By Lynne Ann Hartnett, Villanova University
On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong stood in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, in front of the Forbidden City, the spot from which the Chinese emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties had ruled China for centuries. He announced that China would now be led by a people’s democratic dictatorship; it would be based upon an alliance between Chinese workers and peasants.
Era of Communist China
Declaring victory over the recently exiled Chiang Kai-shek and his Guomindang nationalists in a civil war that had enveloped China for more than two decades, Mao announced that the era of communist China had begun.
In making his announcement, Mao recognized the struggles that his people had endured on their way to this moment. He noted that for the past 28 years, since the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, he and his comrades had “had to fight enemies, both foreign and domestic, both inside and outside the Party”. Mao went on to “thank Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin for giving [the Chinese communists] a weapon”. The weapon was “not a machine gun”, he said, but rather “Marxism-Leninism”. The rule of emperors, foreign interests, warlords, and corrupt republican leaders was a thing of the past in the new People’s Republic of China.
Socialist State in China
Mao and the communists had their hands full when they came to power. The People’s Republic began its existence with an empty treasury and its economy in a shambles. Also, while Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalists had fled the mainland for Taiwan, they asserted that they were the legitimate Chinese government, and most Western powers agreed.
A few years earlier, the United States general and diplomat George Marshall had tried to broker a peace between the nationalists and the communists while serving as a special envoy to China. For a time, his efforts had looked promising. But a shared government was not in China’s future. Instead, encouraged by the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, Mao chose to lean towards the Soviets, away from the United States.
The anti-communist US Senator Joseph McCarthy went so far as to excoriate what he termed “the criminal folly of the disastrous Marshall Mission”. But Mao recognized an ideological kinship with the Soviets. And as he began to forge a socialist state in China—a rural country mired in the ruins of a civil war—the task struck him as similar to what the Bolsheviks faced after their own revolution three decades earlier.
This article comes directly from content in the video series The Great Revolutions of Modern History. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
‘People’s Democratic Dictatorship’
When the communists established their ‘People’s Democratic Dictatorship’ in 1949, Mao claimed that 10% of the population owned nearly 80% of the land (although he had little backup for that claim). With remarkable speed, the Communist Party seized much of that land and distributed it to 300 million peasants. In turn, impoverished peasants, after a lifetime of exploitation, gladly took part in overthrowing the old order, including the murders of former landlords. The party itself targeted landlords and members of the bourgeoisie as class enemies.
In its founding documents, the People’s Republic of China balanced a commitment to the freedoms of thought, speech, assembly, and the press with a vow to ‘suppress all counter-revolutionary activities’. Loyalty to the country became synonymous with the active support of the revolutionary ideals as stipulated by the ruling cadre.
‘Rectification’ Campaign
Full inclusion in the polity was bestowed only on those whose lifestyle and philosophy coincided with what the ruling Communist Party deemed appropriate. Increasingly as one would see, one man—Mao Zedong—defined and judged what was acceptable.
As for reactionary elements, they were deprived of political rights and punished severely, though they were also given the opportunity to reform themselves through physical labor. The new communist regime targeted class enemies through a ‘rectification’ campaign that required citizens to publicly confess to their ideological failings and self-doubts. Those deemed insufficiently contrite found their way to newly established labor camps.
External and Internal Challenges
But Mao had to contend with external as well as internal challenges. The Korean peninsula, divided between a communist north occupied by Soviet forces, and a capitalist south occupied by American troops, erupted in civil war in June 1950 as north invaded south. Four months later, in October 1950, Chinese forces entered the conflict, thereby bringing the country into confrontation with a US-led United Nations force.
On the surface, the idea that China’s newly established communist regime should get involved in an international conflict so soon after its own revolutionary war seemed ill-advised. But Mao’s maneuver proved instrumental in consolidating the support of the Chinese people for his regime, and simultaneously at projecting Communist China as a regional power in Asia, and as a new diplomatic force to be reckoned with on the world stage.
Mao argued that with American forces on China’s border, the country and its communist revolution were in peril. His anti-imperialism rhetoric helped arouse Chinese patriotism and revolutionary fervor. In official publications and propaganda, the government used the Korean conflict to issue calls for unity and sacrifice. Chinese workers donated some of their wages to the cause, while peasants worked overtime to increase production.
Common Questions about Mao’s ‘People’s Democratic Dictatorship’
The People’s Republic of China began its existence with an empty treasury and its economy in shambles. Also, while Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalists had fled the mainland for Taiwan, they asserted that they were the legitimate Chinese government, and most Western powers agreed.
When the communists established their ‘People’s Democratic Dictatorship’ in 1949, Mao claimed that 10% of the population owned nearly 80% of the land (although he had little backup for that claim). With remarkable speed, the Communist Party seized much of that land and distributed it to 300 million peasants.
The new communist regime targeted class enemies through a ‘rectification’ campaign that required citizens to publicly confess to their ideological failings and self-doubts. Those deemed insufficiently contrite found their way to newly established labor camps.
