For IB and IGCSE History

1. From the Great Leap Forward to
the Cultural Revolution
1959-1965

2. December 1958
• Mao steps down as
Chairman of the
COUNTRY, but remains
Chairman of the
PARTY.
• Liu Shaoqi becomes
chairman of the
COUNTRY – AKA
President of China.

4. July 1959 Lushun Conference (AKA Lushan
Conference)
• Peng Dehuai wrote a letter to Mao criticizing
the Great Leap Forward.
• Mao circulated the letter to the whole Central
Committee
• Mao accused Peng of being a rightist, of
deviating from the general line and of echoing
criticisms the USSR was making.
• Peng was dismissed as Defense Minister and
placed under house arrest.
• Peng was replaced by Lin Biao

5. Peng Dehuai Lin Biao

6. Significance of Lushan Conference
• 6 million other party members were forced to
make self-criticisms, and many were dismissed
from the party.
• The Great Leap Forward continued (although the
backyard steel campaign ended) and policies
were slightly more sensible
• From this point, it was clear that even old
comrades and members of the politburo couldn’t
get away with open opposition to Mao.
• Incident inspired the 1961 play Hai Rui Dismissed
from Office by Wu Han (Historian and Deputy
Mayor of Beijing)

7. 1961 CCP quietly begins to undo the
policies of the Great Leap Forward
• Communal canteens abandoned.
• Peasants allowed to cultivate private plots.
• Financial incentives introduced for peasants and
industrial workers.
• Several state run enterprises closed.
• Rural markets permitted.
• Communes gradually disbanded.
• Many of the “rightists” purged in 1957-8 were
rehabilitated.

8. “China needs intellectuals, needs scientists. For
all these years they have been unfairly treated.
They should be restored to the position they
deserve.”
- Vice President Chen Li

9. 1961: Opera version of Wu Han’s Hai
Rui Dismissed from Office comes out.
• This was a play about a Ming dynasty official who was
dismissed (and sentenced to death) for giving honest
criticism to the emperor. (The emperor died before the
sentence could be carried out.) The opera was a hit in
China, especially after Mao praised it.
• In 1965 Yao Wenyuan denounced the work, saying that
it was an obvious allegory of the Peng Dehui dismissal.
Wu Han was arrested and later died in prison at the
age of 50 in 1969. He was posthumously rehabilitated
in 1979. Yao Wenyuan and the other members of the
Gang of Four launched the Cultural Revolution, aimed
at purging Chinese culture of anti-communist
influences.

11. 1962: Beginning of Third Five Year Plan
• Designed by Chen Yun (a self-taught economist
who had also criticized the Great Leap forward,
but somehow avoided being lumped in with Peng
Dehui), with the support of Deng Xiaoping, Liu
Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai.
• Centralized planning instead of the decentralized
planning of the communes
• Targets reviewed every year making them
realistic and flexible.
• Continued with financial incentives for workers
and peasants.

12. Results of the Third Five Year Plan
• By 1965, agricultural production had
recovered to pre 1938 levels.
• Light indstry expanded 27%.
• Heavy industry expanded by 17%.
• Oil production increased 1000% and natural
gas by 4000%, meaning China no longer had
to import oil and gas from the USSR, which
was good, because the relationship with
theUSSR had broken down.

13. January 1962: Mao calls a conference
to warn against “revisionism”
• 7000 party members attended, but instead of
agreeing with Mao that the party was in
danger of drifting away from its socialist
ideals, Liu Shaoqi made a speech praising Mao
for his correct leadership, but adding that “It
is necessary to point out that the primary
responsibility for the shortcomings and errors
in our work in these past few years lies with
the Party centre.”

14. January 1962 conference (continued)
• This forced Mao to make a somewhat self-critical speech:
“Any mistakes that the centre has made ought to be my direct
responsibility, and I also have an indirect share of the
blame because I am chairman of the Central Committee. I
don’t want other people to shirk their responsibility. There
are some other comrades who also bear responsibility, but
the primary person responsible should be me.”
Mao did not get the support he wanted and he felt humiliated
and threatened. He withdrew from public life for a few
months.

15. June 1962 Deng Xiaoping’s famous
quote:
“It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white; so
long as it catches the mouse, it is a good cat.”

16. 1962 Liu Shaoqi advocates improving
relations with the USA and USSR.
1962 Summer Conference: Mao makes a speech
attacking the “capitalist road” being taken by
Liu and Deng, calling it “revisionism”.
• Liu and Deng responded by agreeing with
Mao, but continuing their economic policies
quietly.

