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TWENTIETHCENTURY WORLD HISTORY

D

UNIT D

The Chinese Revolutions

1949-1989

ContentsFront CoverTitle PageUnit Introduction for TeachersCalifornia History-Social Science Standards CoveredBibliographyKey TermsPart One Teacher’s GuidePart One Student WorksheetsPart Two Teacher’s GuidePart Two Student WorksheetsPart Three Teacher’s GuidePart Three Student WorksheetsPart Four Teacher’s GuidePart Four Student WorksheetsPart Five Teacher’s GuidePart Five Student WorksheetsPart Six Teacher’s GuidePart Six Student WorksheetsPart Six Teacher’s GuidePart Seven Student WorksheetPart Six Teacher’s GuidePart Eight Student WorksheetsList of ImagesAcknowledgmentsBack Cover

PLEASE SEE NOTES ON THE PDF, PAGE 3.

Front Cover

The Chinese Revolutions 3

A publication of Humanities Out There and the Santa Ana Partnership (including UCI’s Center for Educational Partnerships, Santa Ana College, and the Santa Ana Unified School District).

Copyright 2005 The Regents of the University of California

By Alan Rosenfeld, Department of History, The University of California, IrvineTeacher Consultant, Lorraine Gerard, Century High School, Santa Ana

Faculty Consultant, Kenneth Pomeranz, Professor of History, The University of California, IrvineManaging Editor, Tova Cooper, Ph.D.

The publication of this CD has been made possible largely through funding from GEAR UP Santa Ana. This branch of GEAR UP has made a distinctive contribution to public school education in the U.S. by creating intellectual space within an urban school district for students who otherwise would not have access to the research, scholarship, and teaching represented by this collaboration between the University of California, the Santa Ana Partnership, and the Santa Ana Unified School District. Additional external funding in 2004-2005 has been provided to HOT by the Bank of America Foundation, the Wells Fargo Foundation, and the Pacific Life Foundation.

THE UCI CALIFORNIA HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE PROJECTThe California History-Social Science Project (CH-SSP) of the University of California, Irvine, is dedicated to working with history teach-ers in Orange County to develop innovative approaches to engaging students in the study of the past. Founded in 2000, the CH-SSP draws on the resources of the UCI Department of History and works closely with the UCI Department of Education. We believe that the history classroom can be a crucial arena not only for instruction in history but also for the improvement of student literacy and writing skills. Working together with the teachers of Orange County, it is our goal to develop history curricula that will convince students that history matters.

HUMANITIES OUT THEREHumanities Out There was founded in 1997 as an educational partnership between the School of Humanities at the University of Cali-fornia, Irvine and the Santa Ana Unified School District. HOT runs workshops in humanities classrooms in Santa Ana schools. Advanced graduate students in history and literature design curricular units in collaboration with host teachers, and conduct workshops that engage UCI undergraduates in classroom work. In the area of history, HOT works closely with the UCI History-Social Science Project in order to improve student literacy and writing skills in the history classroom, and to integrate the teaching of history, literature, and writing across the humanities. The K-12 classroom becomes a laboratory for developing innovative units that adapt university materials to the real needs and interests of California schools. By involving scholars, teachers, students, and staff from several institutions in collaborative teaching and research, we aim to transform educational practices, expectations, and horizons for all participants.

THE SANTA ANA PARTNERSHIPThe Santa Ana Partnership was formed in 1983 as part of the Student and Teacher Educational Partnership (STEP) initiative at UC Irvine. Today it has evolved into a multi-faceted collaborative that brings institutions and organizations together in the greater Santa Ana area to advance the educational achievement of all students, and to help them enter and complete college. Co-directed at UC Irvine by the Center for Educational Partnerships, the collaborative is also strongly supported by Santa Ana College, the Santa Ana Unified School District, California State University, Fullerton and a number of community based organizations. Beginning in 2003-2004, HOT has contributed to the academic mission of the Santa Ana Partnership by placing its workshops in GEAR UP schools. This unit on The Chinese Revolutions reflects the innovative collaboration among these institutions and programs.

CONTENT COUNTS: A SPECIAL PROJECT OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIESThis is one in a series of publications under the series title Content Counts: Reading and Writing Across the Humanities, supported by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Content Counts units are designed by and for educators commit-ted to promoting a deep, content-rich and knowledge-driven literacy in language arts and social studies classrooms. The units provide examples of “content reading”—primary and secondary sources, as well as charts, data, and visual documents—designed to supplement and integrate the study of history and literature.

LESSONS IN WORLD HISTORY

Title Page

The Chinese Revolutions 3

UNIT INTRODUCTION FOR TEACHERS

This unit is designed to famil-iarize students with the broad arc of Chinese political history from the rise of the Chinese Com-munists through the Tiananmen Square Uprising, including the ascent of Mao Zedong, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution (California History-Social Science Content Standard 10.9.4).

The unit’s title draws atten-tion to the fact that there was not just one Chinese Revolution. In addition to the initial political revolution that brought the Chi-nese Communist Party to power in 1949, China subsequently underwent a state-sponsored industrial revolution (the Great Leap Forward) in the late 1950s, and the Cultural Revolution—a period of mass mobilization of the nation’s youth—in the late 1960s.

Through asking students to engage in a close examination

of primary sources—such as contemporary photographs, political propaganda posters, firsthand participant-observer accounts, and excerpts from political speeches and published platforms—this unit hopes to provide the students with a deeper understanding of the major historical developments of late-twentieth-century China as they were experienced at the individual, familial, and commu-nity levels. Themes addressed in this unit include an examination of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempts to transform the political sensibilities of China’s vast peasantry; the challenges therein posed to traditional Chi-nese gender relations; the turmoil caused by the implementation of utopian social projects (such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution); and the development of a political cult around the personage of Chair-

man Mao Zedong. Rather than offering comprehensive coverage of each of the pertinent historical events under examination, which would not be feasible in such a limited space, the objective here is to engage our students’ natural thirst for learning by introducing them to the relevant terms and concepts and the central areas of historical discussion and debate. All of the materials contained in this unit are user-friendly, ready to be photocopied immediately and distributed to students with-out any additional preparation required on your part. We have also included valuable lists of books, films, and internet re-sources that provide either prac-tical background information or materials that can be adapted easily for use in your high-school classroom.

WORLD HISTORY: 1949-1989


NOTES ON THE PDF:1) Please note that in this pdf document the page numbers are two off from the printed curriculum. For example, page 2 in the printed curriculum is now page 4 in this pdf document.

2) We apologize if some of the hyperlinks are no longer accurate. They were correct at the time of printing.

3) Full-page versions of the images in this unit—some in color—can be found at the back of this pdf.

4) You can easily navigate through the different parts of this document by using the “Bookmark” tab on the left side of your Acrobat window.

Unit Introduction for Teachers

4 Lessons in World History The Chinese Revolutions 5

CALIFORNIA HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE STANDARDS ADDRESSED IN THIS UNIT

Skills: Grades Nine through Twelve

Chronological and Spatial Thinking Skills Students analyze how change happens at different rates at different times; understand

that some aspects change while others remain the same; and understand that change is complicated and affects not only technology and politics but also values and beliefs.

Historical Research, Evidence, and Point of View Skills Students distinguish valid arguments from fallacious arguments in historical

interpretations.

Students identify bias and prejudice in historical interpretations.

Students construct and test hypotheses; collect, evaluate, and employ information from multiple primary and secondary sources; and apply it in oral and written presentations.

Historical Interpretation Skills Students show the connections, causal and otherwise, between particular historical

events and larger social, economic, and political trends and developments.

Students interpret past events and issues within the context in which an event unfolded rather than solely in terms of present-day norms and values.

Students understand the meaning, implication, and impact of historical events and recognize that events could have taken other directions.

Content Standards: Tenth Grade

10.9 Students analyze the international developments in the post-World War II world. 10.9.4 Analyze the Chinese Civil War, with the rise of Mao Tse-Tung, and the

subsequent political and economic upheavals in China (e.g., the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the Tiananmen Square uprising).

California History-Social Science Standards Covered


Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY


Books

Cheek, Timothy. Mao Zedong and China’s Revolutions: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. Cheek has assembled a collection of primary documents that span the political career of Mao Zedong, from the Chairman’s early years as a political outlaw through his later years as China’s elder statesman. Cheek’s extended introduction provides a valuable overview of twentieth-century Chinese politics as well as a rich historical context for the primary-source documents that follow. Cheek’s book will thus serve as the perfect companion for a non-expert seeking a general overview of the most important themes and developments in modern Chinese history.

Chen, Yuan-Tsung. The Dragon’s Village. New York: Penguin Books, 1981. Based on the author’s real-life experiences as a teenager living through China’s Communist Revolution, Chen’s novel uses vivid imagery to depict the difficulties faced by the loyal Communist Party cadre as they confronted the local cultures and traditional attitudes prevalent in China’s more isolated rural areas. The plot follows the trials and tribulations of Ling-ling, an enthusiastic but naive teenage girl from a well-to-do Shanghai family who experiences culture shock while trying to institute Communist reforms in a tiny, male-dominated village in China’s Gansu Province. Chen’s book is pitched at an appropriate level for a tenth-grade AP History and Social-Science classroom.

