S10: Permanent Revolution

• Building a socialist state: How did the 1949 revolution change China?
• What are political campaigns? How did they work? Why are they such an enduring tool of governance?
• How did ordinary Chinese experience the revolution? Did women have a Communist Revolution?

Original task:

• Write a biography of Briggs OR the Sent-down Youth in Yunnan

New task:

• Write ANY paper on Briggs OR the Sent-down Youth in Yunnan:
• Open genre: standard essay, source analysis, etc.
• Does not have to be a profile; pick any angle that interests you.
• Primary Source Requirement: use at least TWO documents from the collection.

Gale

• The Chinese Civil War and U.S.-China Relations: Records of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945-1955
• U.S. Declassified Documents Online

Adam Matthew

• British Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)

• Diplomatic Papers, 1945, The Far East, China, Volume VII

• Nov 1944: Hurley reached a five-point agreement with the CCP for a coalition government.
• Jiang rejected this and announced a three-point plan which required the CCP to relinquish military control.
• April 1945: Hurley announced U.S. support for the GMD, refusing to cooperate with the CCP.
• July 7, 1945: The CCP felt betrayed by U.S. policy and opposed it.

• On August 28, 1945, Mao Zedong and CCP leaders met in Chongqing to discuss political reform and military nationalization.
• The key issue was the CCP’s desire for an independent army, while Jiang wanted all forces under government control.
• Mao agreed to cut CCP troops but wanted the GMD to reduce their forces as well.
• No consensus was reached on democratizing China’s government.

• On December 15, 1945, President Truman supported the GMD without military intervention and sent General George Marshall to mediate.
• A peaceful solution needed cooperation and power-sharing.
• Can General Marshall help the two parties arrive at a compromise?

• What is the context of Mao’s writing? Who is the intended audience?
• What does “leaning to one side” look like?
• What is Mao’s vision for China’s place in the world?

• What is the goal of Mao’s goal?
• How did the US and China turn from allies to enemies?
• Why wasn’t the United States able to alter the course of the Chinese revolution?

The CCP

• Gained political influence during and after the war.
• Refused to give up military control for a role in the GMD government.
• Wanted democratization first.

The Nationalist

• Confident in their military strength and American support.
• Refused to compromise, believing concessions would weaken their rule.
• Demanded the CCP submit its military.

• Costly and timely reconstruction
• Capital flight through foreign banks protected by unequal treaties
• Military costs create major deficits in treasury
• Hyperinflation leads to military failure: Poor pay, corruption, and desertion of GMD military and civilian employees

At the time of Japan’s surrender in August 1945:

• 1 million Japanese troops in China proper
• 1 million in Manchuria
• 1.75 million Japanese civilian

As negotiations faltered, clashes between GMD and CCP forces escalated in northern China:

• The U.S. helped transport GMD troops to the region, increasing competition for territory with the CCP.
• The CCP sought control of Manchuria with support from the Soviet Union after their entry into the war.

Three major campaigns:

• Liaoshen Campaign (Sep 1948 – Nov 1948): Control of Manchuria
• Huaihai Campaign (Nov 1948 - Jan 1949): The north of Yangtze River
• Pingjin Campaign (Nov 1948 - Jan 1949): End of GMD dominance in North China; take-over of Beijing and Tianjin

• Tactical errors: Fighting in Manchuria, squandering advantage
• Corruption and mismanagement alienated economic and intellectual elites
• Failure to compromise: Solving conflict with CCP through military offensives

• Luck: Disintegration and failings of the GMD
• Help from outside: A Creation of Soviet Union?
• Mao Zedong as master tactician? Result of superior strategy and organizational methods

Internal threats

• Weaknesses in state building
• Economic mismanagement
• Tactical errors on the battlefield

External threats

• CCP ideology and organization
• Role of Soviet Union
• Waning US support

Strengths

• In control of the state, with power to tax, conscript, appoint
• Legitimacy widely accepted around the world
• 4.6 million soldiers in 1946, despite 3 million casualties in war against Japan
• Help from US alliance

Weaknesses

• Aggressive administrative and fiscal policies
• Galloping Inflation
• Corruption within rank and file

Strengths

• Growth in membership: from 40K to 1.2 million
• Armed force: Independent army of a million men (1946)
• Experience in governance: 1/5 of country, or 25% (100 million people) of population
• Ideological and organizational strength: Mao as top leader, with unity of purpose and command
• Growing popular support as defender of the nation
• Help from Soviet alliance

Weaknesses

• Most forces in northwest China, at country’s periphery
• Thin control of industrial centers and key transport links
• Unable to match GMD elite forces’ in training and equipment

• China was moving toward civil war in 1945-46 amid escalating U.S.-Soviet conflicts.
• The CCP-GMD conflict was influenced by changes in Soviet and American policies toward East Asia.
• The Chinese civil war as the beginning of Cold War in East Asia.

