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Episode 169 – Mao: The Civil War and The Great Leap Forward with Carl Zha
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**Every episode of Macro N Cheese has a full transcript at realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast. While you’re here, check out the extras page, with links to further information related to the week’s topic.
The first part of this three-part series talked about China from Mao’s birth in 1893 through the Sino-Japanese war to the eve of the Chinese Civil War in 1945. This week, Carl discusses the civil war and the ultimate success of the Chinese Communist forces, despite being vastly outnumbered – 1.2 million against the KMT’s 4.5 million.
The US looked to China to be its junior partner in East Asia, much like Japan is today. They backed Chiang Kai-shek with military training, weapons, and other resources. A government led by the KMT would preclude a strong China-Soviet alliance.
Most leftists are familiar with the historic revolutionary form of warfare developed by Mao and the People’s Liberation Army. Lacking the numbers and equipment for a traditional, positional war, the Communists applied the tactics of what would come to be called guerrilla warfare, which has since been used successfully in wars of liberation around the world, including Vietnam, Angola, and Cuba.
The episode takes a detour to look at the history of Chinese paper money. Carl also describes how Mao won the support of local populations through land redistribution, then looks at some of the mistakes in the Great Leap Forward. Carl brings history to life with anecdotes from his own family.
Come back next week for the conclusion of this three-part series.
Carl Zha hosts Silk and Steel, a weekly podcast discussing history, culture and current events of China and Silk Road. Support him at patreon.com/silknsteel
@CarlZha and @SteelSilkn on Twitter
Macro N Cheese – Episode 169
Mao: The Civil War and The Great Leap Forward with Carl Zha
April 23, 2022
[00:00:03.720] – Carl Zha [intro/music]
The government would buy out the capitalists in places like Shanghai. They would buy out their factories and hand over control of the factory to the workers’ union. And, so, initially, it was not just like the troops came in and take over the factories. They bought out the factories. Of course, you might say there was implied coercion. The factory owner probably don’t have much choice.
[00:00:28.270] – Carl Zha [intro/music]
One of the problems that triggered the Opium War is that British had to pay for Chinese goods in silver. After a certain point, the British figured, you know what? We’re just going to sell drugs to the Chinese.
[00:01:35.110] – Geoff Ginter [intro/music]
Now, let’s see if we can avoid the apocalypse altogether. Here’s another episode of Macro N Cheese with your host, Steve Grumbine.
[00:01:42.940] – Steve Grumbine
Hey, folks, it’s Steve with my guest, Carl Zha. In the second episode of a three part series on Mao, The Chinese Revolution and The Great Leap Forward. We just realized that we are at the start of the Cold War and the beginning of the Chinese Civil War.
[00:02:00.610] – Carl Zha
Yes. Just as the Berlin Airlift began, the Chinese Civil War was raging in Manchuria between the Communists and the KMT with the Communist backed by the Soviet Union and the KMT backed by United States. And as I mentioned, Manchuria is a very strategically important area. 90% of the industrial output of China is based in Manchuria.
So whoever controls Manchuria will control China. Both sides understood this. So KMT airlifted and shipped a half million men, some of the best US trained US equipped units into Manchuria. Now, during World War II, US promised a lot of aid to China, but a lot of this aid actually didn’t materialize, partly because US was focused on Europe and partly because the supply line to China was cut.
When Japan occupied Burma, the Burma Road was cut. So the only way to supply China was through the hump by the American Air Force, who flew from northeast India across the Himalayan Hump. So the amount of supplies that could get into China was limited. So it was ironic that a lot of the lend-leased material from the US made it to China after the end of the war, just as the Chinese Civil War began and the KMT units were sent to Manchuria.
These are part of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, which was the top elite KMT units that Joseph Stilwell, the US commander, has strong armed Chiang Kai Shek to send down to Burma to open up the Burma Road. And there are American train, American equipped, basically just the creme de la creme of the KMT military. And right after their victory opening Burma Road from the Japanese.
They got sent on American naval ships boarding in Hong Kong and packed up into frozen waste of Manchuria to fight the civil war against the Communist. Now at the time, the Chinese civil war is extremely unpopular. Nobody wants to continue to fight a war right after the Japanese invasion just ended. So the KMT and the Communists both face issues where the Chinese public don’t want to have a war.
This is the time they want to have peace. US actually at this time, George Marshall flew to China, tried to broker a peace agreement between KMT and CPC because the United States didn’t want China to go into a full scale civil war where Soviet Union could potentially support the Communist side and became a big proxy battle. US vision for was different.
During Roosevelt administration the US vision for China post war was sort of a US junior partner in East Asia in the role that Japan currently plays for the US Empire, basically. So they wanted Chiang Kai Shek to be their man and they want Chiang Kai Shek to be the head of a coalition government that also included the Chinese Communist.
Mao actually flew to Chongqing, the Chinese wartime capital, in negotiation with Chiang Kai Shek with his safety explicitly guaranteed by George Marshall. But the two side couldn’t reach an agreement. One of the larger issues revolved around KMT demand the Communist Army to disarm and that become a non sequitur. At this point, the Communists had 1.2 million men under arms and the KMT side have 4.5 million troops.
So it’s almost like four to one ratio. And KMT has overwhelming superiority both in terms of numbers and equipment. And Chiang Kai Shek also felt this is the time for him to wipe out the Communist once for all because he has absolute advantage and he in no way want to yield to the Communists. And the two sides just could not come to agreement, especially on the status of Manchuria, because initially the Communist plan was to take Manchuria and to establish some sort of a people’s Republic in northeast China with Soviet backing.
But Chiang Kai Shek would not allow that because Manchuria contains 90% of China’s industry. And then the war broke out in late 1945. It continued to 1946. I actually did a whole series on the Chinese Civil War Manchurian campaign on my podcast. I’m just doing a little plug here on the Silk and Steel podcast. Yeah, because this is one of the most important theaters of the Chinese civil war.
And in the end, the US brought pressure on Soviet Union to withdrew from Manchuria. So, Soviet finally agreed to withdrew on March 1946. But they informed the Communists before they withdrew from each city. We’re going to withdrew on this date. You are welcome to come in and take over because previously the Red Army have kicked out the Communists from the cities to make room for the KMT representative.
But now Soviet bowed to the US pressure to withdraw from Manchuria. They told the Communist, you are welcome to come in wherever you want. And that’s what the Communist did. As the Soviet Red Army withdrew from each city, the Communists will move in and take over from the local KMT security forces because KMT didn’t have troops on the ground.
So what they did was they recruited a lot of the former puppet troops because the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria and employ hundreds of thousands of puppet troops. And now these troops are looking to continue their employment. And so KMT promised them they can keep their jobs as long as they switch their allegiance to KMT.