Hoyt, Edwin P. The Rise of the Chinese Republic: From the Last Emperor to Deng Xiaoping. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989. In this book, Hoyt develops a narrative of twentieth-century China that moves from the final years of the Qing Dynasty through Sun Yatsen and the Nationalist Revolution; he then discusses the United Front against the Japanese invasion and the Communist Revolution, before moving on to the Great Leap Forward and China’s Cultural Revolution. Hoyt culminates his narrative with the death of Mao Zedong and the rise of his successor, Deng Xiaoping.

Lawrance, Alan. China Since 1919—Revolution and Reform: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. Lawrance has gathered an extensive compilation of primary-source documents that cover an eighty-year period of Chinese history, from the Nationalist and Communist Revolutions through changing relations with the United States and the Soviet Union in the decades following the Second World War. The author provides appropriate background information and historical context for each of the primary-source documents, which include excerpts from political speeches, platforms and treatises, contemporary newspaper articles, court statements, poems, and diary entries.

Lazzerini, Edward J. The Chinese Revolution. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. In an attempt to give insight into the ongoing phenomenon of the Chinese Revolution, Lazzerini examines the ideological framework of China’s great Communist Party leaders, focusing specifically on the political thought of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

Lotta, Raymond, ed. And Mao Makes 5: Mao Tsetung’s Last Great Battle. Chicago: Banner Press, 1978. Lotta has selected an assortment of primary-source documents (from official People’s Republic of China sources) that deal specifically with the final years (1973-1976) of Mao Zedong’s political career. These documents address the means by which the Communist Party Chairman and the so-called “Gang of Four” pressed for a continuation of revolutionary reform in the face of opposition by the Party’s bureaucracy and more conservative thinkers such as Chou En-lai.

Moise, Edwin E. Modern China: A History. New York and London: Longman, 1994. Moise’s text provides a useful but compact overview of twentieth-century Chinese political and social history.

Selden, Mark. China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995. A path-


breaking work when first released in 1971, this book is a culmination of archival research undertaken by the author in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States in the 1960s. Selden explores the development and crystallization of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) political system during the Yenan period (1937-45). He argues that it was during this period of anti-Japanese warfare that the CCP “successfully united a broad strata behind a mobilizational program of national resistance and socioeconomic and political reform.”

Soled, Debra E., ed. China: A Nation in Transition. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1995. This text provides a thorough overview of the evolution of Chinese society and culture in the twentieth century, as well as a detailed chronology of important historical events and a collection of primary-source documents.

Tignor, Robert, ed. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the Modern World from the Mongol Empire to the Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002. This college-level World History textbook is recommended for high-school teachers looking to gain more background knowledge. It also contains an abundance of abridged primary-source material for use in the classroom.

Film

Born under the Red Flag, 1976-1997. 1997. This film, the third in a three-part PBS documentary series, examines the transition of China’s political economy from the leadership of Mao Zedong to that of his successor, Deng Xiaoping.

China in Revolution, 1911-1949. 1997. This is the first film in a three-part PBS documentary series; it traces the revolutionary upheaval that began with the overthrow of China’s last imperial dynasty, persisted through the Nationalist years under Chiang Kai-shek, and culminated with the victory of the Chinese Communists in 1949.

Farewell, My Concubine (Ba Wang Bie Ji). Directed by Chen Kaige. 1993. This feature film follows the story of two performers in the Beijing opera, tracing their relationship across the tumultuous years of the Second World War and the Communist Revolution. It received Academy Award nominations in the categories of Best Cinematography and Best Foreign Language Film.

The Last Emperor. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. 1987. This masterpiece of cinematography received nine Academy Awards in 1988, including Best Picture and Best Director. The Last Emperor traces the life of the Chinese monarch Pu Yi, beginning with his childhood as an object of worship in the Forbidden City and following him through the years of the Nationalist Revolution, the Japanese invasion, the Communist Revolution, and his re-education in Communist China, where he spends his final days as a common rural laborer.

The Mao Years, 1949-1976. 1997. Part two of a three-part PBS documentary series, this film chronicles the efforts of Mao Zedong and his Communist Party comrades to transform the nation’s populace and build a “new China” through social and political experiments such as the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.


Electronic Resources

Asian Educational Media Service

www.aems.uiuc.edu/index.las

Produced by the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), this site helps educators locate valuable teaching materials, including documentary films, CD-ROMs, and slides.

ChinaSite

www.chinasite.com

Billing itself as “The Complete Reference to China/Chinese-Related Websites,” ChinaSite offers a thematically-organized compilation of live links to all things pertaining to China, with topic headings including “Chinese History,” “Photography and Pictures,” “Chinese Leaders,” “Culture,” and “Current Events.”

The China WWW Virtual Library: Internet Guide for Chinese Studies

http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/

A collaborative effort of Leiden University in the Netherlands and Heidelberg University in Germany, the China WWW Virtual Library provides a variety of resources for teaching Chinese History, including maps, images, timelines, and sound bites.

International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam

www.iisg.nl

IISG provides a variety of online digital sources, including a brilliant collection of full-color Chinese political posters spanning the fifty-year period from 1947 to 1997. All of the site content is available in English as well as Dutch.

Paul Halsall’s Internet East Asian History Sourcebook

www.fordham.edu/halsall/eastasia/eastasiasbook.html

This site, created by Paul Halsall, a professor of History at Fordham University in New York, features a large collection of primary-source documents on modern Chinese history. An assortment of useful resources to accompany this unit can be found under the subject heading, “China since World War II,” including materials related to the Communist Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, Chinese foreign relations, and the Tiananmen Square Uprising.

http://www.aems.uiuc.edu/index.las

www.chinasite.com

http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/

http://www.iisg.nl

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/eastasia/eastasiasbook.html


Key Terms

KEY TERMS


Bourgeois: although Americans tend to think of the word “bourgeois” as attitudes and behaviors that conform to middle-class standards, the term had a more detestable connotation in the communist lexicon. Borrowing from Marxist discourse, the Chinese Communists defined “bourgeois” as attitudes and behaviors characteristic of an exploitative, property-owning social class. During the Cultural Revolution, young members of China’s Red Guard strove to root out any residual elements of bourgeois culture, including certain types of clothing and hairdos, as well as cigarettes.

Commune: a community, typically located in a rural setting, whose members organize themselves according to egalitarian principles, sharing work duties and income, and (often) owning property collectively. With backing from Mao Zedong, China began the establishment of large-scale “people’s communes” in 1958 in an effort to increase agricultural production and mobilize China’s rural masses. Mao’s vision of people’s communes called for the elimination of private plots, the creation of large-scale public cooperatives, and the use of public mess halls.

Cultural Revolution: What started out as a campaign launched by Mao Zedong against the policies of the moderate wing of the Communist Party in 1966 morphed into a chaotic upheaval, known in China as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Although some argue that the Cultural Revolution continued until Mao’s death in 1976, the period from 1966-69—during which fanatical gangs of revolutionary Maoist youths roamed the country to enforce their values—is recognized as the height of the movement.

Feudalism: a social and political system characterized by the dominance of a small landed elite that commands homage and service from an impoverished class of laboring tenants in return for protection and the basic means of sustenance. China’s communist leadership viewed the eradication of feudalist relations in China’s countryside as a necessary and desired prerequisite for the creation of a communist society.

Great Leap Forward: a campaign launched in 1958 under Mao Zedong’s leadership, with the aim of dramatically increasing China’s agricultural and industrial production without allowing for the development of socio-economic stratification. The Great Leap proved to be an economic and social disaster, as wildly excessive state-ordered requisitions of food from rural villages resulted in the starvation of much of China’s peasantry.

Landlord: one who owns and rents land, housing, or other forms of property. In the Chinese communist lexicon, the term “landlord” referred to a member of an exploitative class of rural elites who dominated local politics in the small villages of the Chinese countryside. Although the local landlords possessed significantly more wealth than the peasants in their village, they maintained a much lower standard of living than China’s urban elites. During the land reform campaigns that followed quickly on the heels of the Communist Revolution, party leaders encouraged peasants to seize land from the landlords in order to redistribute it more equitably. Making peasants active participants in taking the land tied them permanently to the Chinese Communist Party. Also, by unleashing a mass feeling of cathartic vengeance, the land seizures helped peasants feel that they were playing a valuable role in the Revolution and the destiny of their country.

Long March: this term refers to the extended trek of approximately 80,000 loyal Chinese Communist Party supporters in 1934-35, in an effort to flee from Chiang Kai-shek’s Goumindang (Nationalist Party) armed forces. The trekkers covered 6,000 miles (on foot) on a winding course that traversed rugged terrain, resulting in the death of 90 percent of the original participants. This shared experience of adversity produced long-lasting bonds of camaraderie among the group of rebels who would become the leaders of Communist-controlled China.


