agricultural slack season, and was destined to perform backbreaking labor given the near-complete lack of construction machinery. Yet, work and life on these giant construction sites was a socio-economic and cultural improvement mainly for rural laborers, but not really for the arrivals from the city.

Even if the chaos of the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution from to had little direct impact on most Third Front construction sites, the Great Leap Forward-style politicization of decision-making from the top to the mao zedong during cold war still occurred. Competing for scarce resources, high-ranking cadres allowed themselves to make extravagant claims of superfast construction and in some cases even encouraged surveying, planning, and construction to go along in parallelso much so that Mao and Zhou Enlai recurrently had to rein in extremism and wasteful projects.

Yet, as Meyskens stresses, they themselves were ultimately responsible for creating the general political context of a supposedly imminent external threat that demanded quick action at all levels. Hence, it is surprising that so many projects in remote places — railroads, steel mills, hydro-electrical dams, and military aircraft factories — were not only completed but turned out to be functional.

Yet, those who labored there did so at enormous personal costs in terms of their happiness, family life, career, and even personal safety. The secret nature of the mao zedong during cold war and camouflaged industrial and infrastructure sites also deprived their creators — hundreds of thousands of ordinary Chinese people — of any public recognition for their achievements.

Whenever a factory had opened in the s, designers and workers were feted by party bigwigs arriving from Beijing, or celebrated in articles in national media outlets — but not so with the Third Front projects. Railroads opened and factories went into production with small local celebrations at best. Since Third Front projects were official secrets, they were not even mentioned in public until after the late s for reasons of national security.

How did Mao Tse Tung come to power? What reforms did Mao Tse Tung make? Was Mao Tse Tung a good leader? Why were the states which surrounded the USSR known as "satellite" states? Question 6d The Cold War was originally a confrontation between two contending ideologies — Communism and liberal democracy. Many scholars have contended that the primary causes of the Sino-Soviet split stemmed from their conflicting national interests, which overwhelmed their shared ideological beliefs.

The historian Chen Jian contends that ideology, while it played a decisive role in bringing Communist countries together, also contributed to driving them apart. In the words of Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ironically, the great Sino-Soviet rivalry not only led to the collapse of the Communist bloc, but contributed to the end of the Cold War as well.

He is the author of Negotiating with the Enemy: U. Chang, Gordon H. Stanford, Calif. Chen, Jian. Kirby, William C. Robert S. Ross, and Gong Li, eds. Levine, Steven I. Luthi, Lorenz M. Nathan, Andrew J. New York: W. Temporarily resting in the city, they held a conference ; here, Mao was elected to a position of leadership, becoming Chairman of the Politburoand de facto leader of both Party and Red Army, in part because his candidacy was supported by Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.

Insisting that they operate as a guerrilla force, he laid out a destination: the Shenshi Soviet in ShaanxiNorthern China, from where the Communists could focus on fighting the Japanese. Mao believed that in focusing on the anti-imperialist struggle, the Communists would earn the trust of the Chinese people, who in turn would renounce the KMT.

From Zunyi, Mao led his troops to Loushan Passwhere they faced armed opposition but successfully crossed the river. Chiang flew into the area to lead his armies against Mao, but the Communists outmanoeuvred him and crossed the Jinsha River. Zhang and Mao disagreed over what to do; the latter wished to proceed to Shaanxi, while Zhang wanted to retreat west to Tibet or Sikkimfar from the KMT threat.

It was agreed that they would go their separate ways, with Zhu De joining Zhang. In Novemberhe was named chairman of the Military Commission. From this point onward, Mao was the Communist Party's undisputed leader, even though he would not become party chairman until Mao's troops arrived at the Yan'an Soviet during October and settled in Bao'anuntil spring While there, they developed links with local communities, redistributed and farmed the land, offered medical treatment, and began literacy programs.

She travelled to Moscow for medical treatment; Mao proceeded to divorce her and marry an actress, Jiang Qing. The Japanese had taken both Shanghai and Nanjing —resulting in the Nanjing Massacrean atrocity Mao never spoke of all his life—and was pushing the Kuomintang government inland to Chongqing. It was a military success that resulted in the death of 20, Japanese, the disruption of railways and the loss of a coal mine.