But the problem with the puppet troop, they may have good equipment but they never have the will to fight. So that’s the difference. The Communists very quickly were able to scatter these former puppet troops from the Manchurian cities and take over. But then the crack divisions of KMT arrived on the American ships, the half million man, American trained, American equipped troops, former Chinese Expeditionary Force in Burma.
They pushed through. They fought several big battles to push the Chinese Communists all the way to the Northern Manchuria across the Songhua River. Basically, the KMT took all the industrial heartland of Manchuria, the most populated areas of Manchuria. The Communist got pushed to more sparsely populated Northern Manchuria.
But Communists regained control of a couple big cities like Harbin and Qiqihar. And at that point, KMT finally agreed to the ceasefire broker by George Marshall because he felt they have achieved its initial aim to control all the industry in Manchuria. They control the coal mine, the hydroelectric power plants, the steel plant. But at this point, just as two side were negotiating because I said Chiang Kai Shek never intended to bring Communist to the table, full scale civil war broke out elsewhere in Northern China.
I’m talking about the Northern China south of the Great Wall and then KMT to start a full campaign against Communist base in Northern China. So as I mentioned, at this time the scale is almost one to four. The Communists had 1.2 million men, the KMT had 4.5 million troops. And Chiang Kai Shek has the absolute numerical and technological superiority.
And Chiang Kai Shek thought he could push through this militarily. At the same time, the civil war is deeply unpopular and the Communists realize they need to do something different to rally the population to their cause. Because before, the reason they gain a lot of support and a lot of ground in Northern China because Communists were the only force fighting Japanese in those areas.
So people automatically flock to them because they’re the only Chinese resistance force. But KMT is still legitimate government of China. And Chiang Kai Shek particularly, reached the pinnacle of his prestige on August 15 on the Japanese surrender as the leader of China who led China through this very difficult period. So now Mao reversed the former policy of United front. So during the Japanese invasion.
The Communist United Front is to unite all forces who oppose Japanese invasion, including National bourgeois, including landlord class. But now, just as the civil war was breaking out, the Communist Party passed a resolution to start land reform in all the Communist areas. That means taking away the land from the landlords and divide it among the peasantry, among the tenant farmers and all the other poor farmers who didn’t have land.
And that would be a game changer because previously the Chinese public didn’t have a reason really to pick a side Communists versus the KMT. Maybe for sentimental values because in Northern China a lot of the area has been under the Communist control for many years during the Japanese occupation. But still KMT represented the legitimate government of China.
But now with the land reform, the peasantry now have a reason to align themselves with the Communist Party. They’re deriving a real benefit. They’re getting land. And another thing is the KMT support arrived from bourgeois and the landlord class. Most of the MMT officers came from the landlord class.
One of the reason for the first KMT-CPC split back in 1927 was back then Mao and his Communist colleagues were doing radical land reforms in the countryside when the Northern Expeditionary Force was passing through. And a lot of the KMT officers class was greatly incensed because they saw their family fortune getting confiscated and handing over to poor peasants.
And so that’s why they supported Chiang Kai Shek to purge the Communists. And again, Chiang Kai Shek support is mostly through his military. So the CPC and KMT locked in in this Titanic battle for control of China. But Mao is right that most of Chinese population at this time was rural peasantry and only a very few percentage of population are the landlords.
So he’s sacrificing the landlord class to unite all the peasants under the Communist banner. Now the peasants have a reason to defend their land because if the KMT forces come through their town, they’re going to take back the land and back to the landlords. So there’s a reason now for the peasant to side more than ever with the Communist side.
Also another factor is remember the Communist Army at the time mostly consists of the locals who have been recruited during the war against Japanese aggression. And the KMT army, which is from Southern China, from different part of China. They’re coming in as outsiders, right? So the war on the Communist base became a war of the Northern Chinese peasantry defending their land from this outsider who’s coming in to take it away from them.
[00:14:12.730] – Grumbine
Let me ask you a quick question though. You talk about land reforms and I understand under communism the idea of private property is a non thing. When you talk land reforms, can you give me a quick departure and then bring us right back? I don’t want to lose our track, but I think that’s an important thing to state.
[00:14:29.450] – Zha
That’s a good question. Because collectivization hadn’t started at this time. So land reform during Chinese Civil War means literally taking away the land from landlord and divide it to give it to the poor peasants who don’t have land. So it will still remain their private property, but it will be private property of these formerly poor peasants.
[00:14:50.590] – Grumbine
Gotcha.
[00:14:51.410] – Zha
Yeah. There’s a book written by American William Hinton, who is American, who was present during the Chinese Civil War in 1947. He went to North China. I think he may be associated with the US military. He was present. So at the time, a bunch of US journalists also made it to the Communist areas, as well as a representative from the US military, because US military during World War II was exploring ways to leverage the Communist guerrillas against the Japanese.
There was a famous Dixie mission on the US Army to meet with Mao to discuss plans for cooperation. And the Dixie mission to Communist base only ended when the Chinese Civil War began. And William Hinton went to Northern China. He went to a Communist base and he witnessed firsthand in the village of Tangong. He translated literally into English as the village of Longbow.
He witnessed land reform first hand and he wrote a eyewitness account of the land reform in China. It was published in 1966. It’s called Fanshen: a Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village. I highly recommend people check it out if they’re interested in how land reform was carried out in Northern China during this time, during the time of the Chinese Civil War.
This is probably one of the best English language resource on this subject. And what the land reform did was it bind the Chinese peasantry to the Chinese Communist cause, because now they’re defending their own land from the KMT army, who is coming to take it away from them. And that also increased Communist recruitment drive.
And then on the other side, the KMT side, as I said, the war remains deeply, deeply unpopular. A lot of the Chinese youth joined the army during World War II to fight the Japanese. They didn’t want to fight a civil war, but orders are orders. So already there was a moral difference from two sides. The Communist side were determined to defend their land.
And the KMT, they are carrying out their orders basically. In the beginning stage of the war, the KMT, because they enjoy absolute numerical advantage, they were able to take the war to the Communist areas. And again, this is when the Communist troops would employ guerrilla tactics, withdrawing the KMT army until their supply line gets overstretched, and then attack their supply line, attack their weakest point.
And the Communists had a couple of brilliant, brilliant commanders. And one of the problems with the KMT is that, again, China was not only nominally United, so KMT has these core armies whose personal loyalty is to Chiang Kai Shek, but he has also these warlord’s armies, which Chiang Kai Shek just use them as cannon fodder to throw them against the communists.