Mass Line: a system of political rule developed by the Chinese Communist Party leaders during the Yenan period of 1937-45 when their survival was dependent upon cordial relations with the local inhabitants of the mountainous region in which the Communists had established their base. The goal of the mass line was to facilitate large-scale political mobilization through a masses-leadership-masses flow of knowledge and strategy. The basic idea was for party leaders to collect information and opinions directly from China’s peasant masses, but to reserve all decision-making authority for themselves, after which they could coordinate the transmission of new directives back to the masses.

Proletariat: strictly speaking, this term refers to a social class of industrial wage workers whose members lack both capital and access to the means of production, and therefore must earn a living by selling their own labor. In applying this Marxist term to a predominantly agrarian economy, however, Chinese communist leaders employed a definition of “proletariat” that was broad enough to include not only industrial workers but also the large masses of Chinese peasants who eked out a living at the bare level of subsistence.

Propaganda: material, either in the form of written ideas or images, spread by the supporters of a particular doctrine or cause with the intention of influencing the opinions of others. For the purposes of this unit, it is important for students to understand the crucial role that political propaganda in the form of images played for Chinese communist leaders as the party strove to educate the illiterate peasant masses of China’s vast countryside in the revolutionary ideals of the Chinese Communist movement.

Tiananmen Square Uprising: an extended series of demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in May 1989, which featured large numbers of protesting students and workers and met with stiff government repression. Protesters fashioned a statue of the “Goddess of Democracy”—modeled after the Statue of Liberty—and sang the Communist Internationale. While drawing on western democratic ideals, the demonstration also served as a call to communist leaders to return to the original ideals of the Revolution, an imagined golden age of the 1950s in which there was no corruption and intellectuals played a valued social role.


TEACHER’S GUIDE AND ANSWER KEY

PART ONE: Rural China

This segment of the unit is intended to provide students with tangible images of the lives of Chinese peasants before the Communist Revolution. Stu-dents should be encouraged to visualize and internalize the ex-treme level of poverty in which China’s peasant masses—as much as 80 percent of the popu-lation—attempted to eke out a meager existence. What is im-portant here is an understanding of the vast discrepancy between the standard of living of an emergent merchant middle class in China’s larger cities (such as Shanghai) and the abject condi-tions of China’s rural populace. The initial questions (Would you enjoy living here? Why/Why not?)

accompany the picture of Yenan peasants in 1917 and the brief description of the Gansu coun-tryside. Students should imme-diately notice that the climate and quality of soil make the two regions inhospitable to farming. Although much of China relies on wet-rice cultivation, which flourishes in the South, much of the nation’s northern and western terrain is dry, mountainous, and rocky, making agriculture quite difficult. In answer to question #1, students should recognize that it would not have been easy to farm the mountainous terrain pictured here. Question #2 is a device to encourage student speculation, but the answer is provided in the subsequent read-

ing passage: most of the peasants in this region ate pian-er gruel, a type of local porridge made from coarsely ground grains mixed with water and perhaps a dash of salt or ground pepper. With reference to question #3, al-though some students may have consumed even less appetizing forms of food in their lifetimes, they should understand that this type of dish was the norm rather than the exception for the peas-ants of Longxiang.

Part One Teacher’s Guide


Part One Student Worksheets

STUDENT WORKSHEETS

PART ONE: Rural China

In the first half of the twentieth century, most Chinese people lived as peasants, farming small

Here in the Gansu countryside, everything—land, sky, cottages, even the people in the distance—was yellow-gray in the fading autumn light, dun-colored, cold. I could not see a single green leaf or blade of grass.

• Would you enjoy living here? Why/Why not?

patches of land in tiny rural villages. Can you imagine what their life was like? Here is a firsthand descrip-

tion of a rural Chinese village in the early 1950s, from Yuang-tsun Chen’s The Dragon’s Village:

Glossary

Gansu: the name of a province in rural China.

dun-colored: a neutral, brownish-gray color.


IMAGE 1: Chinese Peasants in Yenan, 1917

Look at the area of China pictured in the image above and answer the following question.

1. Do you think it was easy to farm here? Why or why not?

2. Based on Chen’s description above, what DO you think the peasants of Longxiang ate?

Since coming to Longxiang I had never seen a peasant eat meat or fish, fresh vegetables, or rice or flour.

Glossary

Longxiang: the name of a tiny village in Gansu.

Here is another passage from Chen’s book, The Dragon’s Village:


IMAGE 2: Cave dwellings in the mountains of China


Here is Chen’s description of pian-er gruel, the typical meal for a Gansu peasant:

Glossary

pian-er gruel: a thin, watery porridge.

3. What was the most disgusting thing you’ve ever had to eat? Why did you eat it?

Sometimes it had a bit of flour in it and sometimes corn with generous additions of husk. An unappetizing grayish-yellow color, thick as paste and spiced with rough-ground salt and dried peppers, it was as gritty as sand.



PART TWO: The Rise of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party

This section introduces stu-dents both to the phenomenon of the cult of Mao Zedong and to Mao’s meteoric rise to the height of the Chinese political system. Students should be encouraged to understand that part of Mao’s appeal was that, much like other twentieth-century leaders of na-tions possessing a long monarchi-cal tradition, such as Adolf Hitler in Germany and Joseph Stalin in Russia, Mao Zedong’s politi-cal career sprouted from quite humble origins. The first piece of primary-source text provided comes from a 1937 interview with the American journalist Ed-gar Snow, in which Mao boasted of his adolescent rebellion against his father. The central value expressed here—that one has a moral duty to rebel against unjust authority—formed one of the pillars of Mao Zedong’s thought. Possible responses to the first three questions provided are as follows: (1) Mao was angry because his father had unjustly insulted him in front of guests; (2) Mao learned that his father would relent if Mao stood up for himself; (3) The moral les-son voiced here is that a person should not be afraid to stand up for his or her rights when he or she is being treated unfairly.

The next section briefly in-troduces students to the basic political strategy of the Chinese Communist Party—the mass line—as formulated during the leaders’ years in the mountain-ous Yenan province as they

were retreating from Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces. The key to understanding the mass line is that information was to circulate from the masses to the party leadership and back to the masses again, in an A-B-A mo-tion. The basic idea was for party leaders to collect information and opinions directly from China’s peasant masses, but to reserve all decision-making authority for the CCP leadership, which could then coordinate the transmis-sion of new directives back to the masses. For this program to work, it was essential for lower-level CCP cadre to gain firsthand knowledge of the desires, atti-tudes, and sensibilities of local people. As Mao put it, “one must learn not only from books, but mainly through class struggle, through practical work and close contact with the masses of work-ers and Chinese peasants.” The second discussion question asks the students to imagine what the implementation of Mao’s “mass line” at their own high school would look like. Here is a rough idea of what the process would be like: (1) The school principal and an inner circle of administrators would order the teachers to immerse themselves in the student masses, learning as much as possible about teen-age culture and inquiring as to their needs, aspirations, and desires; (2) The teachers would return to the administration and report their findings; (3) The administrators, under the lead-

ership of the principal, would pool all of the data together and decide on a programmatic list of revisions in school policy that they felt would be in the best in-terest of the masses of students, as well as the school itself; (4) The administrators would send the teachers back to the various classrooms, with full authority to coordinate the transmission of the new directives and to implement every facet of the new program at the local level; (5) In this final phase, total compliance to the new program would be expected from both the teachers and the students, since the ac-ceptable timeframe for dissent would have already elapsed. The masses-leadership-masses move-ment of knowledge would now be complete.

Karl Marx had dubbed religion the “opiate of the masses” a hun-dred years earlier, and the CCP discouraged popular religion in China, as was also the case in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, Communism functioned as a de facto state religion, incorporat-ing and transforming traditional Chinese teachings and providing the populace with a moral foun-dation for action and conflict resolution. In this sense, Mao, as the leader of the CCP, functioned as much more than a politician. He also served as a moral, philo-sophical, and, arguably, religious leader to the Chinese nation. The example provided in this section reveals Mao at his best. He takes a traditional Chinese

Part Two Teacher’s Guide


fable that would have been fa-miliar to his audience—“The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains”—and tweaks it into a lesson in communist ide-als. Possible answers to the ques-tions provided are as follows: (1) Wise Old Man mocked Foolish

Old Man for taking on a task that he could never accomplish; (2) In the end, God, inspired by the industriousness of Foolish Old Man and his sons, sent down two angels who assisted them with their task; (3) Mao says that their God is “none other than the

masses of the Chinese people.” They can accomplish even the most improbable of goals if they all unite together in common ac-tion.


STUDENT WORKSHEETS

PART TWO: The Rise of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party

Part Two Student Worksheets

As a leading member of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong went from being a revolution-ary outcast to the founder of the People’s Republic of China and, possibly, the most powerful man in the world.

IMAGE 3: Mao Zedong (on the left) as a Communist Revolutionary in the 1930s


1. Why was Mao angry with his father?

2. What did Mao learn from his experience?

3. What is the moral of Mao’s story? Do you agree with Mao? Why/Why not?

4. Do you ever fight with your parents? When? How does the fight usually end?

Glossary

infuriate: to make someone angry or furious.

relent: to soften in attitude or temper.

meek: gentle and submissive.

