Mao's China 1949-1976 Topic 4

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What were the three obediences?
Women were obedient to their father when young, their husband in marriage and their son when old.
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What other social issues affected Chinese women?
Many were forced into arranged marriages, could not own property and had no political voice.
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What was Mao's famous quote about women?
"Women hold up half the sky"
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What was foot binding?
A practice of binding women's feet to make their gait sexually appealing
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Why were Chinese baby girls not valued as much as boys?
They would leave the family, take the form of a dowry payment.
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What dark realities did this pose for girls?
Desperate families would sometimes give food to boys in place of their sisters in times of need; sometimes infanticide was resorted to
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What was women's role in the home?
Subservient to their husbands; treated as private property
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How did mothers-in-law treat brides?
Mothers-in-law became petty and spiteful as they would remain close to their sons
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What was education like for girls?
Girls were often denied education as parents saw little point in educating them, would receive no economic benefit
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What statistic can be used as evidence of this?
In rural China in the 1930s only 1% of females over the age of 7 had the literacy to read a single letter, in comparison to 30% of males
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What percentage of females had received schooling?
45.2% of males had received schooling, while just 2.2% of females
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What was the 1950 New Marriage Law?
One of the first pieces of legislation that the new regime introduced, aimed to improve women's status
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What three things did the 1950 NML result in?
Women received legal equality: they could hold property and seek divorce; forbade the paying of dowries or bride-prices; marriages had to be 18-years-old and result from free will
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What evidence was there that the NML was effective?
Between 1946 and 1949, 18.6% of marriages were to a bride aged 16-17; by 1958-65 this was 2.4%
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What problems did the NML create?
Men who paid a bride-price expected to be able to reap an economic reward; were extremely upset
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What was the divorce rate in 1953?
1.4 million divorce petitions were filed in 1953
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What attitude did the cadres adopt to the NML?
Ambivalent or hostile, some feared that only rich men would be able to find wives
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What happened in Xinjiang?
Traditional Muslim communities resented the challenge to their long-held customs
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Why did Mao believe that collectivisation would benefit the lives of women?
Mao argued that it would represent a form of equality because if women could work they could earn equal pay for equal work
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How did Mao aim to alleviate women's workload?
Through the provision of canteens and kindergarten to remove women's traditional roles
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What issues were there with communal kindergartens?
Poorly trained staff; large numbers of children led to the spreading of diarrhoea, measles and chickenpox
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What happened to the kindergartens with the GLF?
As they collapsed, mothers had to care for their starving children as well as forage for food in order to survive
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What was the reality of communal canteens?
Poor food quality, food allocated on the basis of labour performed so women received less, when food ran low women were neglected on the basis that it was men who needed to have strength to search for food
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What was the reality of the work points system?
Regardless of productivity or skill, women received less work points due to less physical strength
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What other issues faced women?
Vulnerable women were often targeted with **** by party cadres and women were mistreated
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What happened in a commune near Guangzhou?
Two Party secretaries of a commune forced themselves upon 34 women
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What does historian Rebecca Karl say about women's double burden?
As a result of collectivisation, the demands of work and family "women's double burden" became intolerably difficult
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What was the Women's Association?
Aimed to give women a political voice; had 40,000 staff in 83 cities
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What was women's role during the Cultural Revolution?
Political; wore same Maoist uniforms as men; led denunciations
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What did the proportion of female party cadres rise by?
Between 8 and 12% in 1958 to 21% by 1974
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What evidence is there of the improved status of women in education?
By 1978, 45% of primary school students were girls
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What were PLA military wives?
Women sent to border regions such as Xinjiang to marry soldiers; showed women still had an inferior role
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What opportunities did the PLA offer?
A chance to escape poverty and prove their commitment to Mao (particularly important for daughters of rich peasant families)
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What was the big flaw in the communists' plan?
Women's emancipation was built around land ownership, collectivisation ended this dream; no law change could remove traditionally held attitudes
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What could the communists not change?
Traditional attitudes towards women
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What was the situation of women in Xinjiang described as in 2005?
"Like being a frog in a well: all they can do is see a tiny bit of sky."
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What was education like in China in 1949?
Very few peasants and women received education; the education they did receive was often Western-style or Confucian which did not benefit the creation of communist China
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What had the communists inherited from the nationalists at the end of the Civil War?