And these warlords army knew it. Those warlord army commanders and these warlords, they knew it. They knew Chiang Kai Shek would willingly sacrifice them to kill the Communists. Many of them actually when push comes to shove they would defect to the Communist side because when they’re surrounded by the Communists for example they don’t want to die for Chiang Kai Shek.
[00:18:23.810] – Grumbine
Right.
[00:18:25.170] – Zha
And so we could spend hours and hours on the Chinese civil war. But in the end the Communist triumph against incredible odds. And then when the tide turned, the Communist driven the KMT forces out of mainland China. Chiang Kai Shek had to flee to Taiwan. Taiwan was actually a Japanese colony because Japan forced China to give Taiwan to Japan as a result of the first Sino Japanese war in 1895.
Around the time when Mao was born, Taiwan was given to Japan became a Japanese colony for 50 years. But at the end of World War II, Taiwan was returned back to China. So when Chang Kai Shek lost the civil war, Taiwan became his last refuge. He took the rest of his KMT army and fled to Taiwan. And the separation between Taiwan and mainland China remains to this day because in 1950 Mao had ordered his general to prepare to cross the Taiwan Strait.
But then Korean War broke out in June 1950 and as soon as the Korean War broke out, even before the Chinese involvement in the Korean War, US sending the 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait. And because PRC at the time didn’t have a Navy there’s nothing much they could do about sailing across the Taiwan Strait at the time. So that’s why the separation remains today.
And now maybe we can talk about Mao post PRC period because this could be potentially a very controversial topic because Mao himself said he accomplished two great deeds. He said only two things I have done in my lifetime is worth mentioning. One is kicking Chiang Kai Shek out to Taiwan. Two is Great Cultural Revolution.
So I think on the first part most people in China today would side with Mao because China was war torn was disunited for so long under thumbs of various imperialist power. And what Mao did through unifying China, finally, in 1949 as he announced on top of Tiananmen when he said Chinese people have finally stood up. That resonates with a lot of people.
That achievement of Mao, I think most Chinese people especially Chinese people on mainland China would agree. Now the second part, the second part we’re going to talk about some mistakes that Mao made. So one thing you ask about land reform is about private property. And of course private property in communism is a contradiction.
And land reform during the civil war the land were taken away from the landlords and given away to peasants but as their private property. And by the way one of the crimes of Mao supposedly by his detractors to point out the land reform was particularly brutal, many landlords were killed. Some estimated up to a million landlords were liquidated.
And I don’t know about the numbers, but people can read the details in the book I recommended by American William Hinton, Fanshen, talking about land reform. So land reform in some cases is pretty brutal. There are cases where landlords were killed and then their property divided up, and sometimes even their families were affected.
They completely divide up the land of the former landlord and leaving nothing to his family. This is true. But this is against the brutality and the cruelty that existed in feudal China prior to the land reform. William Hinton talked about this. He put it into context about the ruthless exploitation of the Chinese peasantry by the landlord class.
And so I don’t think many people in mainland China today would criticize Mao for land reform. At most they will say the manner it was carried out, it’s too drastic. Maybe we don’t have to kill the landlord. But I think that the whole concept of land reform, I don’t think many people would be against that. In fact, that’s what won the Communist civil war is a land reform, right.
So the landlord class was cast out during the Chinese civil war. So I talked about United front that Mao talked about during the Japanese invasion, which is uniting everyone, including landlords and bourgeois. So landlord was cast out because of land reform. But national bourgeois at this point still remain part of the United front. So people look at the current Chinese National flag. There’s a five star flag.
The person who originally designed the five star flag, he took the symbolism from what Mao said during 1930s about building a new democracy, about building the United front. So the biggest star in the center that represents the Communist Party. And the four little stars represent workers, peasants, petit bourgeois and national bourgeois.
So those bourgeois are still represented by stars on the Chinese National flag. Okay, that was the original design. I’m talking in 1949, during the founding of People’s Republic. When I went to elementary school in China, I learned about the big star being the Communist Party. I learned about one of the little star being the peasants, one of the little star being the workers.
But I don’t remember the other two stars, petit bourgeois and national bourgeois, all right? Because something happened between 1949 and 1980. So in 1950s, that’s when Mao wanted to start practicing after China was finally united. That’s when Mao wanted to push China to a path of communism, to a full Communist utopia. And one of the first things they did was nationalizing industries.
So nationalizing factories and private industries. This was first carried out in a way where the government would buy out the capitalists in places like Shanghai. They would buy out their factories and hand over control of the factory to the workers union. And so initially it was not just like the troops came in and take over the factories, they bought out the factories.
Of course, you might say there was an implied coercion. The factory owner probably don’t have much choice, but it was through purchase. And initially it was called a cooperative, half private, half public. They would purchased 50% of the factory, for example, and still let the factory owner retain 50%. This become a private public joint venture.
[00:25:38.000] – Grumbine
Public private partnership. Yes. One of the things that jumps out at me with what you’re saying, that reminds me of pipelines and other things in the US. We talk about they took away the land or they took away and nationalized the factories. But we have eminent domain here in the United States and we claim property all the time.
We don’t like it anymore here than probably they liked it over there. But when the interest of the state is there, we’ve proven that we’ll just go ahead and take it. So I’m not sure there’s too much of a big difference in the grand scheme of it all.
[00:26:13.750] – Zha
I was actually shocked when I first learned about eminent domain in the United States in early 2000. I was talking about this with my friend and they said, yeah, we have eminent domain where they can just take. I’m like, what? Because I was not used to that, because in China, people can Google online called “nail houses”.
That’s when sometimes Chinese government wants to purchase land from the property owner to build a highway, for example. But sometimes these landowners want to held out for a higher price or they don’t want to sell. And what happened is the local government will build around these houses. So it became this phenomenon called nail houses.
So you have this house in the middle of the highway. Right, because the owner didn’t want to sell to the state their own house or they wanted to hold out for a higher price. So you have a very Chinese phenomenon, cuts of nail houses, because that nail that sticks out. So that’s what I was used to. So I was really shocked when I learned about eminent domain in the US. You can just take them away.
Okay. So that transformation nationalizing private industry happened throughout 1950s and in conjunction, Mao also pushed for collectivization in the countryside. And initially it happened on a voluntary basis. They encouraged these farmers who have received land through land reform to get together to form the farmers collective.
And then starting from mid 1950s, Mao felt that that pace wasn’t happening fast enough because he wanted to see communism happen in his lifetime. He can’t wait for everything to happen organically. So then he start to push for full scale collectivization all across the country. And that’s what basically culminated in the Great Leap Forward.