Here is one of Mao’s proudest childhood memories, which he recounted to Edgar Snow in a 1937 interview:

When I was about thirteen my father invited many guests to his home, and while they were present a dispute arose between the two of us. My father denounced me as lazy and useless. This infuriated me. I cursed him and left the house . . . I learned that when I defended my rights by open rebellion my father relented, but when I remained meek and submissive he only cursed and beat me the more.


IMAGE 4: Mao proclaims the founding of the People’s Republic of China, 1949

After the Japanese were defeated in World War II and were forced to leave Chi-na, two political groups fought a civil war for control of the country.

1. What do you think Mao’s statement means? How would this type of government work in practice?

2. Imagine you applied this principle to your high school. Describe how it would work.

In all our Party’s actual work, correct leadership must come from the masses and go to the masses. This means taking the views of the masses and subjecting them to concentration, then going to the masses with propaganda and explanation in order to transform the views of the masses.

On one side were the Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek and supported by the United States. On the other side were the Communists, who were led by Mao Zedong and inspired by the political ideals of the Soviet Union. Mao and the Communists eventually won the struggle, and Chiang Kai-shek’s forces fled to the island of Tai-wan, where they set up a separate govern-ment.

As a leader, Mao placed great stress on learning from China’s poor peasants, a political system that came to be known as the “mass line.” In the passage below from Mao’s “Resolution of the Central Commit-tee, 1943,” Mao explains the philosophy behind the “mass line”:


CHAIRMAN MAO AS FOLK LEADER

IMAGE 5: Chairman Mao as Leader of the Chinese Republic

Under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, Communism became China’s guiding political philosophy. In many ways, Communism also became the official state religion. In this respect, Mao served as a spiritual and moral, as well as a po-litical, leader of the Chinese people.


Read this fable told by Mao Zedong in 1945 and answer the questions below.

Glossary

feudalism: a social system in which a small landed elite dominates a large class of rural laborers.

unceasingly: without a break.

1. Why did Wise Old Man mock Foolish Old Man?

2. Did Foolish Old Man finish his task? How?

3. Who or what is “God,” according to Mao? What do you think he means?

There is an ancient Chinese fable called ‘The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains.’ It tells of an old man who lived in northern China long, long ago and was known as the Foolish Old Man of North Mountain. His house faced south, and beyond his doorway stood the two great mountain peaks, blocking the way. He called his sons, and hoe in hand they began to dig up these mountains. Another person from the village, known as Wise Old Man, saw them and said, ‘How silly of you to do this! It is quite impossible for you to dig up these two huge mountains’. The Foolish Old Man replied, ‘When I die, my sons will carry on; when they die, there will be my grandsons, and then their sons and grandsons, and so on to infinity. High as they are, the mountains can not grow any higher and with every bit we dig, they will be that much lower. Why can’t we clear them away?’ Having proved the Wise Old Man’s view wrong, he went on digging every day, unshaken in his belief. God was moved by this, and he sent down two angels, who carried the mountains away on their backs. Today, two big mountains lie like a dead weight on the Chinese people. One is imperialism, the other is feudalism. The Chinese Communist Party has long made up its mind to dig them up. We must work unceasingly, and we, too, will touch God’s heart. Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people. If they stand up and dig together with us, why can’t these two mountains be cleared away?


This section introduces students to the revolutionary upheaval, in the form of land re-form, which followed the Com-munist victory over Chiang Kai-shek’s Guomindang (Nationalist) forces. Students should be en-couraged to understand that the CCP had much greater ambitions than the mere acquisition of po-litical power. Rather, the Chinese Communists sought to use their newly-acquired power to revolu-tionize everyday Chinese culture and politics at the local level, by removing what they saw as ves-tiges of a debilitating feudalistic social order. Not only did Mao Zedong and the CCP leadership view the masses of impoverished Chinese peasants as victims of exploitation, but they also saw the peasantry as an inherently revolutionary force. The CCP hoped to use the attractive pro-gram of land reform as a means of gathering grassroots support among China’s largest social group—the poor peasants—and as a vehicle for unleashing the pent-up fury of this exploited collection of people against the local landlords. Although rural landlords possessed a much more meager standard of living than China’s urban elites, they wielded considerable political power at the local level, creating what the CCP saw as an obstacle to its more ambitious economic, democratic, and gender-based reform programs. By encourag-ing local peasants to take an ac-tive role in the bitter and violent dispossession of rural landhold-


PART THREE: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese Peasants

ing elites, the CCP succeeded in forging long-lasting bonds of loy-alty between participants in and beneficiaries of the land reform on the one hand (because these groups feared the possibility of local landlords returning to pow-er), and the Chinese Communist Party on the other hand.

The answer to the first ques-tion is that the land reform cam-paigns were enormously popular among China’s poorer peasants. Indeed, the CCP relied on the popularity of land reform in order to generate support for some of its less accepted programs, such as the attempt to institute gender equality. Needless to say, the land reform campaigns were not at all popular among landlords and vil-lage elites, who found themselves targets of peasant retribution and government-sponsored hatred. Answers to the second question will naturally vary, and students should be encouraged to express and defend their opinions as to whether or not the forcible sei-zure of property from elites and the redistribution of land on the basis of need were fair actions.

The Chinese Communist Party sought to instill a high level of discipline and obedience within its Red Army. CCP poli-cies demanded that Red Army soldiers treat China’s rural peas-ants with respect and courtesy. The examples of Red Army regu-lations provided in this section are meant to demonstrate this. Whereas in the past, warlord armies had terrorized local peas-ants with rape, pillage, and plun-

der, the CCP understood that the success of the communist move-ment in China would depend ul-timately on the Party’s ability to win the trust and loyalty of the nation’s peasant masses. For this reason, Red Army soldiers were required to establish a spirit of cooperation with impoverished villagers. The activity asks stu-dents to imagine that they are political or military leaders of a nation and to construct a list of rules for their armed forces. In the case of China’s Red Army, the rules listed applied to sol-diers’ interactions with other Chinese. For our purposes in this activity, we might ask our students to construct either (a) a list of military rules for soldiers to obey when interacting with their fellow citizens, or (b) a list of military rules for soldiers to obey when interacting with foreign citizens of an occupied territory. Although this activity is designed to be completed in groups, it might be helpful to have each group present its final results to the class upon comple-tion of the task.

Part Three Teacher’s Guide


STUDENT WORKSHEETS

PART THREE: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese Peasants

Part Three Student Worksheets

When the Communists came to power in China, as many as eighty percent of the nation’s people were poor peasants. Many peas-ants did not own their own

1. Do you think this policy was popular? Why/Why not?

2. Do you think this policy was fair? Why/Why not?

IMAGE 6: Peasants harvesting rice on a people’s commune in the 1960s

farms and still others were indebted to village land-lords. Chinese Communist leaders encouraged poor peasants to rise up against the local landlords and seize

their land, which would then be redistributed more evenly among the residents of the village.


In addition to redistrib-uting their land, the Com-munist Party encouraged Chinese peasants to punish

IMAGE 7: Communist-led trial of a local landlord

the local landlords. Rural villages often held outdoor trials of landlords. Tens of thousands of local landlords

were executed for their mis-treatment of peasants.

GROUP ACTIVITY

Imagine that you are peasants in rural China.

1. Assign one person in your group the role of landlord. The rest of you will play the roles of angry peasants.

2. Decide what crimes to accuse him of having committed.

3. Hold a mock trial.

4. Reach a verdict, and, if necessary, choose a punishment.


ACTIVITY

The Communist Party’s military forces were known as the “Red Army.” Communist leaders enforced very strict discipline in their army.

Here are some of the rules for Red Army Soldiers:

1. Replace all doors when you leave a house.

2. Be courteous and polite to the people and help them when you can.

3. Return all borrowed articles.

4. Replace all damaged articles.

5. Be honest in all transactions with the peasants.

6. Be sanitary, and, especially, establish latrines a safe distance from people’s houses.

Imagine that you and the members of your group are military leaders. Working together, design a list of the five most important rules for your soldiers:

Soldier Rules

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)



PART FOUR: The Chinese Communist Party and Relations between Men and Women

This section introduces stu-dents to one of the Chinese Com-munist Party’s more ambitious targets of social reform in the realm of gender relations. The first quotation, from Yuan-tsung Chen’s The Dragon’s Village, pro-vides students with a brief exam-ple of the types of attitudes that prevailed among peasant men in China’s more rural villages. Peas-ant men typically refused to take women seriously as intellectual or political beings, instead treat-ing them as servile creatures whose primary social duty con-sisted of obeying their fathers (before marriage) and husbands (after marriage). In response to the first question, students might recognize that the male peasant’s behavior was indicative of the traditional attitudes held by male Chinese peasants. The men’s refusal to acknowledge the presence of women was meant to stress women’s inferior position in the social hierarchy. Students’ responses to the second question will vary, and they should be encouraged to answer honestly and explain their feelings to their classmates.