Inthe U. The American soldiers who were sent to the mission were favourably impressed. The party seemed less corrupt, more unified, and more vigorous in its resistance to Japan than the Kuomintang. The soldiers confirmed to their superiors that the party was both strong and popular over a broad area. At leastcivilians are believed to have perished during the siegewhich lasted from June until October.

Hiroshima took nine seconds; Changchun took five months. Mao initiated the talks which focused on the political and economic revolution in China, foreign policy, railways, naval bases, and Soviet economic and technical aid. The resulting treaty reflected Stalin's dominance and his willingness to help Mao. Following the Marxist—Leninist theory of vanguardism[ ] Mao believed that only the correct leadership of the Communist Party could advance China into socialism.

Mao pushed the Party to organise campaigns to reform society and extend control. These campaigns were given urgency in Octoberwhen the People's Volunteer Army was sent into the Korean War to fight as well as reinforce the armed forces of North Korea, the Korean People's Armywhich had been in full retreat. The United States placed a trade embargo on the People's Republic as a result of its involvement in the Korean Warlasting until Richard Nixon 's improvements of relations.

At leastChinese troops died during the war. Chinese troops in Korea were under the overall command of then newly installed Premier Zhou Enlaiwith General Peng Dehuai as field commander and political commissar. During the land reform campaignslarge numbers of landlords and rich peasants were beaten to death at mass meetings as land was taken from them and given to poorer peasants, which reduced economic inequality.

State Department estimated as many as a million were killed in the land reform, andkilled in the counter-revolutionary campaign. Mao himself claimed that a total ofpeople were killed in attacks on "counter-revolutionaries" during the years — The government is credited with eradicating both consumption and production of opium during the s. Remaining opium production shifted south of the Chinese border into the Golden Triangle region.

Starting inMao initiated movements to rid urban areas of corruption; the Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns. Whereas the three-anti campaign was a focused purge of government, industrial and party officials, the five-anti campaign set its sights slightly more broadly, targeting capitalist elements in general. Mao insisted that minor offenders be criticised and reformed or sent to labour camps, "while the worst among them should be shot".

These campaigns took several hundred thousand additional lives, the vast majority via suicide. In Shanghai, suicide by jumping from tall buildings became so commonplace that residents avoided walking on the pavement near skyscrapers for fear that suicides might land on them. In his biography of Mao, Philip Short notes that Mao gave explicit instructions in the Yan'an Rectification Movement that "no cadre is to be killed" but in practice allowed security chief Kang Sheng to drive opponents to suicide and that "this pattern was repeated throughout his leadership of the People's Republic".

Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched the first five-year plan —which emphasised rapid industrial development. Within industry, iron and steel, electric power, coal, heavy engineering, building materials, and basic chemicals were prioritised with the aim of constructing large and highly capital-intensive plants. Many of these plants were built with Soviet assistance and heavy industry grew rapidly.

Despite being initially sympathetic towards the reformist government of Imre NagyMao feared the "reactionary restoration" in Hungary as the Hungarian Revolution of continued and became more hardline. Mao opposed the withdrawal of Soviet troops by asking Liu Shaoqi to inform the Soviet representatives to use military intervention against "Western imperialist-backed" protestors and Nagy's government.

However, it was unclear to what degree Mao's stance played a role in Nikita Khrushchev 's decision to invade Hungary. It was also unclear if China was forced to conform to the Soviet position due to economic concerns and China's poor power projections compared to the USSR. Despite his disagreements with Moscow's hegemony in the Eastern BlocMao viewed the integrity of the international communist movement as more important than the national autonomy of the countries in the Soviet sphere of influence.

Mao decided to soften his stance on Chinese intelligentsia and allow them to express their social dissatisfaction and criticisms of the errors of the government. Mao wanted to use this movement to prevent a similar uprising in China. However, as people in China began to criticize the CCP's policies and Mao's leadership following the Hundred Flowers Campaign, Mao cracked down on the movement he initiated and compared it to the "counter-revolutionary" Hungarian Revolution.

During the Hundred Flowers Campaign, Mao indicated his supposed willingness to consider different opinions about how China should be governed. Given the freedom to express themselves, liberal and intellectual Chinese began opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership. This was initially tolerated and encouraged. After a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and persecuted those who had criticised the party, totalling perhaps , [ ] as well as those who were merely alleged to have been critical, in what is called the Anti-Rightist Movement.

