History of the People's Republic of China from Mao's death to 1981

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After Mao Zedong's death , Hua Guofeng came to power in the People's Republic of China . But already in 1977 Deng Xiaoping's influence on the country's politics increased and in 1981 Hua Guofeng was removed from his last offices.

Situation after Mao's death

Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976. Before his death, he had appointed Hua Guofeng as his successor as a compromise candidate without any major domestic power of his own. It quickly became apparent, however, that the group around the Maowitwe Jiang Qing and the group around Deng Xiaoping were not developing a compromise, but a dispute between the military and the people's militias. As it turned out, the so-called Gang of Four around Jiang Qing had little to oppose the alliance around Deng, senior military officials and Hua and was arrested on October 6, 1976. ( see: Ending the Cultural Revolution )

Hua Guofeng was then awarded the key positions of party chairman, prime minister and chairman of the military commission. Hua did not want a major revision of the Cultural Revolution, but rather leave everything as it was. The expression of these efforts was his “Zwei Allespolitik”, which stated that all of Mao's teachings and instructions had to be continuously implemented. Hua wanted to prevent Deng Xiaoping's return to politics. On March 13, 1977, he called for the criticism of Deng to continue, but had to give in to the majority of the party leadership. Deng was rehabilitated in May and reinstated in his previous offices in July. Hua Guofeng was confirmed as party chairman at the party conference in August 1977. After failures in economic policy, Hua was gradually ousted and from the 3rd plenary session of the eleventh Central Committee in December 1978, Deng's group dominated with a new economic policy. Many victims of previous campaigns were rehabilitated from 1979 onwards, by 1987 2.4 million judgments from the period 1949 to 1976 were overturned.

Huas economic concept

As early as December 1976, Hua submitted a rebuilding program that adhered to the old principles and again, in the spirit of the Great Leap, set unrealizable goals. The four main points were

  • To establish "Dazhai-type circles" across the country. Dazhai was Mao's model commune.
  • To increase the grain harvest to 400 million t by 1985
  • Expansion of 12 high-performance grain areas
  • By 1985, 85% of the main work in agriculture should be mechanized.

The ten-year plan (1976 to 1985) that Hua presented at the first plenary session of the fifth people's congress in February 1978 was characterized by similarly exaggerated goals. By the year 2000, China was to be transformed into a “modern, industrial, socialist superpower” through “four modernizations”. The plan had the following priorities:

  • The basic and heavy industries take precedence over agriculture, which is given the second priority. The light and consumer goods industries are only in third place.
  • The strict central planning, which is to be expanded more comprehensively than ever before, is given the highest priority.
  • The population should be motivated to perform through a general system of performance wages and material incentives.
  • In the interests of rapid modernization, high budget deficits and loans from abroad are accepted, if necessary.

The plan called for the creation of 120 major industrial projects, including 10 steelworks and 30 new power plants. 10 new oil fields should be developed. Steel production as the "main chain link" in economic development should be increased from 31 million t to 60 million t. In fact, in 1985 steel production of 46 million tons was achieved.

Deng's rise to power

From the spring of 1978 Deng began to build up opposing positions to Hua and broke one basic rule after another.

  • On March 18, 1978, he called for the work of intellectuals to be recognized at the National Science Conference. Science is the most important productive force of all, and scientists are not “bourgeois intellectuals”, but “brain workers” who are indispensable for China.
  • On March 28, 1978, Deng called for a return to the merit principle.
  • On April 5, 1978, the Central Committee decided to rehabilitate the so-called “Right Elements” and to remove them from the registers of the security offices. “Right elements” warn the 540,000 people who were accused of “deviating from the right” in the 1957 campaign. Since then, they have been officially stigmatized as deviants and have been disadvantaged by the state.
  • On April 22, 1978, Deng called for the reintroduction of advanced schools, examinations and the imparting of specialist knowledge at the state education conference. The teachers' salaries should be improved.
  • In May, Deng passed the slogan at a national conference of political commissioners that no doctrine or ideology could be the norm for the truth. The norm of truth must be sought in reality, later abbreviated to the slogan: "Seek the truth in the facts." A clear demarcation from the glorification of "Mao Zedong's thoughts".