The remaining activities in this section examine initiatives undertaken by the Chinese Com-munist leadership in an effort to undermine traditional attitudes towards gender relations. After taking control of the national government, the CCP sought to transform gender relations dramatically at the local level, a program with decidedly less

peasant support than the Party’s land reform campaign. Female CCP officials dressed in the same cadre uniforms as their male comrades as an outward expres-sion of the Party’s emphasis on gender equality. This is in stark contrast to the traditional culture of Chinese urban elites, which included the debilitating prac-tice of binding young women’s feet, a practice that physically deformed its female victims and rendered them immobile. In the pictures of CCP leaders provided in this section, the figure in Im-age 8 (lower left) is the only one of the four who is female: Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. Indeed, the similarities between men and women in both style and appear-ance are so striking that students often have difficulty discerning the sex of these leaders with any degree of confidence. In discuss-ing the subsequent questions with students, you may want to note that wardrobe varied greatly according to one’s socio-economic position, but women traditionally wore dresses while men wore loose-fitting pants. Although the communist cadre uniforms gradually became more accepted, such gender-neutral clothing was an oddity at the time of the Communist Revolu-tion. The style of dress of female CCP officials, which included pants, often stunned rural peas-ants. The Chinese Communist Party also campaigned against gendered wage disparities, as il-lustrated in the 1955 comment

from Mao provided in this sec-tion. While the notion of equal pay for men and women might be quite common among our students, in China in the 1950s, it was quite a radical idea.

Communist culture in China did not place the same value on the separation of the public and private spheres that is taken for granted in western democracies. CCP leaders regarded marriage, for example, as a political af-fair, and encouraged its citizens to take political compatibility into serious consideration when choosing a mate. Even the seemingly innocuous idea that partners should be of equivalent age carried tremendous politi-cal significance. In a culture in which fathers often brokered the marriages of their teenage daughters with middle-aged male suitors, the CCP’s empha-sis on age equality was part of a concerted effort to undermine patriarchal hierarchies in rural villages. Similarly, the commu-nist emphasis on “mutual help” underscored the obligations of men to assist their wives with household duties, rather than treating them as mere servants. In response to the question that asks students to list factors that they would find important in choosing a mate, answers will naturally vary. When comparing their list to that of CCP leader Din Ling, they will probably find that they place a lower priority on political compatibility than the Chinese Communists did.

Part Four Teacher’s Guide


Students should also be encour-aged to share their lists with one another, and the teacher might ask the students to think of the different societal forces that in-fluence these core beliefs: family, friends, TV and media, religious values, etc.

As was also the case in the Soviet Union, national leaders in Communist China encouraged the fusion of art and politics to effect production of cultural forms that would educate and revolutionize the populace. Jiang Qing (Mao’s wife) took charge of these efforts during the years of China’s Cultural Revolution (which began in 1966), and the artistic and cultural works produced under her leadership often constituted overt propa-ganda. The picture shown in this section (Image 9) is a snapshot from the Cultural Revolution-era ballet, The Red Detachment of Women. The ballerinas, moving

simultaneously in well-disci-plined motions, are holding rifles cocked and ready to fire. Hence, the ballet, traditionally con-ceptualized as a realm of grace, femininity, and high culture, is transformed into a cultural sphere that promotes militarism and revolutionary ideals. Stu-dents’ answers to the vocabulary-building exercise will vary, and disagreements ideally will lead to energetic class discussions. Since the ballet itself embodies images that we often assume to be in contradiction, it would be perfectly acceptable for a student to choose two words from the vocabulary list—such as “grace-ful” and “aggressive”—that are often assumed to be incompat-ible. These were exactly the types of categorizations and boundar-ies that Chinese cultural leaders hoped to shatter. Students might have vastly different opinions regarding the written-response

question. While the initial image of ballerinas toting rifles might seem peculiar, some students might point out that numerous recent Hollywood movies, such as Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill, feature lead characters who com-bine a seductive femininity with a lethal destructiveness. The main difference, however, might be the noticeable absence of a revolutionary political message in the Hollywood films.


STUDENT WORKSHEETS

PART FOUR: The Chinese Communist Party and Relations between Men and Women

Part Four Student Worksheets

When Mao Zedong and the Communist Party came to power, the Chinese countryside was a strongly male-dominated society. Here is one example, taken from Yuan-tsung Chen’s The Dragon’s Village:

1. Why do you think peasant men refused to look at women when they spoke to them?

2. How would you feel if someone did this to you? How would you respond?

Peasant men did not look at women. When they talked to a woman, they looked at something straight ahead as if they were talking to some other man in the same room.


Look at the pictures of these Chinese Communist Party leaders and answer the questions that follow.

IMAGE 8: Male and female Communist Party leaders


1. Which of the four leaders do you think is female?

2. Compare her outfit to the others. What do you notice?

3. Do you think the majority of Chinese dressed this way? Why/Why not?

4. If not, then what did men and women wear?

In a 1955 article titled “Women Have Gone to the Labor Front,” Chairman Mao wrote:

5. Do you agree with Mao? Why/Why not?

Men and women must receive equal pay for equal work in production. Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.


THE COMMUNIST PARTY ON MARRIAGE

In “Thoughts on March 8 (Women’s Day), 1942,” the Chinese Communist leader Din Ling stated:

In general there are three conditions when getting married. These are (1) political purity, (2) similar age and comparable looks, and (3) mutual help.

What will be the most important factors for you when you decide to marry someone? List three conditions. Compare and contrast them with the conditions listed by Din Ling.

Conditions Comparison/Contrastfor Marriage with Din Ling

1.

2.

3.


The Chinese Communist government promoted a fusion of art with politics. All art forms—including paintings, music, theatre, movies, and dance—were

Compare your answers with your classmates’ answers. Are your impressions generally the same or are they quite different?

• Do you find it strange to mix ballet together with guns? Why/Why not?

graceful feminine aggressive violent delicate

masculine militant disciplined rowdy artistic seductive

IMAGE 9: Female performers in the Chinese Communist ballet, The Red Detachment of Women

Circle the words below that you would use to describe the ballet dancers pictured here:

supposed to be compatible with the ideals of Commu-nism. Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing, focused much of her political power in the realm of the arts. The

picture below captures a scene from the ballet, The Red Detachment of Women. Notice that each ballerina is aiming a rifle.



PART FIVE: The Great Leap Forward

As discussed earlier, the Great Leap Forward was the name of a campaign launched under the direction of Mao in 1958 with the aim of dramatically increas-ing China’s agricultural and industrial production without allowing for the development of socio-economic stratification. The Great Leap Forward was ini-tiated before China’s ideological break from the Soviet Union and was loosely modeled on Stalin’s five-year plans (which had been implemented in the 1930s). Chi-na’s “Great Leap” proved to be an economic and social disaster, as wildly excessive state-ordered requisitions of food from rural villages resulted in the starvation of much of China’s peasantry. Al-though there was some produc-tion failure, the biggest problem with the Great Leap Forward was the disproportionate state seizure of grain and other foodstuffs. As a result, government officials, urban residents, soldiers, and certain favored communes ate reasonably well, while the ma-jority of communes were forced to meet insane production quo-tas. In many places in China, the Great Leap Forward turned into a de facto war against the peas-antry (just as the five-year plans had in the Soviet Union in the 1930s), with rural people hiding

their grain from armed militias. The first image in this sec-

tion shows a picture of China’s Anshan Steel Mill, a symbol of national pride for the CCP lead-ership. By building factories in rural areas, Mao and the Chinese Communists hoped to bridge the enormous socio-economic gap between the nation’s urban elites and its rural peasantry. The construction of factories in the countryside also served a pedagogical function, creating sites for party-sponsored politi-cal mobilization and communist education, as well as helping to forge an industrial proletariat that was thought to be naturally inclined to accept socialist ide-als. During the 1950s, the CCP leaders looked to their northern neighbor, the Soviet Union, for theoretical and technological training, as depicted in the 1953 political poster and the short 1957 quotation from Chairman Mao. In answer to the question as to why China sought tech-nological assistance from the Soviet Union as opposed to other advanced industrial nations like Britain, France, and the United States, students should make the connection that like China, in the 1950s the Soviet Union was a Communist nation and there-fore a natural ally. CCP leaders

viewed Britain, France, and the U.S.A. as bastions of capitalism and therefore as ideological en-emies. Conversely, CCP leaders believed that the Soviet experi-ence, in which Russia’s “back-ward” peasant economy had been transformed rapidly into a global industrial powerhouse in a few decades, could provide the most relevant lessons for China’s socio-economic ambitions. (It is important to note, however, that Mao Zedong and the CCP leader-ship became disenchanted with the Soviet model and endeavored to create a more uniquely Chi-nese form of Communism). An-swers to the final two discussion questions will vary according to student tastes and worldviews, and could be conducted as an open class discussion.