The movement led to the persecution of at leastpeople, mostly intellectuals and dissidents. United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower 's threats during the First Taiwan Strait Crisis to use nuclear weapons against military targets in Fujian province prompted Mao to begin China's nuclear program. Project [ ] is a military project to find antimalarial medications.

Zhou Enlai convinced Mao Zedong to start the mass project "to keep [the] allies' troops combat-ready", as the meeting minutes put it. The one for investigating traditional Chinese medicine discovered and led to the development of a class of new antimalarial drugs called artemisinins. Some private food production was banned, and livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.

To win favour with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them. Based upon the falsely reported success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a high amount of that fictitious harvest. The result, compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, was that farmers were left with little food and many millions starved to death in the Great Chinese Famine.

The people of urban areas were given food stamps each month, but the people of rural areas were expected to grow their own crops and give some of the crops mao zedong during cold war to the government. The death count in rural parts of China surpassed the deaths in the urban centers. In late autumnMao condemned the practices used during Great Leap Forward such as forcing peasants to do labour without enough food or rest which resulted in epidemics and starvation.

He also acknowledged that anti-rightist campaigns were a major cause of "production at the expense of livelihood. After the July clash at Lushan Conference with Peng DehuaiMao launched a new anti-rightist campaign along with the radical policies that he previously abandoned. It wasn't until the spring ofthat Mao would again express concern about abnormal deaths and other abuses, but he did not move to stop them.

Bernstein concludes that the Chairman "wilfully ignored the lessons of the first radical phase for the sake of achieving extreme ideological and developmental goals". Mao stepped down as President of China on 27 April ; he retained other top positions such as Chairman of the Communist Party and of the Central Military Commission. The most direct of these was Minister of Defence Peng Dehuai.

A campaign was launched and resulted in party members and ordinary peasants being sent to prison labour camps. Years later the CCP would conclude that as many as six million people were wrongly punished in the campaign. The Sino-Soviet split resulted in Nikita Khrushchev 's withdrawal of Soviet technical experts and aid from the country.

The split concerned the leadership of world communism. The split helped to determine the framework of the Second Cold War in general, and influenced the course of the Second Vietnam War in particular. The split resulted from Khrushchev's more moderate Soviet leadership after the death of Stalin in March Only Albania openly sided with China, thereby forming an alliance between the two countries.

Warned that the Soviets had nuclear weapons, Mao minimised the threat. After the Great Leap Forward, China's leadership slowed the pace of industrialization. I need to reconsider my actions" and pushed even harder for the creation of the Third Front. Development of the Third Front slowed inbut accelerated again after the Sino-Soviet border conflict at Zhenbao Island, which increased the perceived risk of Soviet Invasion.

During the early s, Mao became concerned with the nature of post China. He saw that the old ruling elite was replaced by a new one. He was concerned that those in power were becoming estranged from the people they were to serve. Mao believed that a revolution of culture would unseat and unsettle the "ruling class" and keep China in a state of " continuous revolution " that, theoretically, would serve the interests of the majority, rather than a tiny and privileged elite.

The Cultural Revolution led to the destruction of much of China's traditional cultural heritage and the imprisonment of many Chinese citizens, as well as the creation of chaos in the country. Millions of lives were ruined, as the Cultural Revolution pierced into Chinese life. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions, perished in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.

It was during this period that Mao chose Lin Biao to become his successor. Lin was later officially named as Mao's successor. Bya divide between the two men had become apparent. Lin Biao died on 13 Septemberin a plane crash over the air space of Mongolia, presumably as he fled China, probably anticipating his arrest. At this time, Mao lost trust in many of the top CCP figures.

The highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. InMao declared the Cultural Revolution to be over. Various historians mark the end of the Cultural Revolution infollowing Mao's death and the arrest of the Gang of Four. An estimate of arounddeaths is a widely accepted minimum figure, according to Maurice Meisner. During his leadership, Mao traveled outside China on two occasions, both times for state visits to the Soviet Union.

In his first visit on 16 DecemberMao traveled to celebrate the 70th birthday of Joseph Stalin in Moscow, an event that was also attended by East German deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers Walter Ulbricht and Mongolian general secretary Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal. Mao's health declined in his final years, probably aggravated by his chain-smoking.