17. 1964 Socialist Education Movement
AIMS
2)Aimed at teaching everyone about the virtues
of Socialism
3)Aimed at stamping out corruption in the
countryside – ie abuses by officials in charge
of grain requisitioning, allocating labour,
accounting, etc.

18. 1964 Socialist Education Movement
METHODS
Mao had wanted “the masses” to conduct
nationwide struggle sessions against party
officials. Instead, Lui sent thousands of party
members form the cities were sent to the
countryside to learn from the peasants about
the virtues of manual labour and to
investigate rural officials. Thousands of
officials were executed and many more
committed suicide.

19. 1962-65 Mao works increasingly
closely with Lin Biao
• 1963: Lin Biao compiles
Mao’s Quotations in to
the “Little Red Book”
and distributes it to the
army
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/

20. 1962-65 Mao works increasingly
closely with Lin Biao
• Number of party
members in PLA
increased.
• Political
indoctrination,
especially reverence
for Mao emphasized.
• 1965 – Ranks
abolished.

21. 1963 Diary of Lei
Feng published
• Lei Feng was a dedicated
communist from
childhood, completely
selfless and devoted to
the cause. He was a
member of the
Communist youth League,
and he joined the PLA
transportation corp at the
age of 20. At the age of 22
in 1962, he tragically died
in an accident. Lei Feng, Chinese propaganda poster. The
caption reads: Follow Lei Feng's example;
Love the Party, Love Socialism, Love the

22. 1963 Diary of Lei
Feng published
• The Diary details Lei
Feng’s many good deeds.
• Chinese people, especially
the youth, were
encouraged to follow Lei
Feng’s example. This
movement has outlasted
Mao.
Lei Feng, Chinese propaganda poster. The
caption reads: Follow Lei Feng's example;
Love the Party, Love Socialism, Love the

23. Excerpts from
the Diary of Lei
Feng
21 October, 1960:
"I found comrade Wang Yan
sitting apart watching
everyone eat lunch. He
answered, 'This morning I ate
two boxes, so I didn't bring
any food.' So I took my own
lunch box and gave it to him
to eat. Even though I was a
little hungry, letting him eat
his fill was my greatest
happiness...'"

24. Excerpts from the Diary of Lei Feng
"...I thought, a
newly-established
people's
commune will
certainly have
many problems. I
am a PLA soldier,
so I must use real
actions to provide
help. Thinking of
these things, I
went to the bank
and withdrew 200
yuan...."

25. Excerpts from the Diary of Lei Feng
"Only by understanding
revolutionary truth can one
become a good soldier for
Chairman Mao. I want to actively
study Chairman Mao's works.
Sometimes I won't put down my
studying even in the bathroom.
The army mandated lights-out at
9:00, so I bought a flashlight and
study under my covers..."

26. Excerpts from the Diary of Lei Feng
"I've studied all of the
documents from the 8th
Plenary Session of the CPC 8th
Central Committee, and I
thought to myself, what can I
do for the People's
Commune? If I collect manure
for fertilizer, I can collect
more than 500 pounds in a
month and send it to the
commune. If the commune
wants to figure the money, I'll
say that I don't have any gift
to give to the commune; this
manure is my gift"

27. Excerpts from the Diary of Lei Feng
"Our comrade Qiao
Anshan is less educated
than other people. He
doesn't have enough
confidence in his studies.
His head hurts whenever
he studies math. He
doesn't bring a notebook
to class, and sometimes
skips classes. One day, I
had him do homework,
but he said his pencil
had gotten lost. I gave
him mine, and helped
him staple together an
homework notebook.
This got to him - his
enthusiasm for his
studies gradually
improved, and his test
scores weren't that
bad.”

28. November 1965
Yao Wenyuan (radical leftist
theatre critic in Shanghai and
member of the now infamous
“Gang of Four”) criticizes Hai Rui
Dismissed from Office. (Wu Han
was jailed a few months later.
He died in prison either from
suicide, TB or the effects of
beatings in 1969.)
Mao moves to Shanghai

29. Dramatis Personae

30. Mao’s Wives
1) Liu Yixiu (1889-1910) A marriage arranged by
Mao’s father in 1907 when she was 18 and
Mao was 14. Mao never acknowledged it. He
left for university and lived as a single man.

