The Maoist Years in China

Loyal parents who sacrificed so much for the nation
Never feared the ultimate fate.
Now that the country has become Red,
Who will be its guardians?
Our mission, unfinished, may take a thousand years;
The struggle tires us, and our hair is gray.
You and I, old friend,
Can we just watch our efforts being washed away?
--Mao Zedong, poem to Zhou Enlai in 1975, months before both died


1921 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) founded. Mao Zedong one of 12 delegates to the "First Congress" of the CCP. Urges Party leaders make rural revolution central. 1923 CCP joins Sun Yat-sen's Guomindang (KMT), plans made for united "Northern Expedition" against regional rulers to re-unify China.

1927 Chiang Kai-shek orders massacre of communists and militant workers in Shanghai, first of a series of attempted purges. Mao retreats to mountains to organize peasant struggle against landlords in villages, builds PLA membership.

1934 Long March. Mao leads 10s of 1000s of troops and Party members westward to escape KMT troops. Only 8,000 of original marchers arrived at their base in Yan'an, Shaanxi.

1934-1949 Yan'an Period. Mao and his officials organized peasants in more moderate land reform experiments, guerrilla resistance and new alliance with KMT against Japanese invasions, worked out plans for a new China.

mid-1940s Civil War with KMT. CCP organizes diverse experiments in land reform; rural revolutionary methods increasingly scripted, ritualized, yet in places violence spins out of control.

1949 Communist victory, "Liberation" of China, Mao declares the establishment of PRC. (click for video). Begin decade of Sino-Soviet exchange. Soviets send 10,000 advisors to China, Chinese students study in Moscow.

1950 'Resist US, aid Korea" war. Chinese troops enter Korean war in response to N. Korean request for aid. In 1951 the UN declared China to be an aggressor in Korea and sanctioned a global embargo on the shipment of arms and war material to China.

1950-51 Campaigns against counter-revolutionaries.

1952 Land Reform campaign. The redistribution of land was accelerated, and a class struggle landlords and wealthy peasants was launched. An ideological reform campaign requiring self-criticisms and public confessions by university faculty members, scientists, and other professional workers was given wide publicity. Artists and writers were soon the objects of similar treatment for failing to heed Mao's dictum that culture and literature must reflect the class interest of the working people, led by the CCP.

1953 Begin agricultural collectivization. First mutual aid and coops in rural villages.

1951-56 PLA troops march into Lhasa, Tibet. Mao pursues "gradualist" policy in TAR, urges PLA and Han cadres to "make friends and do good", respect local customs. At same time, Chinese begin massive infrastructure construction in Tibetan regions.

1954 First National People's Congress. The congress promulgated the state constitution of 1954 and formally elected Mao chairman (or president) of the People's Republic; it elected Liu Shaoqi (1898-1969) chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress; and named Zhou Enlai premier of the new State Council.

1955-56 Sino-Tibetan relations in TAR and eastern Tibetan regions deterioriate. CCP treats other Tibetan regions as part of other provinces, land reforms and other attempts at forced assimilation implemented there. Men in Khams and Amdo take to mountains in revolt, try to organize guerrilla campaign of resistance, refugees flee to Lhasa.

-------------------------------Socialist "High Tide"-------------------------

Breeze shakes the masts
While Tortoise and Snake Hills are motionless,
A grand project is being conceived--
A bridge will fly across
And turn a barrier into a path.
To the west new cliffs will arise;
Mount Wu's clouds and rains will be kept from the countryside.
Calm lakes will spring up in the gorges.
Were the goddess still alive
She would be amazed by the changes on this earth.
----poem by Mao Zedong after he swam the Yangtze river, June 1956. (click for image and song).

1956 Mao presents his "12 year Agriculture program" to provincial leaders and State Planning Commission as way to encourage a "leap forward" (ch. yuejin) in agriculture production. Production units are urged to increase agricultural production and meet state-set targets under the slogan, "More, faster, better, more economically".

1956-7 Hundred Flowers and Anti-rightist Campaigns. As part of the effort to encourage the participation of intellectuals in the new regime, cultural and intellectual figures were encouraged to speak their minds on the state of CCP rule and programs. Mao personally took the lead in the movement, which was launched under the classical slogan "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let the hundred schools of thought contend". At first the party's repeated invitation to air constructive views freely and openly was met with caution. By mid-1957, however, the movement unexpectedly mounted, bringing denunciation and criticism against the party in general and the excesses of its cadres in particular. Startled and embarrassed, leaders turned on the critics as "bourgeois rightists" and launched the Anti-Rightist Campaign, resulting in a year-long purge of party members, sending officials "down" to the countryside (xiafang), and persecuting intellectuals who spoke out against the party.

1958 Great Leap Forward. Mao and his supporters consolidate their control gained during the anti-rightist campaign to oppose party "revisionists" arguing for more gradual reform and attempt to mobilize the country quickly and achieve pure Communism in one step. Rural communes established, mass kitchens, day care organized, women encouraged to work, industry emphasized. All ethnic customs, dress, language discouraged. Results were disastrous, an estimated 20-25 million people die of hunger in subsequent famines.

1959 Party conference at Lushan. Mao's policies criticized by Minister of National Defense Peng Dehuai. Peng later deposed and replaced by Mao supporter Lin Biao. Mao steps down, on political sidelines in semiseclusion.

1960 Soviets withdraw support from China.

1964 China tests first nuclear bomb.

1961-65 In an effort to stabilize the economy, the party--still under Mao's titular leadership but under the dominant influence of Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Peng Zhen, Bo Yibo, and others--initiated a series of corrective measures. Recognizing public apathy, leaders deemphasized rhetoric of mass movements.


The thought of Mao Zedong is the sun in our heart, the root of our life, and the source of all our strength. Through it one becomes unselfish, daring, intelligent, and able to do anything; no difficulty can conquer him, while he can conquer any enemy. The thought of Mao Zedong transforms men's ideology, transforms the fatherland... Through it the oppressed people of the world will rise. -- PLA newspaper, 1966.

1966-1972 The "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution". In order to re-establish his power in Beijing, Mao and supporters launch attacks against "rightist" elements in the party, especially faction led by Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi. Mao spurs his cult of personality and encourages radical youth to organize (as "Red Guards") and destroy the "elites", launches "Destroy the 4 olds" Campaign. Red Guard factional fighting sends country into anarchy.

Feb. 1972 President Richard M. Nixon's visit; Sino-U.S. diplomatic relations re-established.

1973 Mao makes last official appearance at Party's 10th congress. Ailing and feeble, he retired to seclusion at his residence in old imperial section of Beijing.

Jan. 8, 1976 Death of Zhou Enlai at age 78, China's Premier, and indefatigable statesman who worked to stabilize the country after the Cultural Revolution.

Apil 5, 1976 April 5th Movement: April 4 100's of 1000's of people came to Tiananmen square in Beijing to pay respects to Zhou Enlai in defiance of govt. ban on traditional festival of Qingming. Govt. workers remove wreaths and posters, and enraged citizens protest the next day. Some posters, poems likened Mao to tyrannical emperors. Deng Xiaoping blamed and removed from office.

September 9, 1976 Death of Mao Zedong at age 82. His widow, Jiang Qing, tries to maintain radical policies.