THEME TWO: Agriculture and industry, 1949-65
Essay Titles – Essays to plan
1. To what extent was the famine of 1958-1962 caused by the government’s policies?
FOR:
Backyard furnaces to contribute to steel production wasted lots of time and other products
like kitchen materials and furniture. Economy broke down because everyone was working in
backyard.
Farming methods/policies led to death of many plants: Lysenkoism, pest control,
Sparrowcide.
The worst part of Lysenkoism was pest control, which focused on killing birds to prevent
them eating seeds.
Peasants wasted hours banging pots and pans together to prevent birds from landing, until
they fell exhausted from the sky, but the result seriously upset the ecological balance.
Insects (particularly locusts) and small creatures the birds normally ate multiplied
uncontrollably and destroyed the plants, so too did rats and vermin, which destroyed grain
stocks.
The focus on increased fertilisation of the soil also led to the destruction of thousands of
peasants' homes, which were ploughed into the ground because the animal dung used in the
construction of the walls was thought to be useful.
Although communes were supposed to supply accommodation to those who lost their
homes in this way, the reality was that thousands of peasants were forced to seek shelter
wherever it was available.
AGAINST:
Weather in 1959: floods in South China & drought in the north (Shangdong) reduced
harvest.
Sino-Soviet split (1960): led to the removal of advisors & Mao's refusal to hear Khrushchev's
criticisms.
The impact of the overambitious nature of the plans and the reliance on pseudo-science was
intensified by the climate of fear that the anti-rightist campaign generated.
Cadres dared not speak out when things went wrong, and passed on to their superiors
excessively optimistic reports of how much their communes were producing.
When Mao went on a provincial tour of inspection, local officials were known to transplant
whole fields of seedlings to line his route, to convey the impression of plenty.
Anyone brave, or foolish, enough to speak out was likely to be sent to the laogai (labour
camps), where the numbers of inmates swelled again after 1958.
This also helps to account for the continued requisitioning of grain from areas that were
already starving.
2. How accurate is it to state that, as far as industry was concerned, the First Five-Year Plan was a
success and the Second Five Year Plan was a failure?