A deeply ineffective and unequal schooling system; males had on average four years of schooling
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What did education not provide for?
Practical subjects needed by a modern economy; most schools were in the wealthier neighbourhoods of the cities
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What proportion of students studied humanities?
59% studied liberal arts; just 10% natural science, 11.5% engineering and only 3% agriculture
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How did Mao reform the education system?
Mao established min-pan schools in rural areas
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Between 1949 and 1957 what did the proportion of students increase by?
Increased from approximately 26 million to 64 million
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What were winter schools?
Provided short courses for adult peasants
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In the winter of 1951-52 how many peasants attended?
42 million peasants
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Yet what proportion of the population remained illiterate?
78% of the population remained illiterate; and only 52% of school age children were in school
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How much did university enrollments increase by?
Quadrupled from 117,000 to 441,000
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By 1953, what proportion of students studied engineering, medicine and agriculture?
63%
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Where did many Chinese students go to study?
The USSR
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What was Pinyin?
Replaced the traditional Chinese writing system with words written in Latin characters, meaning that words could be pronounced phonetically
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What were the issues with reform?
High academic requirements for admission to middle schools meant that these schools favoured the children of party officials; many
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What were the issues with the new winter schools?
Peasants forgot what they had learned from one winter to the next
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How did the GLF revolutionise education?
Mao criticised the bourgeois idea of "education for education's sake" and advocated a half-study half-work timetable
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What did the new agricultural middle schools offer?
Vocational and agricultural courses
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What had happened by the end of the GLF?
The preparatory schools had become elite, creating a new capitalist class
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What did Mao complain about in 1966?
Capitalist roaders had taken over the education system; in the immediate lead-up to the CR politics took over education
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What did the Cultural Revolution cause?
Many students to abandon their schooling to take part in Red Guard campaigns and struggle meetings
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What happened at the end of the Cultural Revolution?
Students were sent Down to the Countryside, saw the harshness of rural life and alleviated urban overcrowding
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Healthcare: What was traditional healthcare reliant upon?
Chinese herbal medicine; Western missionaries brought Western healthcare in the 19th century
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Was public health spending a priority for the regime?
No; spending on healthcare never rose above 2.6% of the state budget up to 1956
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How did the CCP aim to spread good hygiene?
Aimed to prevent the spread of disease by sending cadres on Patriotic Health Campaigns to villages
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What were Patriotic Health Campaigns?
Teams of Party cadres used films, posters to show illiterate peasants how to prevent the spread of disease
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What evidence was there of the campaigns being successful?
Smallpox, cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, plague and leprosy were practically eliminated
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What new infrastructure helped the health campaigns?
During GLF communes established medical clinics; state investment built over 800 Western-style hospitals
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What did the number of doctors trained in Western-style techniques increase by?
40,000 in 1949 to 150,000 in 1965
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In 1949 what was life expectancy in China?
36 years, by 1957 it was 57 years
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What did Sidney Rittenberg's mother-in-law say when his young daughter became ill?
"Don't worry, children don't die in the New China."
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What was the barefoot doctor initiative?
Aimed to send young people to receive medical training and then go to villages to help peasants
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What did Jung Chang (Wild Swans) say about this?
Could only give injections and nurse, "in the countryside it was one's professional skills, rather than political rhetoric, that counted."
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What were the benefits of the Barefoot Doctors Scheme?
1 million new doctors trained by 1973; doctors with rudimentary training were better than doctors with none at all.
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(Cultural change) What had Mao declared at Yan'an about culture?
"Culture should further the proletarian cause"
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What was Mao?
A Chinese nationalist who collected traditional Chinese writings
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Who was Jiang Qing?
Mao's fourth wife; Mao named her a "cultural Tsarina" who sought to purge China of its old feudal culture
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What was Jiang Qing a member of?
The CCRG, an organisation tasked with helping Mao remould Chinese culture
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How did Jiang Qing censor the theatre?
She had to vet all plays for revisionist content, she became personally involved with their production
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What were Jiang Qing's new revolutionary operas?
Jiang Qing damned traditional opera as bourgeois and feudal, full of supersititons such as "cow ghosts and snake spirits"
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How many revolutionary performances were there?
8; five operas, two ballets and a symphony
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What was an example of one of these?
Taking Tiger Gorge by Force
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What was one joke about this?
It was eight hundred million people watching eight shows
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What did Deng Xiaoping say?