Establishing order:

• Campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries
• Korean War, 1950-1952

Change behavior and attitude:

• Campaigns against crime, drugs, sex trade
• Thought reform of bourgeois intellectuals

Complete development tasks:

• Population registration
• Political vetting of civil servants and party officials
• Collectivization of services and handicrafts
• Nationalization of industry

• Major targets in cities: GMD underground operatives, secret societies, criminal gangs, religious sects
• Method: Mass rallies, struggle sessions, highly publicized arrests and executions
• Mao’s estimate: “0.1 of the population”
• 1.2 m arrested and sent to labor camps; over 710K executed
• GMD underground network decimated; organized resistance wiped out

• Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries campaign
  • Two main target groups: Civil servant hold-overs from the GMD and urban secret societies
• Three Anti campaign (against waste, corruption, and bureaucratism)
• Five Anti campaign (against corruption, tax evasion, stealing state property, cheating on state contracts, and stealing state economic secrets)
• Mass mobilization, study groups, and thought reform involving criticism and self-criticism

• What is a political campaign?
• What made campaigns a preferred mode of governance in both China and Taiwan?
• How did Nationalist and Communist political campaigns differ? Why?

• Polish-born Russian photographer
• From 1941 to 1945, he traveled with the Soviet army through Poland, the Ukraine, and Berlin.
• Gained early fame for his World War II combat photographs on the Russian front.
• Served as the official photographer for visits of Nikita Krushchev to China and Leonid Brezhnev to the United States.

• Soldiers leaping across a trench with bayonets, directly over the photographer.
• Slightly out of focus to emphasize action and speed.
• Cropped to show only part of a body and the legs of the closest soldier.
• The political board questioned the composition, asking “Half a man running?”.

It is a very good idea to record history through the lens. History in photos is clear and comprehensible. No painter is able to depict what the camera sees.

Lenin

• Photography as an important tool in shaping the collective consciousness.
• It rejected elitist, abstract, or provocative art, instead promoting “realism” that served as a weapon for social justice.

• To support President Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) commissioned photographers to document rural poverty.
• The photographs were distributed freely to newspapers and raised public awareness about the struggles of displaced farming communities.

• Socialist realism in Soviet press photography aimed to be visually simple, intelligible, and motivating, orienting viewers towards communism.
• “Winners’ culture” in imagery: Achievements and progress as inherently positive values.

• Photographers became creators of new icons, and their subjects as state-sanctioned role models for the general population.
• This emphasis on growth and development became an oppressive mechanism of propaganda power.

• “Man + machine”: Images of workers (builders, machine operators, etc.) as individual heroes, symbolizing progress and power.
• Women in physically demanding professions
• Portraits of cheerful groups moving dynamically towards the camera, reinforcing collectivism and progress.
• Glorified depictions of socialist military and economic achievements.

Pillars of control:

• Neighborhood organization
• Household registration
• Work unit
• Personal dossiers

• Introduced between 1953 and 1955 during collectivization of agriculture (in rural China) and of services, handicrafts and industry (in urban China)
• 1955: Permanent system of population registration established
• Linchpin for administering urban China, with identity and services – food, employment, health care – tied
• Differentiated citizenship: Urban vs. Rural divide institutionalized

• Introduced during Yan’an period before 1949
• Complete political history of employee: class background, occupation status, political punishments, etc.
• Basic record maintained by personnel (nomenklatura) system

Two distinct stages:

• Land reform: class struggle destroyed economic and political foundation of local elites
• Collectivization: Consolidation of land into village-wide farms, farmers as laborers in rural organizations overseen by party-state

• Violent struggle: 800K landlords killed
• Decline of rural elites and the rise of new village governance
• Classifying peasants as rich, middle, or poor peasants
• Groundwork for later campaigns to collectivize agriculture

• Greater equality and promotion of the interests of the poor
• Campaign against class enemies and political opponents
• New village governments extending state power into grassroots
• Local notables – merchants, literati, etc. – as intermediaries with imperial gov