Question

describe the role of Mao from 1949-1978?

Answer 1

A GOOD START…
The first years of the China under Mao rule was greeted with relief and joy after decades of conflict. With moral confidence, the CCP got off on a good start—ridding the streets of prostitutes, gangs and opium dens. Women were given a better deal too—granted equal status and the right to divorce (pre-arranged marriages also banned).


Mao with Stalin

During the first decade, China received support from Soviets—modeling their industrial, banking and commercial nationalizations on their system (the two countries would later break relations after a series of bitter ideological and territorial conflicts).

…BUT THINGS QUICKLY TURN UGLY…
Soon the Revolution starts to sour after Mao launches a series of purges and mass-campaigns that went savagely awry (culminating with the horrors of the Cultural Revolution). Large numbers were displaced, imprisoned or executed. Between 1949 and Mao’s death in 1976, somewhere between 40-70 million Chinese died prematurely under his rule (largely through famine).

Turning inward, China would remain isolationist until about 1972.

1950: The PLA reasserts Chinese control over Tibet. The teenaged 14th Dalai Lama (the current one) becomes a Chinese figurehead ruler.

1952: Mao begins Rural Collectivization. Based on a Soviet-style 5 year plan for economic growth, individual land-ownership is abolished and replaced with co-operatives (of about 200-300 families).
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