31. Mao’s Wives
2) Yang Kaihiu (1901-1930): Daughter
of Mao’s favourite professor at
teaching college. Married Mao in
1920 when Mao was 27. Captured
by the GMD in 1930 and tortured to
death in front of her eight-year-old
son, refusing to denounce her
husband and the CCP. She bore Mao
three sons, one of whom was lost in
the civil war, the eldest killed in the
Korean War and the middle one was
afflicted with mental illness and
died in 2007.

32. Mao’s Wives
3) He Zizhen (1909-1984) Mao’s third
wife. She married him in 1930 when
she was 21 and Mao was 37. (I get the
impression he was already living with
her when the news of his second wife’s
death came). She was an expert on
guerrilla warfare. She was part of the
Long March, during which she had to
abandon most of her children to be
raised by peasants. This, combined
with her husband’s frequent affairs
seems to have affected her badly. In
1937 she was sent to Moscow to be
hospitalized for mental illness. Mao
remarried in 1938.

33. The Gang of Four: Jiang Qing
1914-1991
Mao’s fourth wife - a former film actress from
Shanghai. She married him in Yan’an in 1939. In
1966, Lin Biao appointed her to coordinate the PLA’s
cultural policies. She made it her goal to eradicate
“feudal and bourgeois” art forms and replace them
with Socialist art forms. For instance, she insisted
that the entire canon of Chinese opera be replaced
with the “Eight Model Operas”. She used her
position as Mao’s wife to push through radical social
policies on his behalf and to attack his enemies. After
his death, she was arrested, blamed for the excesses
of the Cultural Revolution and sentenced to death.
The death sentence was commuted to life in prison.
She committee suicide in 1991. During her trial, she
refused to acknowledge the authority of the court.
When the sentence was read , she yelled out “I was
Mao’s dog. Whoever he told me to bite I bit.”

34. The Gang of Four: Zhang Chunqiao
1917-2005
Shanghai writer and journalist whose
radical articles helped publicize the
ideology of the Cultural Revolution.
He led the Shanghai revolutionary
committee during the Cultural
Revolution. In 1969 he was appointed
to the Politburo. In 1975 he was
appointed second deputy Prime
Minister. After Mao’s death, he was
arrested and sentenced to death
(commuted to life in prison).

35. The Gang of Four: Yao Wenyuan
1931-2005
Shanghai literary critic who criticized the
play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office in a
Shanghai newspaper in November 1965,
kicking off the Cultural Revolution.
During the Cultural Revolution, he was
an active member of “Proletarian Writers
for Purity” and he edited the “Liberation
Daily” newspaper in Shanghai. In 1969 he
was appointed to the Politburo. After
Mao’s death in 1976 he was arrested and
sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.

36. The Gang of Four: Wang Hongwen
1935-1992
Born in Manchuria (then Manchukuo).
He served in the Chinese army during the
Korean war and then was sent to
Shanghai to work as a security guard
There he met Zhang Chunqiao and
became one of the first Red Guards. He
was appointed to the Politburo in 1969
and became Vice Chairman of the party
in 1973, third in rank after Mao and Lin
Biao.

37. Lin Biao (1907-1971)
One of the top generals in the PLA. He was the son of a small landlord, but
joined the Socialist Youth League in 1925. He attended Whampoa Military
Academy, where he became a protégé of Zhou Enlai. He graduated in 1927
at the age of 18 and was immediately pressed into service in the Northern
Expedition. By 1927, he was a colonel . After the Shanghai massacre, he
joined Mao and Zhu De in Jiangxi. He performed brilliantly during both
phases of the Civil War and during the war against the Japanese. After the
purge of Peng Dehui in 1959,
he became defense minister
of China. He worked closely
with Mao. He compiled Mao’s
quotations into the “Little Red
Book” and made all soldiers
study them. After the purge of
Liu Shaoqi, he was appointed
Mao’s second in command
and successor.

38. Lin Biao (1907-1971) contnued
Mao’s physician believed that Lin was
mentally unbalanced. He seems to
have spent some time in some sort of
medical treatment in the 1950s. In
1971 Mao hinted that he thought Lin
was getting too power-hungry. It
seems that at that point Lin decided to
try to overthrow Mao. The plot was
discovered and Lin tried to flee in a
‘plane. The ‘plane went down in
Mongolia because it ran out of fuel. Lin Biao’s defection was so
embarrassing for the CCP that they waited nearly a year before
announcing it. They the launched a “Criticize Lin Biao and
Confucius” campaign. This abrupt about-face disillusioned a lot of
Chinese people about the Cultural Revolution and the CCP.