From my, again, anecdotal stories both of my grandpa had KMT affiliation. My grandfather on my dad’s side, during the Japanese occupation of his hometown, the Japanese occupation army posted sentry. They have checkpoint all over the place, especially at the city gate. And my grandpa was living in the countryside because he came from a landlord family.
So he inherited country estate from my great grandfather. But he ran a medical practice in the town, so he would go in town every morning to his clinic. And the Japanese sentry forced every Chinese person to salute the Japanese sentry at the city gate. Now, my grandpa is a member of the Chinese gentry. He’s an intellectual. He was educated. He felt offended by having to salute a Japanese occupier.
So he pretends that he didn’t hear the command. But the Japanese sentry grabbed him and slapped him in public. And then he felt so humiliated, he decided to seek out underground resistance. And at the time, in the area of southeastern China, my Grandpa’s hometown is about 45 minutes south of Shanghai. In that area, there’s no Communist organized resistance.
All the underground resistance is KMT affiliated. So he joined KMT under such circumstances, he was made a propaganda chief for the KMT underground resistance because he was literate. He know how to read and write. Because at that time, 90% of the Chinese population didn’t know how to read and write. And so he was responsible basically for printing out flyers and writing propaganda leaflet. I kind of picture this as Monty Python Life of Brian.
[00:30:00.830] – Grumbine
Exactly that.
[00:30:02.130] – Zha
My grandpa going around the town painting graffiti and putting up anti Japanese posters. But luckily he didn’t get found out. And he waited till the Japanese surrender. But when the Japanese surrender happened, the KMT official came from Shanxi to our town and said, well, thank you for your service. You can go home now.
And then the Japanese official themselves, they’re like kind of carpet baggers who came from outside of the town. They start taking over all the former property that was confiscated by the Japanese. They made it their own personal property. And that caused a lot of resentment because they’re like, wait a minute, we wanted to overthrow Japanese because they were the ones appropriating our property.
But outsiders just came and then take over. What makes you different from the Japanese? And so that is also another reason that the KMT lost the Civil War.
[00:31:11.430] – Intermission
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[00:32:02.350] – Zha
During this postwar period, a lot of the KMT corruption raised a lot of popular discontent, especially this KMT carpet bagger officials caused a lot of local resentment. And my grandpa, even though his KMT affiliation during World War II, he welcomed the Communist Army marching in because he thought that the end of the KMT corruption.
And my other grandpa he was a self-educated man. He also came from a landlord family. He was the youngest son. His older brother wasted the family fortune by smoking away in opium dens. But when he was young, the family lost all the land, and the local bully also took over what remained of their family land. My grandpa actually became a proletarian.
He started as an apprentice to chefs, and he did things like peddling vegetables in the market. And he took the spare time to attend night classes at Chongqing University. And then he passed some tests. At that time, modern education was just starting in China. So he passed himself off as a College grad. Even though he just took classes, he just sat in on Chongqing University lectures.
But he was able to get a post as a high school teacher. During World War II, a lot of the Chinese factories on the coast relocated to Chongqing, which at the time was a Chinese wartime capital. One of the capitalists decided to move their textile factory to Chongqing. But he wanted to have the children of his workers educated. So he contacted someone he knows to fund a school.
But that guy, he doesn’t know anything about how to run a school. So he seek out my grandpa. So my grandpa become a founder of this high school, and it became the high school’s principal. But the fact was that the high school and the elementary school was attached to the textile factory, which was then taken over by the KMT army during the war to manufacture the KMT uniform.
So then he accidentally gained his KMT affiliation. And then even so, my teacher grandpa was also in support of the Communist when they came to liberate our city Chongqing because he felt under KMT rule, especially during the Chinese war, the inflation was rampant. KMT starts printing money to pay for everything. And because the Communist controlled Northern China, a lot of the agricultural land.
And the KMT war on the Communist area in Northern China caused food shortages, and inflation was high. And then the KMT government just keep on printing money, which drove hyperinflation in China. And so both of my grandpa were fully in support of the Communist in 1949.
[00:34:49.270] – Grumbine
Let me jump in there for just a second because this is kind of my sweet spot. Was this the yuan at the time? What was the currency of the Chinese state?
[00:34:58.820] – Zha
Oh, yeah, the currency unit is called yuan.
[00:35:01.850] – Grumbine
This is the Renminbi…I always screw it up.
[00:35:04.370] – Zha
Yeah, Renminbi is currency of the new Communist China RMB literally means “people’s money”. Renminbi and yuan is interchangeable. Yuan is a unit. It’s like a dollar, like a basic unit. Okay, so originally the Chinese currency back in the Qing dynasty was based in silver. China for a long time, since 16th century was based on silver.
[00:35:28.770] – Grumbine
Or pegged to a commodity.
[00:35:30.270] – Zha
Yeah, because China was the first country in the world to invent paper. And Chinese government is the first in the world to invent paper money like 1000 years ago during Song dynasty.
[00:35:41.510] – Grumbine
Fiat currency from China. No kidding. Okay, keep going.
[00:35:45.010] – Zha
Actually from my part of China in Sichuan, before the Chinese currency was in copper. But in Sichuan where my mom’s side of my family is from. At that time Sichuan does not produce copper. So at that time local government was using iron. But to be able to purchase anything with iron you got to be a power lifter to carry all these iron bars around.
So I’m talking about 1000 years ago in Song dynasty. Sure. So at that time a bunch of Chinese private banks started to issue these paper certificates. With this certificate you can go to the bank to exchange for copper coins.
[00:36:25.090] – Grumbine
Convertibility.
[00:36:26.050] – Zha
Yes, yes. Instead of carrying iron bars around. So after the Mongol conquest during the Yuan dynasty, the Yuan central Imperial government discovered paper currencies they’re like wow, this is great, we can just keep on printing that cause major inflation and that’s one of the reason that brought down the Mongol rule in China.
[00:36:49.390] – Grumbine
Can I interrupt? This is so important what you were talking about when you start seeing hyperinflation, when it comes down to the real resources, if you don’t have the productive capacity to absorb the quote unquote printing of money, it’s really the lack of resources that is creating the situation because if you don’t have the production to match the other side of it.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s pegged to gold or pearls. What matters is that the real resources are there. So what you probably experience in this case is a resource issue while they’re printing money against something with no actual production to back it up.
[00:37:26.330] – Zha
And at the time one of the problems was the Mongols waged a nearly half century war against Southern China to conquer it and then after that Kublai Khan keep on pushing expansionist policy to launch two invasion against Japan, several invasion against Vietnam, invasion against Myanmar and then one invasion against Java Island on present day Malaysia.