Part Five Teacher’s Guide


STUDENT WORKSHEETS

PART FIVE: The Great Leap Forward

Part Five Student Worksheets

In 1958, Mao Zedong launched a new revolu-tionary social program that

Mao hoped that the Great Leap would trans-form the Chinese country-side. Peasants’ land was pooled together into gi-ant communes, which typically contained 25,000-

30,000 people. The gov-ernment built factories in the countryside and some peasants left their farms to take up full-time industrial work in the larger villages. Most peasants,

however, stayed on their farms in their own villages and became part-time farm-ers and part-time factory workers.

he called the “Great Leap Forward.” Mao hoped to unleash the energy of the

people and transform Chi-na into an industrial world power.

Glossary

commune: a community whose members share work, income, and (often) property.

IMAGE 10: Blast Furnaces of Anshan Iron and Steel Works, China


In a 1957 text entitled “On the Correct handling of the Contradictions of the People,” Mao wrote:

IMAGE 11: Political Poster; Study the advanced production experience of the Soviet Union, 1953

In order to turn China into an industrial country, we must learn conscientiously from the example of the Soviet Union.


1. Why do you think that the Chinese looked to the Soviet Union as a model, rather than to other industrialized countries such as Britain, France, or the United States?

In Mao’s comment and in the picture shown on the previous page, the Chinese people are encouraged to learn from the example of the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, the Great Leap Forward proved to be a huge failure. The gov-ernment set unrealistic production quotas for the village communes and then ordered the Army to seize

2. Are you surprised that the Great Leap Forward failed? Why or why not?

3. If you didn’t have to worry about the government seizing your grain, do you think you would enjoy living on a commune? Why or why not?

large amounts of the vil-lagers’ food. The result was that people in the cities and the armies often ate quite well while many rural peas-ants starved. In many plac-es, the Great Leap Forward

turned into a war against the peasantry, with rural people hiding their grain from armed militias trying to seize it.


PART SIX: The Cultural Revolution


Part Six Teacher’s Guide

What started out as a cam-paign launched by Mao Zedong against the policies of the moder-ate wing of the Communist Party in 1966 morphed into a chaotic upheaval, known in China as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revo-lution. Although some argue that the Cultural Revolution contin-ued until Mao’s death in 1976, the period from 1966-69, during which fanatical gangs of revolu-tionary Maoist youths roamed the country enforcing commu-nist values, is recognized as the height of the movement. This section of the unit makes the radical, often violent nature of the Cultural Revolution visible to the students. With this goal in mind, it is helpful to stress the extent to which the Cul-tural Revolution depended on the mass political mobilization of Chinese students from junior high schools, high schools, and universities. To a large extent, the Cultural Revolution was an inter-generational conflict, with China’s young people rising up to question the authority of their teachers and local com-munity and Party leaders whom they perceived as either corrupt or inadequately enforcing revo-lutionary goals. These youths had the explicit backing of Mao Zedong and many of the nation’s top-ranking political officials. A generation of Chinese who had grown up after the Communist Revolution, educated under a curriculum that included large doses of CCP propaganda, had come to see Mao Zedong as a demigod. In this section of the unit, we continue to explore

the “cult of worship” that sur-rounded Chairman Mao, and students should be encouraged to conceptualize Mao in ways that transcend the label of “polit-ical leader” or “party Chairman.” Indeed, to the generation of stu-dents that led China’s Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong was infallible.

The first political poster (Im-age 12) provides a visual image of the outward display of eupho-ria that is often associated with the Cultural Revolution. Stu-dents might notice the youthful character of the crowd swarming around Mao Zedong. The original title of this Cultural Revolution propaganda poster was The red-dest, reddest, red sun in our heart, Chairman Mao, and us together, as red was (a) the color of the Chi-nese Communist Party, (b) the color of the national flag of the People’s Republic of China, and (c) the color of the international communist movement (question #1). If you are able to bring in a color copy of the poster (from the PDF version of this unit, located on HOT’s World History CD), you can point out that not only are the pillars and ornamen-tation behind the crowd colored bright red, but the participants in the rally are clutching red books and Mao is wearing the distinc-tively bright red armband of the Red Guard to demonstrate his solidarity with the youth move-ment he had recently catalyzed. In response to the second ques-tion, the students should notice the smiling faces of the people in the poster, as well as the fact that they seem to be shouting

excitedly and enthusiastically. The mood expressed in this im-age can be described best as one of exuberance or euphoria. The third question draws attention to the book held by the students pictured in this propaganda poster. Known unofficially as the “Little Red Book” and offi-cially as Quotations from Chair-man Mao, this text contained an eclectic mix of quotations, proverbs, parables, and assorted words of wisdom spanning Mao’s long political career. Heavily censored and edited by a com-mittee of CCP leaders, the book served as a “communist bible” for the generation that came of age during the Cultural Revolu-tion. Members of the Red Guard, each of whom carried a copy of the Little Red Book with them as they caravanned across the country, would accost random civilians on the street in order to test them on their knowledge of its contents. Familiarity with the text functioned as an outward demonstration of one’s loyalty to the communist cause.

The Cultural Revolution: The Red Guard

Once again, the students’ at-tention should be drawn to the youthful faces of the human figures represented in the propa-ganda poster entitled Long Live the Victory of the Revolutionary Cultural Line of Chairman Mao! (Image 13). As mentioned earli-er, the majority of Red Guard ac-tivists were students, often of the same age as our California-state 10th-graders. The five objects


held by the Red Guard members pictured here are as follows:

1) The “Little Red Book,” whose significance has already been discussed.

2) A giant fountain pen.

3) A giant calligraphy brush, which, together with the fountain pen, symbolizes the power of the word and of what was seen as the irrefutable “truth” of Marxism and Mao Zedong’s thought.

4) A large image of Mao Zedong, demonstrating the Red Guard’s close allegiance and devotion to China’s paramount leader.

5) An accordion, which provides visible imagery of the joy and exuberance that Red Guard members gained through their political activism.

In discussing the final Cul-tural Revolution propaganda poster (Image 14), you can point out that students were not the only supporters of the Revolu-tion. Much propaganda from this period emphasized the uni-fication of three different social groups—farmers, soldiers, and factory workers—around the communist cause.

Mao Zedong Greets the Red Guard

The passage contained in this section provides students with a tangible understanding of the incomparable feeling of exhilaration experienced during Red Guard rallies. Through an excerpt from the participant-ob-server account of Rae Yang, we see how a mere public appear-

ance by Chairman Mao could be transformed into a transcendental event. Rae Yang describes having an out-of-body experience as she “joined a mighty raging ocean” of crying, awestruck onlookers of Mao when he appeared in Ti-ananmen Square to greet the Red Guard. In answer to the second question, the students should recognize the tears of Red Guard members as a sign of unbridled joy and disbelief rather than tears of sadness. In answer to the final two questions, when Rae Yang recalls feeling “like a drop of water that finally joined the mighty raging ocean,” she is de-scribing the sudden evaporation of the ego, a moment in which she loses her sense of “self.” Students might have had similar experiences—although perhaps not as dramatic or memorable as Rae Yang’s—in concerts, sport-ing events, or places of worship. It would once again be useful here to address explicitly the fact that, for the young members of the Red Guard, Mao Zedong was the equivalent of a political leader, religious leader, and pop star rolled into a single mythical figure.

The Cultural Revolution: Fighting Corruption and Unjust Authority

During the early years of the Cultural Revolution (also known as the “Red Guard years”), bands of Red Guard youths roamed the vast Chinese countryside with free passage on the govern-ment-owned railroads, spreading chaos and destruction along with a zealous strain of Mao Zedong’s thought. The Red Guard took to the streets looking for evidence of culture. They believed that all bourgeois elements of Chi-

nese culture—from cigarettes to beehive hairdos to western-style dresses and tight slacks—needed to be destroyed. The so-called “ink-bottle test” described in this section was carried out with great vigor by over-enthusiastic Red Guard youths, and excessive violence was all too common. In this section of the unit, we ask students to imagine what would happen if a Red Guard troop burst into their classroom. Which students would be at-tacked as “bourgeois enemies”? This exercise could be conducted as a role-playing activity for the entire class, with a handful of students serving as members of the Red Guard and carrying out an inspection of the remaining students. Judging from contem-porary California high-school fashion, it is safe to assume that many of our students would fail a hypothetical Red Guard in-spection. Naturally, the teacher would need to monitor the class to ensure that the subsequent stages of enforcement and pun-ishment did not enter in the role-play activity.

During the early years of the Cultural Revolution, ordinary citizens and the nation’s youth were encouraged to rebel against corrupt officials and “unjust au-thority” figures, including local party officials and school teach-ers. It is not clear what offense the local party official pictured wearing a dunce cap committed (Image 15), so the students’ re-sponses to the question can vary. It is the case, however, that local officials were often punished for seemingly innocuous trans-gressions, as demonstrated in the subsequent story of Teacher Chen. In recalling her Red Guard troop’s attack on their art teacher, our narrator—once again Rae


Yang—voices feelings of remorse (which are more visible in the full text). Although his only offenses were (a) smoking, (b) appearing gloomy, and (c) hav-ing his students draw images of

naked bodies, an angry band of Red Guard youths literally beat Teacher Chen to death. Most students should conclude that the punishment administered to Teacher Chen was excessive, and

those students who claim that the decision to beat the teacher to death was justified should be pressed to explain and defend their logic.

