China Past Paper Questions

Communities turned on individuals to identify them as rightists, in order to fill Mao's 1 in 10 quota

1) Establish his position as leader, gain/maintain authority and power

2) Promote and establish communism, in all of China, purging 'counter revolutionaries', eliminate threat, security,  enables CCP to rule more effectively

1) Criticisms went too far – Mao felt threatened and they undermined his authority (he was personally criticised). Creating non-communist ideas.

2) Internal pressure from the CCP. Party leaders felt vulnerable from the criticisms                               brought forward by the campaign.

1) Eradicate Four Olds

2) Reignite communist spirit/maintain power

Agree - Impact on education, only 1/3 received education up to 12 by 1981, blindly following Mao

Agree - Impact on family, forced to spy on and denounce own family, told Mao and Communism were their true parents, sent away to countryside after 5 years, famine and neglect

Disagree - Impact on arts and intellectualism, anything considered anti-revolutionary smashed and burned, 6186 acts of vandalism in Beijing in 1966, writers, intellectuals and teachers imprisoned and executed

Disagree - Impact on Tibetans, complete destruction of culture, Jokhang Temple (holiest shrine) converted to pigsty in 1966, 6/7000 monastries remaining, effects felt more deeply as very religious region

Disagree (Bonus)- Impact on healthcare, universities closed so shortage of doctors, barefoot doctors with 6 months training only option, couldn’t properly fulfil needs, 1 million trained by 1973

The Red Guards aimed to eradicate the Four Olds. They would burn temples and objects of cultural significance.

One of China's economic policies was the Great Leap Forward, which aimed to revolutionise China. Mao encouraged ordinary people to engage in small-scale industry

In order to undermine the progress of the Japanese, the GMD perused a scorched earth policy. This meant they blew the Yellow River dykes to stop the Japanese.

The CCP had the support of the people as a result of their military tactics. Their successful use of guerrilla tactics allowed them to defend China from the Japanese.

Deng tolerated the Democracy Wall at first, but eventually felt it had gone too far. In 1979, Deng imprisoned Wei Jingsheng for his campaign, which accused him of dictatorship.

The One Child Policy was introduced by Deng to help combat the issue of China's overpopulation. It encouraged families to have one child alone by providing those who complied with better housing and higher education priority and threatening those who didn’t with fines.

Deng expanded higher education as part of the Four Modernisations. He did this by sending thousands of students abroad to learn western technologies and industrial methods.

Agree - Propaganda and censorship, reinforced positive messages about CCP, democracy wall etc

Agree -

Disagree - Strength by control rather consent. People have little input into how China is run, rigid totalitarian society, Tiananmen square etc

Disagree -

Agree - Open Door Policy

Agree -

Disagree - Inflation, poor economy, people working two jobs, unemployment, sweatshops, 29 cities grain rationing in 1995

Disagree -

Agree - Higher Education

Agree -

Disagree - One Child Policy

Disagree -

One way in which Communist rule affected Tibet was the effective crushing of the Buddhist religion. Monasteries and temples were looted and destroyed: of over 6000 monasteries only seven were left by the end of the Cultural Revolution.

(Bonus) The Cultural Revolution attacked the Tibetan language. Grammatical ‘reforms’ were introduced to bring the Tibetan language closer to the spoken language of the Chinese people. As a result, it became incomprehensible when written down. a

Deng’s reform of education had the effect of making entrance into higher education fairer as the National College Entrance Exam was reintroduced in 1977. During the Cultural Revolution family or political connections were more important than ability; the reintroduction of the NCEE meant more students had a chance of progressing into higher education. This encouraged more people to apply and the numbers in higher education increased as students enrolled in Deng’s new universities. Some students even gained the chance to study abroad as Deng hoped they would bring Western knowledge of science and technology back to China.

Deng’s social policies restricted the freedom of couples. The ‘one-child family’ policy restricted choice on the number of children a family could have. Couples who accepted the policy gained benefits such as larger apartments; couples who went on to have another child were fined. Couples saw further restrictions as the legal age of marriage was increased by 2 years for both women and men. Deng hoped later marriage would further slow the birth-rate. Women and girls were particularly badly hit. In farming communities, girls were not wanted as they would eventually look after their in-laws rather than their own parents. This led to some couples resorting to infanticide and, as a result, gradually an imbalance in the number of women and men in China.

One way Dazhai Commune was important to the Chinese government was as an example of self-sufficiency. The people of Dazhai were supposed to have transformed the farmland around them through hard work rather than relying on government aid. This was important as after the failure of the Great Leap Forward farming had been seriously damaged in China, so the government used the Commune to inspire Chinese peasants to work hard themselves rather than expect help from the government.

Another way Dazhai was important to the Chinese government later in the 1960s was as a source of propaganda. During the Cultural Revolution Dazhai was held up as a ‘model commune’ and thousands of people visited it every day to see the peasants working, taking word back to their own villages about how happy and productive it was. This was important as it promoted an official government ‘line’ of how content people were at a troubled time in China’s history.

On one hand I agree that the Communists established control because of popular policies. Land reform in the early 1950s was popular because it allowed peasants to take revenge for their mistreatment by landlords at brutal struggle sessions, and redistributed land from the landlords to the peasants. As peasants made up the majority of China’s population at the time, land reform was important in increasing support for the Communists.

Many women in China also supported the Communist Party because their policies towards women gave them greater equality and opportunity, such as the 1950 Marriage Law which gave them equal rights to men and in 1953 women also gained equal voting rights. This gave the Party support and therefore control.

On the other hand, the Communists also used violence to establish control, so popular policies were not the only reason. The ‘mass campaigns’ of the early 1950s, like the Three-and Five-Antis, targeted people like the middle classes who were suspected of disloyalty to Mao. These people faced execution or being sent to the laogai prison camps. Fear of this treatment reduced opposition to the Communists.

Later in the decade the Anti-Rightist campaign targeted intellectuals who had spoken out against Mao. They were forced to take part in humiliating self-criticisms and many were imprisoned or even committed suicide under all the pressure. This removed people who had declared opposition to Communism and so strengthened Communist control through violence.

On balance, I think the Communists tried to establish control through policies that were popular with large groups in Chinese society, like peasants and women. They only used violence against smaller group