So to pay for all these wars the Yuan dynasty Imperial government keep on printing money that had major consequences. Inflation finally led to popular revolt that ended the Mongol rule in China. But the next government, the Ming dynasty, China adopted the same policy. They keep on printing money. So in the end nobody placed any value on paper currency anymore.
So by the end of Ming dynasty everybody switched to hard currency which means silver in China at the time. And that’s also when Colombian exchange happened, when the Spaniards discovered silver mines in Bolivia and Mexico and through the trans Pacific Manila galleon trade they will ship silver from Acapulco, Mexico to Manila to Philippines and then to trade for the Chinese manufacturer goods brought over by the Chinese merchants who came to Manila to trade.
So that’s how 50% of the silver mined in the Americas ended up flowing into China in the 17th, 18th, 19th century and also at the time silver was discovered in Japan. So silver from both Japan and South America were flowing into China to make silver the currency of China for a long, long time. One of the problems that triggered the Opium War is that British had to pay for Chinese goods in silver.
After a certain point, British figure, you know what, we’re just going to sell drugs to the Chinese and they reverse the silver flow. So whereas before silver will flow into China, after British start selling drugs, silver start flowing out of China into the British hand. But silver remain a Chinese currency for a long, long time. And there was already inflation.
Because much of China was under Japanese occupation, they were pushed into to this very tiny corner of China in southwest were basically thrown a lifeline by the Allies through the airlift, through the Himalayan humps. But after the war, because the corruption of the KMT, and also because they are waging war on the Communist areas, which is a productive farmland.
And as I mentioned, Manchuria, 90% of China’s industrial output become a major battlefield. And KMT keep on printing money to pay for its wars, to pay for the Civil War. And that drove inflation sky high. All the stories you hear about people pushing a wheelbarrow of money to pay for basic things like lighters, those stories were from those times.
And so both of my grandpa were fully in support of the Communist victory because they thought that would finally bring end to the chaos. So according to the recollection of my grandpa, the early fifties were the best time. So in the early 50s, the war has finally ended. The economy was recovering, the country seems to be on the right track.
Everything is growing, everyone has enough to eat. And then in the mid 50s, this is when Mao felt the pace of China’s march toward communism wasn’t sufficient. He pushed for full collectivization. And at that time, also a lot of the local officials who knew this was Mao’s intent, they also started to inflate the figures of harvest.
For example, they say, oh, the collectivization was so great, we boosted our harvest numbers by 200%. And then during the Great Leap Forward, Mao thought he could mobilize the populace the way he mobilized the peasantry during the Civil War and World War Two to work on the Chinese economy. He thought that the wartime communism could be carried over during peacetime Communism.
And that’s when he encouraged farmers to build backyard furnace to make steel, which a lot of times the farmers melted down their farm tools and pots and pans and produce useless iron because the farmers couldn’t make the temperature high enough to actually produce useful industrial steel. And while all the peasants were busy doing these things, the actual farm work was neglected.
And also during the collectivization, the incentive system was also changed because before farmer has their own land, after land reform, they’re producing for themselves. And now everything is collectivized. And Mao really wanted to rush the whole society into Communist utopia, so he told many people, you guys don’t need to eat at home anymore.
Everyone eat at cafeteria. So even in the countryside they have a cafeteria to serve the whole village. They melt down all the people’s pots and pans in their families to make steel in the backyard furnace. This is one of the reasons Great Leap Forward turned into a big failure. And local officials also inflated the local harvest numbers to prove the superiority of the collective system.
Some Communist officials were reporting problems. For example, the PLA commander, Defense Minister Peng Dehuai, he did an inspection tour in the countryside. He thought, okay, this is not working. He wanted to put the advice to Mao that we should put a hold on the drive of the Great Leap Forward and to reevaluate.
Initially, Mao agreed to a meeting with all his Communist Party members to talk about the Great Leap Forward. But Mao still believed that the fast forward to communism is possible. He thought the reason all these problems occur is because saboteurs people were trying to sabotage the revolution. But to Mao’s surprise, a lot of his longtime colleagues in the Communist Party sided with Peng Dehuai.
There was a time when he said, “Let a hundred flowers bloom” and that’s when Mao wanted to practice democracy. He felt like the Communist cadre class may have been too complacent. And he felt like a lot of the cadres are kind of adopting the attitude of the former Imperial Mandarin class. Mao’s idea is to create a classless society where everyone is equal.
But he felt like the Communist bureaucracy is recreating kind of the Imperial Mandarin system where the mandarins are Lord over the common people and the Communist cadre just become the red Mandarin. So he wanted to correct that. This is when Mao launched the “Let a Hundred Flower Bloom” campaign to open public criticism of the Communist Party policy.
But to Mao’s surprise, when he encouraged criticism, the criticism keep on pouring in. During the United Front period, both through World War II and Civil war, talk about Mao tried to bring in elements of Chinese society. First anyone who against Japanese invasion and then anyone who is against the KMT rule.
So a lot of third parties, like the Chinese Democratic parties, other left leaning parties, they all joined the Communist side because they thought the Chiang Kai Shek was a military dictator, which he was. Right. But they thought once the Communist took side because of Mao’s advocacy for United Front, they thought Communists would do a power sharing with the other parties.
But they were disappointed to see that Communist essentially took over all the important posts of the government. So they felt like Mao didn’t fulfill the pledge for this kind of United front. Remember the 1949 flags? Five star flags. The two star was petit bourgeois and national bourgeois. So these people felt like we’re supposed to be included in the government, we’re supposed to have a say.
And they felt the Communist party was taking authoritarian road. So there are tons of criticisms for him. And that really surprised both Mao and his Communist colleagues. So that’s when Mao finally decided to put a stop to that. This became the anti-rightist campaign in 1957. And so they felt like the counter revolutionaries using this opportunity to launch attack on the Chinese revolution, an attack on the Chinese Communist party.
And then they start a purge of the so called rightist element. And that’s what both of my grandpa got labeled as rightists. So my grandpa, the doctor, the communists are still practical. They know they still need doctors. They label him a rightist, but they didn’t publicize it. So internally they label him a rightist. So what that means is his salary gets cut to one third of his former salary and he’s forced to do self criticism, attend struggle sessions like in the hospital.
He helped, he was struggled by the hospital employees. My second eldest uncle, he wanted to be an engineer. But at that time, because of my Grandpa’s KMT affiliation, my uncle wasn’t allowed to go to college because at the time, Mao divided people by classes. Okay, these people who are old society ruling class, they’re supposed to be cast down to allow the working class to rise up.
But unfortunately, that casting down of the old ruling class also affected their family. So my uncle, for example, was not allowed to go to college even though he was top in his class. In fact, he scored the highest in the College entrance exam in his city. He wanted to be an engineer. Now he cannot become an engineer who wanted to go to factory to become a worker because he wanted to be a proletarian.