William MacQuitty, “Part of the Great Wall of China, near the Nanjing Gate.” Reproduced from Malcolm MacDonald, Inside China (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1980), p. 16.

STUDENT WORKSHEETS

PART SIX: The Cultural Revolution


Part Six Student Worksheets

The Cultural Revolution ranks as one of the most chaotic events in world his-tory. In 1966 Mao turned against many of his Com-munist Party allies and called on China’s young people to revive the Revo-lution. Mao unleashed the energy of a new generation of Chinese who had been brought up learning to idol-ize him. Millions of high school and college students organized themselves into Red Guards and traveled to Beijing to participate in enormous rallies.

Massive Red Guard rallies in Beijing between August and November 1966 brought together 13 million (!) Red Guards from all over China.

IMAGE 12: Cultural Revolution poster; The reddest, reddest, red sun in our heart, Chairman Mao, and us together


Examine the poster on the previous page and answer the following questions.

1. The dominant color in this poster is red, including the books being held by the crowd members, the pillars and ornaments behind the crowd, and Mao’s armband. Why is this color significant?

2. How would you describe the mood of the people in this picture? Why do you think they felt this way?

The people pictured with Chairman Mao in the poster above are supposed to be Chinese students. Each of them is holding a copy of what was known as “The Little Red Book.”

3. What do you think it contained?


THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION: THE RED GUARD

The poster above is entitled Long Live the Victory of the Revo-lutionary Cultural Line of Chairman Mao! Most of the people shown are students and members of the Red Guard.

In the column on the right, list five different objects that they are holding and what you think each of these objects represents.

Objects and what the objects represent:

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

IMAGE 13: Cultural Revolution Poster

REPRESENTS:

REPRESENTS:

REPRESENTS:

REPRESENTS:

REPRESENTS:


IMAGE 14: Farmers, industrial workers, and soldiers rally in support of the Cultural Revolution

Students were not the only people who attended communist rallies during this period. Mao also received a lot of support from farmers, industrial workers, and soldiers. You can see members of these groups in the 1969 poster below, entitled It is imperative that the working class must dominate.


MAO ZEDONG GREETS THE RED GUARD

1. What were the members of the Red Guard shouting?

2. Why do you think the boys and girls were crying?

3. Why does Rae Yang say that she felt like “a drop of water that finally joined the mighty raging ocean”? What do you think she means?

4. Have you ever felt like this? When?

• Have you ever been really excited to meet someone famous?

• Who?

• Why?

• How did you feel when you finally met that person?

For Chinese people, Mao was more than a political leader—he was China’s biggest celebrity.

At five o’clock, before sunrise, like a miracle he appeared out of Tiananmen onto the square and shook hands with people around him. The square turned into a jubilant ocean. Everybody was shouting “Long Live Chairman Mao!” Around me girls were crying; boys were crying too . . . Now I could see him clearly. He was wearing a green army uniform and a red armband, just like all of us. My blood was boiling inside me. I jumped and shouted and cried in unison with a million people in the square. At that moment, I forgot myself; all barriers that existed between me and others broke down. I felt like a drop of water that finally joined the mighty raging ocean. I would never be lonely again.

Listen to the story of Rae Yang, a member of the Red Guard:


THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION: FIGHTING CORRUPTION AND UNJUST AUTHORITY

Glossary

bourgeois: in communist theory, a member of the property-owning class; a capitalist.

Imagine that the Red Guard suddenly entered your classroom.

• Which members in your group do you think would come under attack first? Why?

• Would you be safe from a Red Guard attack? Why/ Why not?

The Red Guard took to the streets looking for evidence of bourgeois cul-ture. They believed that all bourgeois elements of Chi-nese culture needed to be destroyed. For example, when the Red Guard found

young men and women wearing long hair, they stopped them on the streets and cut their hair off on the spot.

The Red Guard also re-jected tight-fitting clothing. Women wearing tight slacks

were subjected to the “ink bottle test”: if a bottle of ink placed inside the waist-band could not slip freely to the ground, the pants were slashed to shreds!


During the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong encouraged China’s youth to rebel against corrupt leadership, including school

IMAGE 15: Local party official being punished at a rally

1. What do you think this local official is being punished for?

2. How would you feel if you were in the audience at this rally?

3. Have you ever rebelled against one of your teachers? Why? What did you do? Were you punished for your actions? How?

teachers and party officials. Below we see a local party

official being punished at a Red Guard rally. He is wear-ing a “dunce cap” and has

his hands tied behind his back. Notice the TV camera in the background.


The uncontrollable energy of the Cultural Revolution often led to fatal violence. Listen to this story from a Chinese high-school student, Rae Yang, during the Revolution:

Glossary

fatal: causing or capable of causing death.

1. What happened to Teacher Chen? Why? What kinds of crimes was he accused of?

2. Do you think his punishment was just or excessive? Explain your answer.

Teacher Chen, our art teacher, seemed gloomy and smoked a lot. ‘If a person didn’t feel very unhappy in the new society, why would he smoke like that?’ a classmate asked me. ‘In the past he has asked students to draw naked female bodies!’ For these crimes, he was beaten to death.



PART SEVEN: The Death of Chairman Mao

The death of Mao Zedong in 1976 obviously marked the end of an era in China. Not only had Mao been China’s paramount political leader for twenty-seven years, but he had also functioned as a moral teacher, philosopher, and pop icon. From humble origins to his years as a commu-nist-party outlaw, Mao molded himself into the head of state of the largest nation in the world, overseeing China’s industrializa-tion and transformation into a global superpower. His death marked the end of the final stage of the Great Proletarian Revo-lution and sparked the arrest and show-trial of the so-called “Gang of Four,” which included Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. After an internal power struggle, Mao was eventually succeeded by Deng Xiaoping, who effectively

ruled the CCP until his death in 1997. Deng, who saw the chaos unleashed by the Cultural Revo-lution as a hindrance to China’s national progress, pursued a political agenda centered on the “four modernizations”: advance-ment in agriculture, industry, na-tional defense, and science and technology. Deng was also the chief proponent of the “rightist” policy known as “One Country, Two Systems” aimed at obtaining the integration of Hong Kong and Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China by allowing them to maintain their capital-ist economies. Hong Kong, of course, was returned to Chinese control in 1998.

The state-sponsored memo-rial service for Mao Zedong in the capital city of Beijing was an event of unimaginable pro-

portions, as captured in the image provided in this section. In answer to the first ques-tion, over one million official representatives of the Chinese people attended the ceremony. The students might also notice the bowed heads of the Chinese political leaders standing in the foreground of the photo, as well as the Chinese national flag flying at half-mast in the background, as evidence of the gravity of the event. Responses to the second question will naturally vary, but students may recall the passing of ex-president Ronald Reagan or the tragic death of Britain’s Princess Diana. Sudden and un-expected deaths of music or film celebrities might also have left lasting impressions on some of the students.



Discuss the following questions with your classmates.

• Look at the picture of Mao’s memorial service (above). How many people do you think are in the audience? Have you ever attended an event that large? When?

• Were you ever really upset when a famous political leader, entertainer, or celebrity died? Who? Did you do anything special to honor or remember that person?

STUDENT WORKSHEETS

PART SEVEN: The Death of Chairman Mao

IMAGE 16: Millions gather for Mao Zedong’s Memorial Service in Beijing, 1976

Part Seven Student Worksheet



PART EIGHT: Tiananmen Square Uprising

As teachers, nearly all of us are old enough to retain vivid recollections of the confusion and excitement of 1989, a year that brought revolutions in Romania and Poland, the crum-bling of the Iron Curtain, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Tiananmen Square Uprising in China. Needless to say, Chinese students and workers participat-ing in the demonstrations in Bei-jing were conscious of the enor-mous transformations taking place throughout the communist world and were motivated by the official state visit of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to Beijing in May. An attempt by CCP leaders to enforce martial law in Beijing to quell the protests met with more broad-based resistance from the local population. The events built up to a violent climax on the night of June 3-4, resulting in the deaths of thousands as army tanks turned themselves loose on civilian protesters. Along with disenchanted student protest-ers, Chinese workers played a key role in the uprising; as these workers constituted the majority

of the protesters in Tiananmen Square, they suffered the major-ity of the casualties.

