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Bernstein, Thomas P. “Mao Zedong and the Famine of 1959-1960: A Study in Wilfulness.” The China Quarterly, no. 186, 2006, pp. 421–45. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20192620. Accessed 16 Mar. 2023.

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Fengyuan, Ji. “Language and Violence During the Chinese Cultural Revolution.” American Journal of Chinese Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, 2004, pp. 93–117. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26393633. Accessed 17 Mar. 2023.

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To what extent did Mao’s revolution of 1949 improve the lives of the Chinese people from 1949-1969?

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To what extent did Mao’s revolution of 1949 improve the lives of the Chinese people from 1949-1969?

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Interview: China’s Great Famine Years ‘Were an Era of Cannibalism’
RFA, Shi Shan, 11.22.2013
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/cannibalism-11222013104349.html

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"Chinese Cultural Revolution Starts a Wave of Repression, 1966-1976." DISCovering World History, Gale, 2003. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ2105240807/SUIC?u=san74543&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=b0de661d. Accessed 13 Mar. 2023.

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LI, CHOH-MING. “What Happened to the Great Leap Forward?” Challenge, vol. 11, no. 10, 1963, pp. 4–7. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40718606. Accessed 15 Mar. 2023.

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Mao Zedong." Gale In Context Online Collection, Gale, 2023. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/RGIFZQ193887316/SUIC?u=san74543&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=c4872f58 Accessed 13 Mar. 2023.

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Mao Zedong was the founder of the Communist Party of China and led the Chinese Communist Revolution. Mao Zedong was a passionate Marxist who wanted to bring China under a communist party. Mao incited revolution among the peasants in China, and formed the Red army. Mao Zedong temporarily allied with the Kuomintang to defeat Japan during WW2. After Japan was defeated, civil war resumed and Mao Zedong and his Red Army took over and made China a Communist nation. Mao would go on to attempt to increase production of manufactured and agricultural goods through collectivization, which was not successful. This was called the Great Leap Forward, and resulted in famine and starvation all across China, resulting in the deaths of millions.

“As chairman of the CPC, Mao immediately started instituting social and economic reforms throughout China. The central government took control of all industry and forced farmers onto collective farms, where they would share equally in production. Objectors to Communist policies were arrested and imprisoned or executed.

In 1958, Mao initiated the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960). This was an intensive program aimed at greatly increasing China’s agricultural and industrial productivity. The hard push, however, actually decreased production among the farmers and led to rampant famine and starvation and the deaths of millions of peasants. Amid the backlash of the Great Leap Forward, Mao gave up his position of head of state in 1959 and focused instead on generating new ideologies for China’s future.” -Gale

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Shabad, Theodore. “China’s ‘Great Leap Forward.’” Far Eastern Survey, vol. 28, no. 7, 1959, pp. 105–09. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3024027. Accessed 15 Mar. 2023.

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Interview: China’s Great Famine Years ‘Were an Era of Cannibalism’ (Primary)

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Interview: China’s Great Famine Years ‘Were an Era of Cannibalism’ (Primary)

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In an interview with Harry Wu, he recalls his own memories about the Great Leap Forward and how it caused the Great Famine in China, where tens of millions died. In his personal account, we learn of the dark and horrific circumstances that the Chinese people faced in sacrifice for Mao Zedong to attempt to make China a world superpower.

‘In 1960 [during my time in labor camp], two things had a huge impact on me. One was hunger. There was no grain. I was right down to 80 pounds.... But I wasn't doing too badly. At least I was alive. The dead were being carried out every day. And the living were coming in and waiting to die. Nobody cried, shouted, or kicked up a fuss throughout the entire prison camp. People just lay there in the quiet. They didn't know if they were waiting for their next meal or waiting to be carried out dead.

The second thing was that one night, when we were asleep, back in 1960, a large number of people burst in. They were farmers. Back then, the rules said that farmers ... couldn't be arrested. They set up tents in the courtyard, and slept there, each close up against the other in rows, like sardines in tins, with their quilts over the top of them. After eight hours, they would get up and take the watch, while the others slept there.

But I never once thought about eating people. I never heard of anyone in a starving state killing someone to eat them, even someone who would probably die the next day. Never.

Because there's a very clear line between starvation and cannibalism.... How can people eat their own children, or eat dead people?’ -Harry Wu

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Mao Zedong and the Famine of 1959-1960: A Study in Willfulness (Secondary)

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Mao Zedong and the Famine of 1959-1960: A Study in Willfulness (Secondary)

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This journal article explains Mao Zedong and his role during the famine that he caused. During these years, many people became sick and starved because of the lack of food and care for the people of China. Mao Zedong was focusing on increasing production in wealth in China, and would do so at the expense of the lives of the Chinese people.

