1. China Under Mao
Essential Question: How did life in
China change under Mao’s rule?

2. Mao set about building a Communist China. His first
concern was rebuilding a country that had been torn
apart by years of civil war.
•Communist ideas shaped the new government.
•Mao changed China’s political and economic systems.
•His government discouraged the practice of religion.
•The government also seized the property of rural
landowners and redistributed it among peasants.
•By 1957, China’s small industrial output had doubled.
•Early efforts to build the economy were successful.
•Improved economy and reduced poverty

3. China Modeled on Soviet Union
• The Soviet Union provided financial support and aid in
China’s first years.
• China modeled many of its new political, economic, military
policies on the Soviet system.
• In the 1950s, territorial disputes and differences in ideology
pushed China away from its Soviet ally.
The Great Leap Forward
• In 1958, in the break from Soviet-style economic planning,
Mao announced a program designed to increase China’s
industrial and agricultural output.
• The Great Leap Forward created thousands of communes,
collectively owned farms, of about 20,000 people each.
• Each commune was to produce food and have own small-scale
industry

4. The Great Leap Forward
Planning Disaster
China Virtually Isolated
• The plan was a disaster; small
commune factories failed to
produce the quantity and
quality of goods China needed.
• Failure of the Great Leap
Forward led to criticism of
Mao.
• A combination of poor weather
and farmers’ neglect led to
sharp drops in agricultural
production.
• Famine spread through rural
China; tens of millions starved
to death between 1959 and
1961.
• Soviet criticism and the
withdrawal of Soviet
industrial aid widened the
rift between the two
Communist nations.
• By the early 1960s, relations
had broken down
completely; China was
virtually isolated in the
world community.

5. The Cultural Revolution
New Movement
• In the mid-1960s, Mao tried to regain power and prestige lost after Great
Leap Forward.
• He initiated a new movement called the Cultural Revolution, which sought to
rid China of old ways and create a society where peasants, physical labor were
the ideal.
Red Guards
• The campaign meant eliminating intellectuals who Mao feared wanted to end
communism and bring back China’s old ways.
• Mao shut down schools, encouraged militant students, called the Red Guards,
to carry out work of Cultural Revolution by criticizing intellectuals and values.
Destruction of Society
• Mao lost control; The Red Guards murdered hundreds of thousands of
people; by late 1960s, China was on the verge of civil war before Mao
regained control.
• The Cultural Revolution reestablished Mao’s dominance, caused terrible
destruction; civil authority collapsed and economic activity fell off sharply.

6. The Cultural Revolution
New Movement
• In the mid-1960s, Mao tried to regain power and prestige lost after Great
Leap Forward.
• He initiated a new movement called the Cultural Revolution, which sought to
rid China of old ways and create a society where peasants, physical labor were
the ideal.
Red Guards
• The campaign meant eliminating intellectuals who Mao feared wanted to end
communism and bring back China’s old ways.
• Mao shut down schools, encouraged militant students, called the Red Guards,
to carry out work of Cultural Revolution by criticizing intellectuals and values.
Destruction of Society
• Mao lost control; The Red Guards murdered hundreds of thousands of
people; by late 1960s, China was on the verge of civil war before Mao
regained control.
• The Cultural Revolution reestablished Mao’s dominance, caused terrible
destruction; civil authority collapsed and economic activity fell off sharply.