But the local government said, no, no, no, we have other plans for you. You need to study with your father to learn Chinese medicine because we don’t want the arts of Chinese medicine to die off. So you are his son, so you should pick up his mantle. My uncle wasn’t very willing because my uncle is like, come on, we’re in the nuclear age now, we’re splitting atoms.
Why do I have to learn this voodoo Chinese traditional medicine crap? But he had no choice. He was forced to be apprenticed to my grandpa, but he was also forced to participate in the struggle session against his own father during cultural revolution, which he was kind of bitter because he didn’t want to be there in the first place.
And then he was made to participate in the public denunciation of his own dad. So all these things happen. And my other grandpa, who was a teacher and a principal, he was denounced by his own fellow protégé, this new young teacher, he was helping along, but this guy, for some reason saw a chance to unseat my grandpa and take his position.
I guess in this political movement and denounce my grandpa for both his former KMT association and for supposedly corruption because my grandpa would take all these young teachers out to lunch. So he’s saying, where does my grandpa get all this money to host a banquet all the time? So they accused my grandpa of corruption.
My grandpa was labeled a rightist and he was sent to a labor camp which at the time was euphemistically called cadre school where the cadre is going there to get reeducated. But in fact, he was made to work on the farm to raise food for themselves. So that started from 1957, the anti rightist campaign. The political movement go hand in hand with Mao’s attempt to reshape Chinese society into the one he wanted.
You know a lot of detractor of Mao ascribe this to kind of Mao’s hunger for power. But that’s not true because Mao already had power at this point. He had almost unrivaled power. He didn’t need more power. But what he wanted, he wanted to fast forward to communism. That’s what he wanted. He wanted to do whatever is necessary.
And Mao is very headstrong because he felt the end justifies means and he really believed in the righteousness of his own cause. So he thought any means necessary to achieve what he felt was justified end. And he was right most of the time during the Chinese Civil War. And he thought he was also correct in trying to hurry up with creating a Communist utopia.
But that created a lot of problems and doing Great Leap Forward. So this is where we’re talking about getting into the controversy now because the result of Great Lead Forward in 1958 is that first the commander of PLA, Peng Dehuai, tried to put a stop to that during Lushan meeting among the Communist cadres. But Mao took it personal.
He saw that as attack on himself. He already had personal beef with Peng Dehuai stretching back to World War II because during World War Two, Peng Dehuai led the 100 Regiment offensive against the Japanese. But that exposed the Communist strength in Northern China. And so Japanese did the retaliation campaign which I talked about earlier, the Three All—the Kill All, Leave All, Burn All—scorched-earth campaign to wipe out the popular support of the Communists.
So Mao bitterly criticized Peng Dehuai for that because he felt that the Communist side has suffered greatly because of Peng Dehuai’s military adventurers. That’s what they call it. And then during this time he had Peng Dehuai criticized during that time in 1940s during the Yen unrecognisation campaign. And now he felt like panic. Peng Dehuai is trying to get back at him to criticize him for the Great Leap Forward.
And during the meeting he felt like, Peng Dehua was settling a score with him. So he directed his attack against Peng Dehuai. Peng Dehuai was a military man. He used to swear. So he said back in 1940’s, he used the word in Chinese Cao ni ma, which means fuck one’s mother. He said, you spent 40 days in Yan’an to fuck with me. He used the word fuck my mother.
You spent 40 days in Yan’an to fuck with me. Now what’s wrong with me is spending few days fuck with you, right? And then Mao said, what? You want to fuck my mom? And then the whole meeting became silent, right? The whole committee meeting is like, oh, crap.
And so Peng Dehuai was purged after that, and all the people who sided with Peng Dehuai criticizing Great Leap Forward was purged. And that means continuation of kind of the Great Leap Forward policy, which is full collectivization and also push forth these farmyard backyard furnace plans. But what happened was between 1959 and 1960, China experienced weather problems.
There was drought in several parts of China. But at the same time, when the harvest was reduced, the local official are still reporting record bumper harvest because they knew Mao like to hear that the progress toward communism is happening. So they would report these glowing numbers. What happened? The central government, based on these numbers of bumper harvest, report start to requisition grain from the local government for grain that’s not there. And that created a huge problem because
[00:53:48.550] – Grumbine
There’s your resources.
[00:53:49.840] – Zha
Yes, those grains were not there. A lot of the local officials also tried to cover up the reality on the ground. First they lie about the bumper harvest. And now in order to make up for the grain, they have to send to the central government, they order militias to find all the grains possible. And that led to starvation and famine.
This is the most controversial part, I guess, of Mao—the famine from 1959 to 1961. And this is also the most death occurred when people talking about tens of millions of people Mao killed, they’re talking about this period, the Great Famine.
[00:54:28.570] – Grumbine
Let me ask you this question. People were afraid to report that we don’t have great crops because Mao had escalated the Great Leap Forward. And so the fear of disappointing Mao. Was Mao aware that they were starving the people to give him the fake numbers? Or was he under the impression that everything was great and things were fine? Why is there a problem? This wasn’t an edict from Mao to say, starve, the people, bring me my grain. It was more a matter of them being afraid to let him down. I just want to try to understand how that occurred.
[00:55:04.090] – Zha
Yes, Mao. At this point, he was not a micromanager. Mao is a visionary. He threw out directives. In fact, this is how China operates today. People think China is like well-oiled machine—a monolith—Xi Jinping just snaps a finger and it gets executed at the village level. That’s not how it works. Usually what happens is the top Chinese leaders, they will issue a directive.
Basically, it points a direction. A lot of the implementation of the policies is left to individual local government officials at the ground level. So, is Mao aware of the famine on the ground? So at the time—this is the most controversial part—because at one point, people like Peng Dehuai did try to bring attention to Mao, say there are problems on the ground, but Mao kind of dismissed it.
Mao took it personal. The problem is Mao took that criticism personal. He thought Peng Dehuai was trying to get back at him for Mao’s criticism of Peng Dehuai during World War Two. And when Mao made the example of Peng Dehuai, that effectively silenced all internal criticism. Everybody now is scared to bring the issue to Mao because they saw what happened to Peng Dehuai.
Peng Dehuai was stripped of his top post. He was Defense Minister of China and then he was basically sent home packing after that.
[00:56:27.490] – Grumbine
It was really about something going back further. There was a beef between these two that had dated back to the civil war. This is something totally different than Mao and Peng Dehuai , but they had a personal beef. I think there’s two things going on, if I’m hearing you correctly.
