China is now a communist country. But that hasn’t always been the case. Mao made China a completely different country than it was before. He introduced communism that was a very unique variant of traditional communism.
The last emperor of China
Until 1912, China still had an emperor who ruled a dynasty. After a number of uprisings, Puyi abdicated and Sun Yat-sen became the first provisional president of the Republic of China. Sun Yat-sen wanted to turn the country into a democracy, but the imperial army stopped him from doing so. Moreover, when the commander of that army died, China entered a period of anarchy. Various warlords then controlled different parts of China. In the south, Sun Yat-sen ruled.
Establishment of the Chinese Communist Party
In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was founded. In 1923 he joined the Nationalist Party of Sun Yat-sen and his close associate Chiang Kai-shek. After Sun Yat-sen’s death, Kai-shek became party leader in 1925. He banned the Communist Party. The communists then fled to the west and moved north through the mountains of central China. This march led by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai was called The Long March.
Japanese farmers joined the Chinese communists
Meanwhile, Japan conquered large areas of China. In Japan the peasants were greatly oppressed. They therefore joined the Chinese communists. However, when Japan was defeated by China, the differences between the nationalists and the communists surfaced again. In 1949, the Nationalists were almost completely defeated by the Communists. Some of the Nationalist Party fled to Taiwan and established a Nationalist government there. In this way the Republic of China was continued on Taiwan. In China itself, the communists proclaimed the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. The relationship with Taiwan is negative from that year onwards, because it is still considered the territory of communist China.
The People’s Republic of China
In the first years of his rule, Mao focused on rebuilding the economy and securing communist political power. The government was also built up. The land was redistributed and the generals had to hand over their land to the rest of the population. However, this process cost an incredible number of lives. More than 2 million people died as a result of the violence used. In 1956, all industries became part of the state. From 1953 onwards, it was enshrined in the constitution that the Communist Party was confirmed as leading.
Mao
Mao was both party chairman and head of state from 1949 to 1959. At first Mao was supported by the West, but when China started supporting North Korea, that changed. When the West was at war with North Korea, China and the rest of the world were diametrically opposed to each other. As a result, the country became isolated. It wasn’t until 1954 that that changed. Then the armistice in Korea was a fact and the Geneva Conference on Indochina was ratified.
Mao’s own version of communism and the failed Great Leap Forward
Mao developed his own variant of communism. It is clear that he himself played a very important role in this. From 1959 onwards, Mao introduced the Great Leap Forward, which was intended to ensure that industry and agriculture were brought to a higher level. However, this failed completely and resulted in a huge famine. At least a million people died. Because the Great Leap Forward completely failed, Mao also became less popular and he gradually withdrew from politics as head of state from 1959, but remained a member of the government. He was succeeded by:
- Liu Shaoqi
- Deng Xiaoping