This final section of the unit uses an image and a poem to offer a brief introduction to the belief system of the Tiananmen Square protesters. The photo shows an enormous statue sculpted by Chinese art students and dubbed “The Goddess of Democracy.” Students should immediately recognize the figure’s striking resemblance to our Statue of Liberty. Even though the protest drew on ideals associated with the western democratic tradi-tion, however, the most popular melody sung during the demon-strations in Tiananmen Square was the Internationale, the song of the international communist movement. Rather than calling for an end to Communism, the Tiananmen protesters urged the regime to embrace what they be-lieved were the original ideals of the Chinese Revolution, so they could reinstitute an imagined golden age (before the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution) that had allegedly

been free of corruption and bu-reaucratic excess. Such views are captured by the lyrics of the poem shown in this section, in which the hunger-striking stu-dents neither reject nor criticize the government. Instead, they claim, on behalf of the Chinese people, their intention to repos-sess their country and their gov-ernment, even though they fail to state explicitly who or what seized it from them.



STUDENT WORKSHEETS

PART EIGHT: Tiananmen Square Uprising

In May 1989, thousands of Chinese students and workers demonstrated in

IMAGE 17: The Goddess of Democracy

Beijing, demanding demo-cratic reform and a return to the original ideals of the

Chinese Revolution. Several hundred students organized a hunger strike.

Part Eight Student Worksheets


1. To whom do you think the word “we” refers in this poem?

2. The statue in the picture on the previous page, called “Goddess of Democracy,” was made by Chinese art students. Does it look familiar? Why?

3. Have you ever participated in a political protest? When? Why? What did you do? What did you hope to achieve? Do you think you were successful?

Within a few days, over a million peo-ple joined the protest in the city center. Eventually, the government sent in the army to crush the rebellion. Thousands of protesters lost their lives.

On the right is a poem written by the students on hunger strike.

The country is our country.The people are our people.The government is our government.If we do not cry out, who will?If we do not take action, who will?


LIST OF IMAGES

Conflict versus Cooperation

List of Images

Cover Image: “Women of Britain Say Go.” Reprinted with permission from The Imperial War Museum, London.


Cover Image: The dragon and the phoenix are good omens. 1959. Reproduced from Jean-Yves Bajon, Les Années Mao: Une Histoire de la Chine en Affiches, 1949-1979 (Les Éditions du Pacifique, 2001), p. 49.


Image 1: “Chinese peasants in Yenan, 1917” (R.L. Wallace). Reproduced from Mark Selden, China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), pp. 16-17.


Image 2: “Cave dwellings in the mountains of China” (Lowell Georgia/CORBIS). Reproduced from Timothy Cheek, Mao Zedong and China’s Revolutions: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), p.14.


Image 3 : “Mao Zedong as communist revolutionary in 1930s (pictured with Zhou in Yenan).” Reproduced from Edwin P. Hoyt, The Rise of the Chinese Republic: From the Last Emperor to Deng Xiaoping (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989), pp. 148-149.


Image 4: “Mao proclaims founding of People’s Republic on Tiananmen Gate” (Bettman/CORBIS). Reproduced from Timothy Cheek, Mao Zedong and China’s Revolutions: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), p.19.


Image 5: Long live Chairman Mao, the greatest leader, the greatest chief, the supreme commander, the greatest helmsman. 1969. Reproduced from Jean-Yves Bajon, Les Années Mao: Une Histoire de la Chine en Affiches, 1949-1979 (Les Éditions du Pacifique, 2001), p. 88.


Image 6: “Peasants harvesting rice on a people’s commune in the 1960s.” Reproduced from Debra E. Soled, ed. China: A Nation in Transition (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1995), p. 63.


Image 7: “Communist-led trial of local landlord” (National Archives). Reproduced from Debra E. Soled, ed. China: a Nation in Transition (Washington: Congressional Quarterly, 1995), p. 57.


Image 8: “Male and Female Communist Party leaders; The Gang of Four.” Reproduced from Ray-mond Lotta, ed. And Mao Makes 5: Mao Tsetung’s Last Great Battle (Chicago: Banner Press, 1978), p.416.


Image 9: Modern Revolutionary Dance: Red Detachment of Women (Shanghai People’s Publishing House). 1971. Reproduced from Stewart E. Fraser, 100 Chinese Posters: Recent Examples of “the people’s art” from The People’s Republic of China (New York: Images Graphiques, 1977), p. 25.


Image 10: Colin Garratt, “Blast Furnaces of Anshan Iron and Steel Works, China” (Milepost 92 1⁄2 / CORBIS). Reproduced by permission of CORBIS (http://pro.corbis.com/default.aspx).

http://pro.corbis.com/default.aspx


Image 11: Li Zongjin, Study the advanced production experience of the Soviet Union (People’s Fine Arts Publishing House). 1953. Reproduced from Jean-Yves Bajon, Les Années Mao: Une Histoire de la Chine en Affiches, 1949-1979 (Les Éditions du Pacifique, 2001), p. 27.


Image 12: Zhejiang Workers, Farmers and Soldiers Art Academy collective, The reddest, reddest, red sun in our heart, Chairman Mao, and us together (Zhejiang People’s Art Publishing House). 1968. Reproduced with permission from the International Institute of Social History—Amsterdam. Offset, 77x53.5 cm., inv.nr. BG E3/712.


Image 13: Long live the victory of the revolutionary cultural line of Chairman Mao (Tianjin People’s Art Publishing House). 1967. Reproduced with permission from the International Institute of Social History—Amsterdam. Offset, 77x52 cm., inv.nr. BG E3/711.


Image 14: It is imperative that the working class must dominate. 1969. Reproduced from Jean-Yves Bajon, Les Années Mao: Une Histoire de la Chine en Affiches, 1949-1979 (Les Éditions du Pacifique, 2001), p. 92.


Image 15: “Local party official being punished at a rally” (Li Zhensheng). Reproduced from Robert Tignor, ed. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the Modern World from the Mongol Empire to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), p. 416.


Image 16: “Mao’s memorial service in Beijing.” Reproduced from Raymond Lotta, ed. And Mao Makes 5: Mao Tsetung’s Last Great Battle (Chicago: Banner Press, 1978), p. 423.


Image 17: “Goddess of Democracy” (AP/World Wide Photos). Reproduced from Edward J. Lazzerini, The Chinese Revolution (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), pp. 68-69.

72 Lessons in World History

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE UCI CALIFORNIA HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE PROJECTRobert G. Moeller, Faculty Director and Professor of History

Stephanie Reyes-Tuccio, Site DirectorEileen Powell, CH-SSP Program Assistanthttp://www.hnet.uci.edu/history/chssp/

HUMANITIES OUT THEREJulia Reinhard Lupton, Faculty Director and Professor of English and Comparative Literature

Tova Cooper, Director of PublicationsPeggie Winters, Grants Manager

http://yoda.hnet.uci.edu/hot/

THE SANTA ANA PARTNERSHIP:

UCI’S CENTER FOR EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIPSJuan Francisco Lara, Director

http://www.cfep.uci.edu/

THE SANTA ANA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICTLewis Bratcher, Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education

http://www.sausd.k12.ca.us/

SANTA ANA COLLEGESara Lundquist, Vice-President of Student Services

Lilia Tanakeyowma, Director of the Office of School and Community Partnerships and Associate Dean of Student DevelopmentMelba Schneider, GEAR UP Coordinator

http://www.sac.edu/

This unit would not have been possible without the support of Professor Karen Lawrence, Dean of the School of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine; Professor Robert G. Moeller, Faculty Director of the UCI California History-Social Science Project, who provides ongoing intellectual leadership in all areas touching on historical research, interpretation, and teacher professional develop-ment; Dr. Manuel Gómez, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, who provided funding and has been a steadfast supporter of our work; and the leadership of the Santa Ana Partnership, including Dr. Juan Lara, Director of the UCI Center for Educational Partnerships; Dr. Sara Lundquist, Vice-President of Student Services at Santa Ana College; Lilia Tanakeyowma, Director of the Office of School and Com-munity Partnerships and Associate Dean of Student Development at Santa Ana College; and Dr. Lewis Bratcher, Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education at the Santa Ana Unified School District.

PERMISSIONSThe materials included in this booklet are original works of authorship, works for which copyright permission has expired, works reprinted with permission, or works that we believe are within the fair use protection of the copyright laws. This is an educational and non-com-mercial publication designed specifically for high school History-Social Science classes, and is distributed to teachers without charge.

Book design by Susan Reese

Acknowledgments

http://www.hnet.uci.edu/history/chssp/

http://yoda.hnet.uci.edu/hot/

http://www.cfep.uci.edu/

http://www.sausd.k12.ca.us/

http://www.sac.edu/

72 Lessons in World History

“The curriculum in World History shows students that history matters. Demonstrating the connections among regions that shaped a global economy and society, these innovative curricular units also show students how to build bridges between the past and the present. Correlated with the California State Content Standards for tenth grade world history, these units in world history take young historians from the industrial revolution of the late eighteenth century to the Cold War.”

—Robert G. Moeller, Professor of History and Faculty Director of the

California History-Social Science Project, University of California, Irvine

CALIFORNIA HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE STANDARDS ADDRESSED

10.9Students analyze the international developments in the post-World War II world.

10.9.4Analyze the Chinese Civil War, with the rise of Mao Tse-Tung, and the subsequent political and economic upheavals in China (e.g., the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the Tiananmen Square uprising).

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