‘Mass famine engulfed numerous villages by late 1959, but the full impact was felt only from early 1960. They also show that during the Leap years excess mortality above the level of 1957 totaled about 15 million people. Widely cited estimates put the number of excess deaths at 30 millions people or even more. There were enormous provincial variations.’ -Thomas Bernstein

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What Happened to the Great Leap Forward? (Primary)

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What Happened to the Great Leap Forward? (Primary)

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In this article, Chou-Ming Li discusses the goal of the CCP to make China a self sufficient economic superpower. Their goal was also in increase their military might, which could be done by industrializing the country and producing more machinery and making more technological advancements. We see the increase of production and work force, but it acknowledges the hardships and difficulties China later faced, however does not go into specifics.

“By the close of the first five-year plan China possessed, for the first time, industries manufacturing airplanes, automobiles, machine tools, electrical generating equipment, foundry and mining equipment, high-grade steel alloy and heavy chemicals. Over the span of five years China’s self-sufficiency in the production of machinery and equipment had probably increased from 50 to 60%…

For instance, it was reported that 90 per cent of all the equipment for the First Tractor Manufacturing Plant in Luoyang (a project built with Soviet help) was manufactured in China”
-Choh-Ming Li

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China reportedly had doubled their crop yield during 1958, and claimed to have improved their agricultural techniques. China began to improve all aspects of farming, from soil improvement to new tools. This newspaper article is a primary source and goes in depth about all the statistics about The Great Leap Forward.

“Perhaps China's most spectacular gains in 1958 were achieved in the output of crops. The Chinese reported the doubling of yields per unit area in many crop cate- gories, arousing the skepticism of some Western ob- servers. The remarkable yield increases were attributed by the Chinese to application of an eight-point pro- gram of agricultural techniques, calling for soil im- provement, fertilizer, water conservancy, seed selection, close planting, plant protection, field management and tool reform.” -Theodore Shabad

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Chinese Cultural Revolution Starts a Wave of Oppression (Secondary)

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Chinese Cultural Revolution Starts a Wave of Oppression (Secondary)

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After forming the Red Guard in order to hopefully cleanse and get rid of any opposition to Mao’s rule, he realized that the Red Guard had gotten out of hand. They began to attack and kill Chinese civilians as they pleased. The original purpose of the Red Guard was to weed out anti socialist ideology from Chinese culture and completely reform China from it’s past.

“Following Mao's pyrrhic victory via the Red Guards (1966-1968) came the second of the revolution's three stages, dominated not by the Red Guards but rather by the PLA—the stabilizing force between the Red Guards and the Chinese workers. By August of 1968, Mao had organized the Worker-Peasant Mao Tse-tungPropaganda Teams to disband the Red Guards, which by then were plagued with factional fighting and anarchy. Mao's vague tirade against "reactionary" elements was permission enough for the Red Guards to wreak violence on nearly 10 percent of the Chinese population (bureaucrats, those with foreign connections, and unpopular professors were particularly targeted). Suicides (after Red Guard harassment), public humiliations (for example, the cutting of girls' long hair, the forcing of public retractions, and the wearing of dunce caps), and murders became commonplace. By 1969, Mao had halted the excesses of the revolutionaries by sending them all home or to the fields to work with the peasants. With the assistance of his wife, JiangQing, and her associates, Mao launched the Campaign to Purify Class Ranks (1967-1969). Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping had already been removed from the highest ranks of the CCP, paving the way for its restructuring.”
-Gale

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Language and Violence During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Secondary)

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Language and Violence During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Secondary)

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During China’s Cultural Revolution, many acts of violence and torture were committed in order to purge China of those who went against Mao’s ideology. Mao established the Red Guards, which were meant to cleanse China of many of its own intelligent people in order to wipe out any previous Chinese culture. The Red Guard was poorly managed and went on sprees of killing and beating.

‘Whatever the true figure, the deaths represent only a tiny fraction of the violence, for most of those attacked were beaten or tortured, but not killed. The victims included disproportionate numbers of teachers, intellectuals, people with 'bad' class backgrounds, and cadres — of whom some 60-80 percent were purged. The Red Guards who attacked these groups also suffered terribly. Many were killed or injured in battles with opposing factions; and very large numbers died, often coldly executed, when Mao used armed force to restore centralized control from mid-1968.’ -Ji Fengyuan