In October 1978 Deng's group ensured that the possibilities for political criticism in the cities were greatly expanded and the population was called on to criticize via wall newspapers. This was the starting shot for a movement in which from November 1978, for example, in Beijing on the Wall of Democracy Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist Party, Marxism-Leninism and also Hua Guofeng were massively attacked. The criticism continued to grow and was, completely surprising for many, in April 1979 by Deng, sometimes violently, ended again. From Deng's point of view, the movement had done its job. The degradation of the Maoists, especially Hua Guofeng.

In December 1978, at the 3rd plenary session of the eleventh Central Committee, Deng took stock of the turbulent times after Mao's death. He said: "Thirty years of self-sufficiency forced our minds into isolation. We have over ten years in which our horizons were limited and we behaved very arrogantly. We sat in a well and thought that the sky was as big as the opening of the well Then the door was opened and everything went crazy. The economy reared like an unbridled horse. Politically, the wall newspapers and the demonstrations completely upset us.… In summary, I have to say that it was our experience was missing. ... Another cause of the problems was that there was not enough time and we could only insufficiently prepare. The burden that we put on ourselves was too heavy. ... "

Deng's line was confirmed and further expanded at the same plenary session. Eleven recently rehabilitated members from Deng's area were elected to the Central Committee and one of Deng's closest collaborators, Hu Yaobang, was accepted into the Politburo along with three other supporters of Deng's course. Deng had finally prevailed with his course. The three core resolutions of the plenary were that the focus of the work of the Communist Party should be shifted from class struggle to modernization of the country, that the cult of personality should be abolished and that agriculture should be given priority. Furthermore, the economy should be diversified, this means the dismantling of the priority of the "main chain links of the economy" steel and grain. In place of the previous personality cult, socialist democracy and the socialist legal system should be expanded. A rule of law instead of personal rule was given as the goal.

At the 4th plenum in September 1979 and at the 5th plenum in February 1980, Deng's group was able to expand its base. In the highest political body, the Standing Committee of the Politburo, Deng's policy was now represented by four members, two members could not be tied to one of the two lines, but Hua was now alone with his position.

Dengs modernization concept

In April 1979 the Huas modernization concept was replaced by the reform and opening policy under the leadership of Deng. Hua's concept was successful at the beginning, but it often corresponded to a “barrel ideology” and the quality was often insufficient. Alarming was the national deficit of 15.5% in the national budget in 1979 and foreign trade deficits of 1 billion US dollars in 1978 and 2 billion US dollars in 1979. In 1979 this corresponded to 14.7% of China's export volume.

Hua's concept has been replaced by a concept based on the following principles.

  • Priority of the light and consumer goods industry over agriculture and over basic and heavy industry.
  • In addition to the central planning of the economy experimental decentralization in individual companies of the light industry as well as at the village level in agriculture.
  • Complement the wage level system for material incentives with limited private sector initiatives in agriculture and the service sector.
  • Constant but controlled and selected technology imports from the economically highly developed industrial countries.
  • Strict budget discipline.

The reorientation towards Mao

Reorientation of rural policy

The transformation of the economy until 1984 mainly affected agriculture. Three quarters of all Chinese people lived in rural areas and, because of their experience of the past decades, followed the instructions of the party cadres with passivity and cynicism. The urgently needed increase in production was slow. For the farmers, things had gone back rather than forward since the mid-1950s. However, increases in production in rural areas were urgently needed because, according to official figures, around 100 million Chinese still did not have enough to eat in 1977. Successes in agriculture were essential for further reform steps.