After a week's work, you want to go to the theater to relax. Instead you find yourself in a battlefield
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What did Article 5 of the PRC's Common Program guarantee?
"Freedom of religious belief"
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What was an example of religious belief in 1949?
Qingming Festival, ancestor worship
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How many Christians were there in China?
3 million Catholics and 1 million Protestants
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What dominated social attitudes in Xinjiang?
Islam; dominated views towards women and culture
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What was the initial communist view towards religion?
It was feual supersitition; Confucianism supported hierarchy; mullahs and lamas represented power rivals
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How was Confucian thought treated?
Denounced as old culture; Confucian relics turned into museum pieces and then attacked during the Cultural Revolution
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What traditions did the communists aim to discourage as being outdated?
The burning of joss sticks and giving of hongbao
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Why were these discouraged?
Represented old ideas contrary to the New China Mao wanted to build
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What did the communists attempt to replace these with?
National Memorial Day, which honoured soldiers who died in the revolution
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What evidence was there that the regime was unable to ward off superstition?
Cadres carried around holy symbols to ward off ghosts
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What was the initial communist policy towards religion?
Didn't try to unsettle the established religions; invited Buddhists, Protestants and Muslims to the NPCC
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Why did the CCP intially emphasise co-operation?
To win the support of sympathetic leaders who could then influence the religious community
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Why were the CCP worried about Christianity?
Symbolic of subjugation of China at the hands of the west, missionaries and churches received funding from foreign institutions
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What was the Protestant Church organised into?
The Patriotic Church, with the Three Self principle: self-ruling, self-supporting, self-propagating
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What did this mean in reality?
Complete subservience to the government, had to cut ties with all foreign donors
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In 1949 how many Protestant missionaries were there in China?
3000; by April 1952 there were fewer than 100 left.
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Why did tensions emerge with the Catholic church?
They refused to accept that the Patriotic Church was truly Catholic
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What did propaganda say about Catholics?
The Sacred Heart for Children was described as "Little Buchenwald."
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In January 1951 compared to November 1953, how many Catholic missionaries?
Jan 1951: 3222 Catholic missionaries Nov. 1953: 364
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What exacerbated the anti-Christian sentiment?
Alienation from the West as a result of the Korean War
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How was Islam treated?
Mosques were seized and converted into meeting halls for struggle meetings
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How did Muslims react?
They fought back with force, in one battle in Gansu over a thousand people were killed.
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How did the CCP react?
Ordered Party cadres to be respectful of Islamic customs; Islamic Association of China was established
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How did Uyghurs react when the CCP arrived?
Welcomed their peaceful liberation by the PLA
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What were the CCP worried about?
The Islamic mullahs represented a rival power base to the CCP.
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How did the CCP target Islam?
Encouraged children to leave mosque schools and attend state schools instead, religious tithe (zakat) abolished, mosque land redistributed to the poor
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What happened during the GLF?
Activities such as worshipping or reading scripture were reduced to dedicate more time to economic production, Han people migrated in
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What did one Party official declare?
"There is no such thing as a good Muslim"
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What happened during the Cultural Revolution?
Attacks on mosques resumed, religious leaders tortured, Muslims ordered to raise and eat pigs
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How was Buddhism treated?
Less organised than Islam or Christianity, therefore easier to attack; monks denounced as parasites sent home to work or denounced in struggle meetings
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What happened during the "Resist America, aid Korea" campaign?
Buddhist Association exhorted members to undergo thought reform; ancient temples converted into barracks and hospitals
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What did the regime do to keep the facade of religious freedom?
Restored the Yonghegong Temple in Beijing in case foreigners visited
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What was the Chinese Buddhist Association?
Like the Patriotic Church movement, organised to represent Chinese Buddhists, in reality government control
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What happened during the Reunification Campaigns?
Buddhist resistance was formed, so intense that during the Anti-Rightist Campaign Buddhism was denounced
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What happened to monks?
Forced to become labourers, land redistributed under Agrarian Reform Law 1950, lamas stripped of traditional sources of income
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When did the Dalai Lama flee?
1959; fled to India
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What was the impact of the Cultural Revolution?
Monasteries burned, religious relics destroyed, Buddhists sent to laogai for reform
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Card 2

Front

What other social issues affected Chinese women?

Back

Many were forced into arranged marriages, could not own property and had no political voice.

Card 3

Front

What was Mao's famous quote about women?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What was foot binding?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

Why were Chinese baby girls not valued as much as boys?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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