41. The Cultural Revolution
1966-76

42. Zhu De 1886-1976
Son of wealthy landlord in Sichuan, he participated in
the 1911 revolution. When Yuan Shikai suppressed the
GMD, he was forced into exile. From 1916-1922 Zhue
De became a warlord and struggled with drug
addiction. In 1922, he travelled to Europe where he
met Zhou Enlai. He returned to China in 1926. After
1927 he was the military commander of the Jiangzi
Soviet. He played an important role in coming up with
the tactics of guerrilla warfare. He was so important
that he and Mao were collectively known as “Zhu
Mao”. He was one of the leaders of the Long March
and led the PLA until 1954. From 1954 to 1967 he was
deputy chairman of the People’s Republic of China and
Chairman of the National People’s Congress. In 1967
he was denounced by Red Guards and dismissed from
his positions, but he was not harmed or imprisoned. He
seems to have been protected by Zhou Enlai. In 1971,
he was restored to his positions.

43. Zhou Enlai (1898-1976)
Born into a wealthy well educated family that fell on
hard times, Zhou won scholarships to study in Japan,
China and Paris. He was active in the anti-Japanese
campaign during the May Fourth movement. He
joined the Communist Party in Paris in 1922 and was
active in organizing his fellow Chinese students
studying in Europe to support the CCP. In 1924, he
returned to China and was put in charge of the CCP
military affairs. During the United Front, he was on
the staff at the Whampoa Military Academy under
the command of Chiang Kaishek. Zhou never
seems to have trusted the GMD. He set about recruiting as many
soldiers and officers as possible to the CCP, keeping their enrollments
secret. When Chiang dismissed the known communists from the army,
Zhou set about organizing labourers in Shanghai. He managed to
escape the Shanghai terror in 1927. From 1928-29 he was in the USSR.
In 1931 he moved to Jiangxi and, with the support of the Comintern
largely displaced Mao as leader of that base and the party.

44. Zhou Enlai (continued)
In 1935 at the Zunyi conference, he threw
his support behind Mao and thereafter
deferred to him as leader of the party. He
negotiated the Second United Front with
Chiang Kaishek in 1937. From 1949-1976 he
served as China’s Prime Minister and Foreign
Minister. During the Cultural Revolution, he
is credited with protecting relics like the
Forbidden City and individuals like Deng
Xiaoping and Zhu De from the worst
excesses of the Red Guards. In 1975, the
Gang of Four began to direct their sights on
him, but he died in January 1976, before
they could do any serious damage. There
was a huge outpouring of mourning, with thousands of wreaths being
placed in Tiananmen Square. This was interpreted as a veiled protest
against the government.

45. Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997)
In 1919, at the age of 15, Deng was sent with a
group of students to study in France. He ended up
working in factories in Paris, where he converted to
Socialism and met Zhou Enlai. He became a leading
member of the CCP youth branch in Europe. In 1926
he studied in the USSR and then returned to China.
He attempted an uprising against the GMD in
Guangxi province and then moved to the Jiangxi
Soviet. He held important positions during the Long
March, the war against Japan and the Civil War. He
supported Mao in the anti-Rightist Campaign.
During the Great Leap Forward, he served as
General Secretary of the Secretariat, working closely
with Liu Shaoqi. From 1959 onwards he and Liu
quietly undid most of the impractical policies of the
Great Leap Forward. When Mao

46. Deng Xiaoping (continued)
launched the Cultural Revolution, Deng was
denounced as a capitalist roader and forced to
resign his offices and move to Jiangxi to work as
a labourer in a tractor factory. In the meantime,
his son, a student at Beida was targeted by Red
Guards, tortured and thrown (or driven to jump)
from a fourth floor window. He is now a
parapalegic. When Lin Biao died in 1971, Deng
became the most respected surviving former
military leader, which increased his influence.
When Zhou Enlai became ill with cancer in 1974, he talked Mao
into bringing Deng back and making him deputy Prime Minister.
Deng worked to restore the economy while being careful to
express loyalty to Mao Zedong thought. In 1975, he was targeted
along with Zhou Enlai. After Zhou’s death, Deng was blamed for
the Tiananmen incident and withdrew from public life. He was

47. Deng Xiaoping (Continued)
saved further persecution by
Mao’s death in 1976. Over
the next few weeks, he
emerged as the de facto
leader of China (although his
position was unofficial). He
ended the Cultural
Revolution, and opened
China to the west and to
capitalistic economic policies.
On the other hand, he was
also the leader during the
Tiananmen Incident of June 4
1989.

49. Peng
Dehuai