With two fundamental decrees, the incomes of the rural population were improved overall. The purchase prices for agricultural products were increased, the prices for machines, artificial fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides were lowered and agricultural ancillary trades were supported. Favorable loans were given for further development.

Organizationally, responsibility was delegated downwards. The role of the production groups was strengthened in relation to the production brigades and the people's communes. The people's communes themselves performed almost only administrative tasks. Most of the restrictions on private family ancillary activities have been abolished and the share of private land in usable space has increased from 5 to 7% to 10–12%. The free markets in the villages were no longer subject to restrictions and the farmers were able to sell their surplus goods in the markets in the cities.

From April 1980 onwards, farmland was also leased to production groups of a few families or to single families. The system was similar to the “Three Guarantees and One Reward” system introduced in the early 1960s. As part of the “production responsibility of the individual households”, the tenants had to assure the production brigade that they would deliver a fixed amount of a named product to the production brigade after the harvest. The surplus remained with the tenant, failure to meet the obligations could be punished. Instead of the previous subordination of the individual farmer to the instructions of the head of the production team, there was a contractual relationship in which the rights and obligations of both sides were precisely regulated. For example, such a contract looked like this:

lease agreement

  1. The leaseholder receives the following parcels of land from the production team: ...
  2. The leaseholder receives the following cattle and equipment from the production team: ...
  3. The tenant undertakes to deliver the following products at the end of the harvest season:
    • Grain:… kg
    • Pork: ... (precise definition)
    • In addition, weekly:… eggs
  4. The date is set by ....
  5. The products that are generated beyond the quota are freely available to the tenant.
  6. The leaseholder receives from the production team at preferential state prices:
    • Fertilizer:… kg
    • Insecticides:… kg
    • Herbicides:… kg
    • The output is determined by the committee ....
  7. The household is committed to the one-child policy.
  8. Should the household fail to meet its obligation ... set the penalty. The lease household accepts that in such a case the lease land can be withdrawn.
  9. If the production team does not meet their obligations, the leasing household can call ...

Since the lease periods were often fixed at 15 years, the situation for the tenant was similar to that of real estate. This system was spread across China in 1981.

In the new constitution of 1982, the people's commune was further reduced in its function. In essence, she was only responsible for larger factories and irrigation systems. Tasks that were too big for the individual production teams.

The system of "production responsibility of individual households" also had the following principles:

  • The property rights to the land remained with the collective.
  • Tenants were not allowed to hire workers or sublet any land.
  • The production group had to ensure the food supply for cadre families, soldiers' families and the staff.
  • Collective-owned businesses and workshops were to be continued.
  • The production group was responsible for performing collective tasks, e.g. B. irrigation, and was able to recruit farmers.

The treaty system was a success for both the government and the peasants. The urgently needed increase in agricultural production was achieved and the farmers were able to increase their income by 13.7% in the five years from 1981 to 1985. A new problem came up again and was lamented by the left. Community tasks such as infrastructure measures or health services took a back seat to the newly stimulated private interests.

Realignment of industrial policy

In the industry, the multi-tier incentive pay system was reintroduced and the decision-making freedom of directors expanded. In the spring of 1979 they were given extensive powers to make purchasing and selling decisions. In November 1979, prices were released for over 10,000 products. However, sharp price increases forced a partial return to fixed prices in 1980/81. From the winter of 1979/80 onwards, private companies were again permitted in the service sector. Officially, however, they were still run under the designation "collective company". From July 7, 1981, the private individual companies were officially approved again.

Overall, in contrast to the extensive changes in agriculture, the reforms in industry up to 1984 were still small. First, the successes in agriculture were awaited and then gradually progressed in industry.

Educational policy

In educational policy, a strict performance principle was once again introduced with the aim of providing specialist training without political indoctrination. For the first time since the beginning of the People's Republic, scholarships were given to students for study abroad.

