how successul was Mao in dealing with problems facing China
Uploaded by tatendamashanda on Aug 21, 2012
TATENDA MASHANDA
HISTORY ASSIGNMENT.
How successful was Mao Zedong in dealing with the problems facing China.
Mao Zedong was the sun in the sky .He is considered the greatest leader in Chinese history. Mao revived China from its medieval backwardness and transformed it to a modern nation.When Mao came to power China had enormous problems which he had to deal with. There was vast unemployment, economic backwardness, chaos in the party infrastructure, agriculture was inefficient to feed the hunger stricken and impoverished society. Mao adopted the Cultural Revolution, adopted the 1950 constitution, five year plan, collectivization and the hundred flowers campaign to deal with these problems befalling dealt with the problems of China. This essay is going to explore how and to what extent did Mao Zedong dealt with problems of China.
When Mao came into power there was a problem of refining a shuttered economy in terms of agriculture and unemployment.Ineffecient private farms were grouped into large cooperatives farms through the process of collectivization .Firstly the land was redistributed equally among the peasants and land owners. These joint farm ownerships as argued by Jack Gray were formed with a remarkable degree of attention and reasoning unlike in Russia where they were forced. Grain production was improved and farmers were equipped with new farming methods which were efficient enough to provide food for the people. The chronic food shortages which China was suffering from were dealt with .Since new technology in farming improvised it also resulted in China being lifted from economic backwardness. Agricultural mechanization was improved and the standard of living of Chinese respectively .Mao liberated China from economic exploitation, he freed it from its Confucian past and the rate of economy was growing at an average annual rate of 11-15 percent. He managed to create industrial infrastructure that laid the basis for economic transformation which took place during the reign of Deng Xiaoping.
As argued by Dongping Han Mao’s progress in the industrial society was a weapon designed to preserve communism. At the same time improving the state and improving the ideologies of communism .The Great leap forward which Mao embarked on in 1958 was seen as a means of building the industry and integrating the rich and the poor. He allowed industrial growth through people’s dominated communes which were mainly controlled by the peasants. He was now guaranteed of support. Mao began by nationalizing most private owned business .in...