[00:56:45.130] – Zha
There are two things. But also Mao didn’t like to hear that the direction of his policy is wrong because he felt like there might be implementation problem. His general direction is still correct. To lead China.
[00:56:58.970] – Grumbine
Got it? Yes.
[00:57:00.000] – Zha
His goal is to great leap forward China into full communism. He wanted to surpass the achievement of Soviet Union and especially after Khrushchev’s Destalinization campaign in Soviet Union. He felt like Soviet Union was becoming revisionist and he felt like China could take over the leadership of the world Communist movement by outperforming Soviet Union in production.
And Mao actually put up this goal is surpassing Britain, surpassing United States. But they actually put the goal in surpassing Britain in steel production in 15 years and surpassing the United States in 30 years. That actually did happen. But if it happened under very different circumstances much later under Deng Xiaoping. But the timeline was roughly correct. What Mao wanted to happen did happen, but happened under very different circumstances.
[00:57:59.650] – Grumbine
And on someone else’s watch.
[00:58:01.010] – Zha
Yeah, someone else’s watch exactly. Mao was used to mobilize the populace. He mobilized the populist during the war. Very effective. He thought he could also mobilize populist into production for a common goal, but that did not work out because in a way, Mao’s dreaming of Utopia, when putting into actual practice, kind of goes against human nature.
And Mao wanted to shape the human nature. He wanted people to be more selfless and more sharing and more cooperative with each other. But humanity has both sides. We have a side that’s community-building, sharing, but there’s also like a selfish side. Both sides exist. You can’t deny one side or the other. And I think Mao’s attempt to kind of shape human character.
It’s a big experiment, but I think, unfortunately, it results in pretty disastrous consequences during the Great Famine of 1959 and 1961. And most of the debt that attributed to Mao happened during this period during the famine period. Later some among the Chinese Communist leadership attributed that as 30% natural disaster 70% manmade and the manmade part was the local official reporting record bumper harvest and then the order comes from the central government to requisition the grain that wasn’t there.
[00:59:40.050] – End credits
Macro N Cheese is produced by Andy Kennedy, descriptive writing by Virginia Cotts and promotional artwork by Andy Kennedy. Macro N Cheese is publicly funded by Real Progressives Patreon account. If you would like to donate to Macro and cheese, please visit Patreon.com/realprogressives.
Carl Zha – Guest
Podcaster who was born in China. His family moved to the US when Carl was a teenager. On his podcast, Silk and Steel he talks about all things China past and present.
Mao Tse-tung
Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People’s Republic of China, which he ruled as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976.
Opium War
The First Opium War, fought in 1839–1842 between Qing China and the United Kingdom, was triggered by the dynasty’s campaign against the British merchants who sold opium in China. The Second Opium War was fought between the Qing and the United Kingdom and France, 1856–1860. In each war, the European force’s modern military technology led to easy victory over the Qing forces, with the consequence that the government was compelled to grant favorable tariffs, trade concessions, reparations and territory to the Europeans.
KMT /Guomindang (Chinese Nationalist Party)
The Kuomintang, also referred to as the Guomindang or the Chinese Nationalist Party, is a major political party in the Republic of China throughout its historical periods in both the Chinese mainland as well as Taiwan. It was the dominant ruling party of the Republic of China on the mainland from 1928 to 1949.
Chiang Kai-sheck
Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China from 1928 until 1949 in mainland China and then in Taiwan until his death in 1975.
Peng Dehuai
A prominent Chinese Communist military leader, who served as China’s Defense Minister from 1954 to 1959.
The Chinese Civil War
A civil war in China fought between the Kuomintang (KMT)-led government of the Republic of China (ROC) and forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lasting intermittently after 1927. The war is generally divided into two phases with an interlude: from August 1927 to 1937, the KMT-CCP Alliance collapsed during the Northern Expedition, and the Nationalists controlled most of China. From 1937 to 1945.
The Chinese Revolution
On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920’s
The Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward of the People’s Republic of China was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party from 1958 to 1962. Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society
Chinese Expeditionary Force
The Chinese Expeditionary Force was an expeditionary unit of the Republic of China’s National Revolutionary Army that was dispatched to Burma and India in support of the Allied efforts.
Northern Expeditionary Force
A military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the “Chinese Nationalist Party”, against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The purpose of the campaign was to reunify China, which had become fragmented in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1911. The expedition was led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and was divided into two phases. The first phase ended in a 1927 political split between two factions of the KMT: the right-leaning Nanjing faction, led by Chiang, and the left-leaning faction in Wuhan, led by Wang Jingwei. The split was partially motivated by Chiang’s purging of communists within the KMT, which marked the end of the First United Front
Joseph Stillwell
A United States Army general who served in the China Burma India Theater during World War II
George Marshall
An American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the US Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, then served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman.
William Hinton
A Marxist, he is best known for his book Fanshen, published in 1966, a “documentary of revolution” which chronicled the land reform program of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1940s.
Taiwan
During the 1950s and 1960s, after the Republic of China (ROC) government had withdrawn to Taiwan upon losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as “Nationalist China” (or “Free China“) to differentiate it from “Communist China” (or “Red China“) It was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when the ROC lost its seat to the People’s Republic of China.
Great Cultural Revolution
A sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until Mao Zedong‘s death in 1976. Launched by Mao, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and founder of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), its stated goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society
Struggle Sessions
Struggle sessions, were violent public spectacles in Maoist China, where “class enemies” of the Maoists were publicly humiliated, accused, beaten and tortured by people they were close to.
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Show Notes
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Extras
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**Every episode of Macro N Cheese has a full transcript at realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast. While you’re here, check out the extras page, with links to further information related to the week’s topic.
The first part of this three-part series talked about China from Mao’s birth in 1893 through the Sino-Japanese war to the eve of the Chinese Civil War in 1945. This week, Carl discusses the civil war and the ultimate success of the Chinese Communist forces, despite being vastly outnumbered – 1.2 million against the KMT’s 4.5 million.
The US looked to China to be its junior partner in East Asia, much like Japan is today. They backed Chiang Kai-shek with military training, weapons, and other resources. A government led by the KMT would preclude a strong China-Soviet alliance.
Most leftists are familiar with the historic revolutionary form of warfare developed by Mao and the People’s Liberation Army. Lacking the numbers and equipment for a traditional, positional war, the Communists applied the tactics of what would come to be called guerrilla warfare, which has since been used successfully in wars of liberation around the world, including Vietnam, Angola, and Cuba.
The episode takes a detour to look at the history of Chinese paper money. Carl also describes how Mao won the support of local populations through land redistribution, then looks at some of the mistakes in the Great Leap Forward. Carl brings history to life with anecdotes from his own family.
Come back next week for the conclusion of this three-part series.