The new four "basic principles of the state"

From the spring of 1979 protests and oppositional currents increased. As early as January 1979, thousands of impoverished farmers demonstrated to improve their situation; on the other hand, many young people sent to the countryside demonstrated for their return to the cities. On March 29, the Beijing city government banned any further demonstrations. The general boundaries for political activity were then made known, later defined as "the four basic principles" in politics. These basic principles are socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the party and the thoughts of Mao Zedong .

In late November 1979, the democracy wall in downtown Beijing was dismantled and the constitutionally guaranteed right to publish wall newspapers was abolished in the summer of 1980.

Democratization

The reduction of overconcentration in the administration was approached under the catchphrase “democratization”. The reduction in overconcentration was addressed through the following changes:

  • Better separation of party and administration

The dominance of the party committees in the factories was abolished. Deng emphasized that the task of the party committees in the factories was to support management in its work and not to impose regulations on management. As a rule, the tasks of the party committees should be directed towards the outside, for example towards authorities, internal specialists have to say that.

  • Decentralization of responsibilities to the local levels

As much as possible was centralized under Mao. Under the catchphrase “democratization”, a lot was shifted back to the classic basic units, the Danweis, and operational autonomy was strengthened.

  • Expansion of the legal system

Under Mao, the class struggle character of law was always emphasized. The “class enemy” did not have the same rights as the members of the “people”. Until 1979 there were hardly any laws in China, and when they were, they were applied differently or not at all. There was no criminal or civil law. Judgments were made by party cadres in the name of the popular masses, appeals were not possible. In order to build a modern industry, however, it was essential that clear rules were established. A criminal law and code of criminal procedure based on German law were adopted as early as 1979.

Despite the structure of the legal system, the courts remained dependent on the state, which could legally interfere in all processes. In addition, the penalties issued by the administration for “education through work” (laojiao) remained in place.

Reconstruction of the VBA

Under Mao the dogma of the “inevitability of war” was valid and the People's Republic was created through the People's Liberation Army in the civil war. The reputation and influence of the military in the party was correspondingly high. In 1969, Lin Biao, the country's top soldier, was declared successor to Mao in the state constitution, and almost half of the members of the party's central committee were military. With the realignment of China, the influence and function of the military was significantly restricted. In 1978, 30% of the members of the Central Committee were military, in 1985 only 9%. With the reform decisions in 1978, the "reorganization of the military" was determined to be one of the four main tasks. The reform reduced the army by a million soldiers, but on the other hand modernized it. A modern armed army was to emerge from the people's army of simply armed soldiers.

Politically, the army was re-assigned to the “normal” place in China, in which the army was viewed as a necessary evil but not particularly viewed. According to the catchphrase “A good person does not become a soldier”. The People's Army was no longer "the nation's school".

The status of the intellectuals

The intellectuals, that is everyone with a higher education in China, were classified under Mao, even behind the eight other categories of class enemy, as the "stinking nines". This has been massively changed. The “bourgeois intellectuals” became “workers in white coats” who were courted as a particularly important class for the modernization of China. The relationship between the party and the writer remained ambivalent. Politicians only grudgingly accepted the fact that the writers withdrew from serving the current political direction.

The replacement of Hua Guofeng as party chairman

After Hua's loss of power in the Politburo, Hua was subjected to violent attacks in November and December 1980. The Politburo decided that although Hua could remain in office until the 6th plenary session of the Central Committee in June 1981, he would de facto immediately relinquish his offices to his successors, Hu Yaobang as chairman of the Central Committee and Deng Xiaoping as chairman of the military commission . For the first time in the history of the People's Republic of China, there was a change of power without violence. However, with Hua's resignation, the opposition to Deng's policies did not disappear. The economist Chen Yun criticized Deng's economic course of "free competition" and Marshall Ye Jianying opposed the restructuring of the military. On March 6, the party newspaper reported on factions in the party leadership, and in June 1981 Deng failed to elect Hu Yaobang as chairman of the military commission.

