China’s New Power

When the Communists, led by Mao Zedong, won power in China, they set out to modernize the country. Their aim was to provide food, schools, hospitals and work for China’s millions. These plans were blown off course in the 1960s by Mao’s ‘Cultural Revolution’. Later leaders were less radical, but refused to allow the people more freedom or democracy.

The Communists gave women the same rights as men and shared out land among the peasants. They built roads and railways, factories and power stations. In the ‘Great Leap Forward’, every village was meant to be self-sufficient, growing its own food and producing clothes and tools in small factories. But these policies failed, and after several bad harvests and mass starvation, Mao retired.

Mao returned to power in 1966, determined that China should not lose its revolutionary spirit. He set in progress the Cultural Revolution, with the aim of overthrowing the old China. All his youthful followers carried his little red book for inspiration. Traditional customs and thinking were prohibited. Foreigners and old people were insulted. College professors and teachers were turned out of their jobs to work in the fields. Hospitals and factories, left without doctors and managers, closed.

When Mao died in 1976, his revolution ended. His successor was Deng Xiaoping, who re-established trade links with the outside world and encouraged Chinese businesses to grow. This policy continued under the next leader, Jiang Zemin. China began to prosper again, but the government was still hesitant to allow political freedom and showed little regard for human rights. Student protests in 1989 were brutally crushed.