He died nearly one week later, on 9 Septemberat the age of On 18 September, guns, sirens, whistles and horns across China were simultaneously blown and a mandatory three-minute silence was observed. Hua Guofeng concluded the service with a minute-long eulogy atop Tiananmen Gate. On 27 Junethe communist party's Central Committee adopted the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of Chinawhich assessed the legacy of the Mao era and the party's priorities going forward.

Mao has been regarded as one of the most important and influential individuals in the 20th century. He has also been credited with having improved the status of women in China and for improving literacy and education. His policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in China during his reign, [ ] [ ] [ ] done through starvation, persecution, prison labour in laogaiand mass executions.

China's population grew from around million to over million under his rule. In mainland China, Mao is respected by a great number of the general population. Mao is credited for raising the average life expectancy from 35 in to 63 bybringing "unity and stability to a country that had been plagued by civil wars and foreign invasions", and laying the foundation for China to "become the equal of the great global powers".

Opposition to Mao can lead to censorship or professional repercussions in mainland China, [ ] and is often done in private settings. He is seen as someone who successfully liberated the country from Japanese occupation and from Western imperialist exploitation dating back to the Opium Wars. A "sizable proportion" lauded the era's simplicity, attributing to it the "clear meaning" of life and minimal inequality; they contended that the "spiritual life" was rich.

The interviewees simultaneously acknowledged the poor "material life" and other negative experiences under Mao. On 25 DecemberChina opened the Mao Zedong Square to visitors in his home town of central Hunan Province to mark the th anniversary of his birth. Former party official Su Shachi has opined that "he was a great historical criminal, but he was also a great force for good.

He put no value on human life. The deaths of others meant nothing to him. Chen Yun remarked "Had Mao died inhis achievements would have been immortal. Had he died inhe would still have been a great man but flawed. But he died in Alas, what can one say? We also shouldn't forget that it was Chairman Mao who combined the teachings of Marx and Lenin with the realities of Chinese history—that it was he who applied those principles, creatively, not only to politics but to philosophy, art, literature, and military strategy.

Philip Short said that the overwhelming majority of the deaths under Mao were unintended consequences of famine. Short writes that "Mao's tragedy and his grandeur were that he remained to the end in thrall to his own revolutionary dreams. He freed China from the straitjacket of its Confucian past, but the bright Red future he promised turned out to be a sterile purgatory.

Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine, in their biography, asserted that Mao was both "a successful creator and ultimately an evil destroyer" but also argued that he was a complicated figure who should not be lionised as a saint or reduced to a demon, as he "indeed tried his best to bring about prosperity and gain international respect for his country.

The scale of his life was too grand to be reduced to a single meaning. The Chinese system he overthrew was backward and corrupt; few would argue the fact that he dragged China into the 20th century. But at a cost in human lives that is staggering. Jackson forcibly moved Native Americans through the Trail of Tearsresulting in thousands of deaths, while Mao was at the helm.

John King Fairbank remarked, "The simple facts of Mao's career seem incredible: in a vast land of million people, at age 28, with a dozen others, to found a party and in the next fifty years to win power, organize, and remold the people and reshape the land—history records no greater achievement. AlexanderCaesarCharlemagneall the kings of Europe, NapoleonBismarckLenin —no predecessor can equal Mao Tse-tung's scope of accomplishment, for no other country was ever so ancient and so big as China.

We do not yet know how far he succeeded. The economy was mao zedong during cold war, but it was left to his successors to create a new political structure. Stuart R. Schram said that Mao was an "Eternal rebel, refusing to be bound by the laws of God or man, nature or Marxism, [who] led his people for three decades in pursuit of a vision initially noble, which turned increasingly into a mirage, and then into a nightmare.

Was he a Faust or Prometheusattempting the impossible for the sake of humanity, or a despot of unbridled ambition, drunk with his own power and his own cleverness? How does one weigh, for example, the good fortune of hundreds of millions of peasants in getting land against the execution, in the course of land reform and the 'Campaign against Counter-Revolutionaries,' or in other contexts, of millions, some of whom certainly deserved to die, but others of whom undoubtedly did not?