Reinterpretation of the Mao Zedong ideas

The realignment of China raised the question of how to deal with the much vaunted "ideas of Mao Zedong". It was decided not to discard the Mao Zedong ideas, but to reinterpret them for the new use. First of all, Mao's “left errors” were presented, e. B. Exaggerations in the class struggle, leveling, stenciling of thinking. In a next step, the “real Mao Zedong ideas” were worked out. This included e.g. B. the four-class alliance (workers, peasants, intellectuals, bourgeoisie), connection between technicians, workers and management, the blooming of a hundred flowers, the two types of contradictions, ie contradictions in the system and contradictions to the class enemy. In the last step, the "true Mao Zedong ideas were developed. These were the" search for truth in the facts ", the mass line, the independence of China and the dogma that the Communist Party was the leader of China. In this way the Mao Zedong ideas equated with Deng's ideas.

Official verdict on Mao

In February 1980 the Central Committee set up a committee to review Mao's role in the history of the People's Republic of China. At the 6th plenum of the Central Committee in June 1981 this committee presented its judgment, which was unanimously adopted. Mao's mistakes were admitted, but the verdict was mild overall. Mao's "mistakes" have been reduced to decisions made during the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution. While the document admitted that the Cultural Revolution was due to Mao's wrong leadership, it identified the errors as those of a great proletarian revolutionary. "While making grave mistakes," the report states, "he still believed that his theory and practice were Marxist, and therein lies his tragedy."

Mao's mild judgment was not surprising. Already in the run-up to this report, in October 1980, Deng had given a direction: "We can avoid confusion by distinguishing between the thoughts of Mao Zedong and his ideas in the last years of his life."

The demonization of the "Gang of Four"

While the verdict on Mao's "mistakes" was very cautious, Jiang Qing's group was turned into scapegoats. There was hardly any outrage that Jiang Qing was not credited with or blamed on, but it was not allowed to mention that the Cultural Revolutionaries were actually only tools of Mao. In November 1980 the show trial of the "Gang of Four" and six military officials began. It ended on January 25, 1981 with the death penalty for Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao , the former Shanghai party leader, albeit with a suspended sentence, as well as long prison terms for the other defendants. Other deceased leading cultural revolutionaries were subsequently expelled from the party and their remains were removed from the honorary cemetery of the Chinese leadership elite.

The "Great Rehabilitation"

In addition to the demonization of the cultural revolutionaries, a program for a broad-based rehabilitation was launched from 1979. First the prominent victims of the Cultural Revolution were rehabilitated, e. B. Peng Dehuai and Liu Shaoqi , for whom official funerals were held. Above all, countless small victims of past campaigns were rehabilitated. These were members of the "national Bourggoisie", landowners, rich peasants, "counter-revolutionaries", "bad elements" and the "deviants", whose group had grown to two million people since 1957. A total of 2.4 million judgments from 1949 to 1976 were overturned between 1979 and 1987. The party admitted that for decades it had harmed millions of people through misjudgments.

China five years after Mao's death

In 1981, five years after Mao's death, Hua Guofeng lost his last political office. Hua, who wanted to continue Mao's policy as unchanged as possible, was history. While the new line had found its way into agriculture, not much had happened in industry. As long as the leadership of the Communist Party was not called into question, the political climate was freer and mass campaigns against any population groups were no longer to be feared. The formerly insulted and backed-up scientists became courted working people. But one thing had improved only a little: China was and remained a very poor country. According to official figures, 100 million people still went hungry.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Uli Franz : Deng Xiaoping - Eine Biographie, Heyne Sachbuch, 1987, page 289
  2. ↑ Robert Heuser Current State of the Chinese Legal System, page 142
  3. ↑ Uli Franz : Deng Xiaoping - A biography; Heyne Verlag Munich, 1987, page 300
  4. ^ Oskar Weggel: History of China in the 20th Century. Kröner, 1989, p. 320.