How does one balance the achievements in economic development during the first Five-Year Plan, or during the whole twenty-seven years of Mao's leadership afteragainst the starvation which came in the wake of the misguided enthusiasm of the Great Leap Forward, or the bloody shambles of the Cultural Revolution? Maurice Meisner assessed Mao's legacy: "It is the blots on the Maoist record, especially the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution, that are now most deeply imprinted on our political and historical consciousness.

That these adventures were failures colossal in scope, and that they took an enormous human toll, cannot and should not be forgotten. But future historians, without ignoring the failures and the crimes, will surely record the Maoist era in the history of the People's Republic however else they may judge it as one of the great modernizing epochs in world history, and one that brought great social and human benefits to the Chinese people.

The ideology of Maoism has influenced many Communists, mainly in the Third Worldincluding revolutionary movements such as Cambodia 's Khmer Rouge[ ] Peru 's Shining Pathand the Nepalese revolutionary movement. Under the influence of Mao's agrarian socialism and Cultural RevolutionPol Pot and the Khmer Rouge conceived of his disastrous Year Zero policies which purged the nation of its teachers, artists and intellectuals and emptied its cities, resulting in the Cambodian genocide.

China itself has moved sharply away from Maoism since Mao's death, and most people outside of China who describe themselves as Maoist regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to be a betrayal of Maoism, in line with Mao's view of " capitalist roaders " within the Communist Party. This accompanied a decline in state recognition of Mao in later years in contrast to previous years when the state organised numerous events and seminars commemorating Mao's th birthday.

Nevertheless, the Chinese government has never officially repudiated the tactics of Mao. Deng Xiaoping, who was opposed to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, stated that "when we write about his mistakes we should not exaggerate, for otherwise we shall be discrediting Chairman Mao Zedong and this would mean discrediting our party and state.

Mao's military writings continue to have a large amount of influence both among those who seek to create an insurgency and those who seek to crush one, especially in manners of guerrilla warfare, at which Mao is popularly regarded as a genius. Mao had successfully applied Mobile Warfare in the Korean War, and was able to encircle, push back and then halt the UN forces in Korea, despite the clear superiority of UN firepower.

Mao's poems and writings are frequently cited by both Chinese and non-Chinese. The official Chinese translation of President Barack Obama 's inauguration speech used a famous line from one of Mao's poems. This was officially instituted as an anti-counterfeiting measure as Mao's face is widely recognised in contrast to the generic figures that appear in older currency.

Mao zedong during cold war

Mao gave contradicting statements on the subject of personality cults. Inas a response to the Khrushchev Report that criticised Joseph StalinMao stated that personality cults are "poisonous ideological survivals of the old society", and reaffirmed China's commitment to collective leadership. InMao proposed the Socialist Education Movement SEM in an attempt to educate the peasants to resist the "temptations" of feudalism and the sprouts of capitalism that he saw re-emerging in the countryside from Liu's economic reforms.

Party members were encouraged to carry a copy with them, and possession was almost mandatory as a criterion for membership. According to Mao: The Unknown Story by Jun Yangthe mass publication and sale of this text contributed to making Mao the only millionaire created in s China Over the years, Mao's image became displayed almost everywhere, present in homes, offices and shops.

His quotations were typographically emphasised by putting them in boldface or red type in even the most obscure writings. Music from the period emphasised Mao's stature, as did children's rhymes. The phrase "Long Live Chairman Mao for ten thousand years " was commonly heard during the era. Mao also has a presence in China and around the world in popular culture, where his face adorns everything from T-shirts to coffee cups.

Mao's granddaughter, Kong Dongmeidefended the phenomenon, stating that "it shows his influence, that he exists in people's consciousness and has influenced several generations of Chinese people's way of life. Just like Che Guevara's imagehis has become a symbol of revolutionary culture. Mao's parents altogether had five sons and two daughters.

Mao had a total of ten children, [ ] including:. Mao's first and second daughters were left to local villagers because it was too dangerous to raise them while fighting the Kuomintang and later the Japanese. Their youngest daughter born in early in Moscow after Mao separated and one other child born died in infancy. Two English researchers who retraced the entire Long March route in — [ ] located a woman whom they believe might well be one of the missing children abandoned by Mao to peasants in Through his ten children, Mao became grandfather to twelve grandchildren, many of whom he never knew.