Carl Zha hosts Silk and Steel, a weekly podcast discussing history, culture and current events of China and Silk Road. Support him at patreon.com/silknsteel
@CarlZha and @SteelSilkn on Twitter
Macro N Cheese – Episode 169
Mao: The Civil War and The Great Leap Forward with Carl Zha
April 23, 2022
[00:00:03.720] – Carl Zha [intro/music]
The government would buy out the capitalists in places like Shanghai. They would buy out their factories and hand over control of the factory to the workers’ union. And, so, initially, it was not just like the troops came in and take over the factories. They bought out the factories. Of course, you might say there was implied coercion. The factory owner probably don’t have much choice.
[00:00:28.270] – Carl Zha [intro/music]
One of the problems that triggered the Opium War is that British had to pay for Chinese goods in silver. After a certain point, the British figured, you know what? We’re just going to sell drugs to the Chinese.
[00:01:35.110] – Geoff Ginter [intro/music]
Now, let’s see if we can avoid the apocalypse altogether. Here’s another episode of Macro N Cheese with your host, Steve Grumbine.
[00:01:42.940] – Steve Grumbine
Hey, folks, it’s Steve with my guest, Carl Zha. In the second episode of a three part series on Mao, The Chinese Revolution and The Great Leap Forward. We just realized that we are at the start of the Cold War and the beginning of the Chinese Civil War.
[00:02:00.610] – Carl Zha
Yes. Just as the Berlin Airlift began, the Chinese Civil War was raging in Manchuria between the Communists and the KMT with the Communist backed by the Soviet Union and the KMT backed by United States. And as I mentioned, Manchuria is a very strategically important area. 90% of the industrial output of China is based in Manchuria.
So whoever controls Manchuria will control China. Both sides understood this. So KMT airlifted and shipped a half million men, some of the best US trained US equipped units into Manchuria. Now, during World War II, US promised a lot of aid to China, but a lot of this aid actually didn’t materialize, partly because US was focused on Europe and partly because the supply line to China was cut.
When Japan occupied Burma, the Burma Road was cut. So the only way to supply China was through the hump by the American Air Force, who flew from northeast India across the Himalayan Hump. So the amount of supplies that could get into China was limited. So it was ironic that a lot of the lend-leased material from the US made it to China after the end of the war, just as the Chinese Civil War began and the KMT units were sent to Manchuria.
These are part of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, which was the top elite KMT units that Joseph Stilwell, the US commander, has strong armed Chiang Kai Shek to send down to Burma to open up the Burma Road. And there are American train, American equipped, basically just the creme de la creme of the KMT military. And right after their victory opening Burma Road from the Japanese.
They got sent on American naval ships boarding in Hong Kong and packed up into frozen waste of Manchuria to fight the civil war against the Communist. Now at the time, the Chinese civil war is extremely unpopular. Nobody wants to continue to fight a war right after the Japanese invasion just ended. So the KMT and the Communists both face issues where the Chinese public don’t want to have a war.
This is the time they want to have peace. US actually at this time, George Marshall flew to China, tried to broker a peace agreement between KMT and CPC because the United States didn’t want China to go into a full scale civil war where Soviet Union could potentially support the Communist side and became a big proxy battle. US vision for was different.
During Roosevelt administration the US vision for China post war was sort of a US junior partner in East Asia in the role that Japan currently plays for the US Empire, basically. So they wanted Chiang Kai Shek to be their man and they want Chiang Kai Shek to be the head of a coalition government that also included the Chinese Communist.
Mao actually flew to Chongqing, the Chinese wartime capital, in negotiation with Chiang Kai Shek with his safety explicitly guaranteed by George Marshall. But the two side couldn’t reach an agreement. One of the larger issues revolved around KMT demand the Communist Army to disarm and that become a non sequitur. At this point, the Communists had 1.2 million men under arms and the KMT side have 4.5 million troops.
So it’s almost like four to one ratio. And KMT has overwhelming superiority both in terms of numbers and equipment. And Chiang Kai Shek also felt this is the time for him to wipe out the Communist once for all because he has absolute advantage and he in no way want to yield to the Communists. And the two sides just could not come to agreement, especially on the status of Manchuria, because initially the Communist plan was to take Manchuria and to establish some sort of a people’s Republic in northeast China with Soviet backing.
But Chiang Kai Shek would not allow that because Manchuria contains 90% of China’s industry. And then the war broke out in late 1945. It continued to 1946. I actually did a whole series on the Chinese Civil War Manchurian campaign on my podcast. I’m just doing a little plug here on the Silk and Steel podcast. Yeah, because this is one of the most important theaters of the Chinese civil war.
And in the end, the US brought pressure on Soviet Union to withdrew from Manchuria. So, Soviet finally agreed to withdrew on March 1946. But they informed the Communists before they withdrew from each city. We’re going to withdrew on this date. You are welcome to come in and take over because previously the Red Army have kicked out the Communists from the cities to make room for the KMT representative.
But now Soviet bowed to the US pressure to withdraw from Manchuria. They told the Communist, you are welcome to come in wherever you want. And that’s what the Communist did. As the Soviet Red Army withdrew from each city, the Communists will move in and take over from the local KMT security forces because KMT didn’t have troops on the ground.
So what they did was they recruited a lot of the former puppet troops because the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria and employ hundreds of thousands of puppet troops. And now these troops are looking to continue their employment. And so KMT promised them they can keep their jobs as long as they switch their allegiance to KMT.
But the problem with the puppet troop, they may have good equipment but they never have the will to fight. So that’s the difference. The Communists very quickly were able to scatter these former puppet troops from the Manchurian cities and take over. But then the crack divisions of KMT arrived on the American ships, the half million man, American trained, American equipped troops, former Chinese Expeditionary Force in Burma.
They pushed through. They fought several big battles to push the Chinese Communists all the way to the Northern Manchuria across the Songhua River. Basically, the KMT took all the industrial heartland of Manchuria, the most populated areas of Manchuria. The Communist got pushed to more sparsely populated Northern Manchuria.
But Communists regained control of a couple big cities like Harbin and Qiqihar. And at that point, KMT finally agreed to the ceasefire broker by George Marshall because he felt they have achieved its initial aim to control all the industry in Manchuria. They control the coal mine, the hydroelectric power plants, the steel plant. But at this point, just as two side were negotiating because I said Chiang Kai Shek never intended to bring Communist to the table, full scale civil war broke out elsewhere in Northern China.
I’m talking about the Northern China south of the Great Wall and then KMT to start a full campaign against Communist base in Northern China. So as I mentioned, at this time the scale is almost one to four. The Communists had 1.2 million men, the KMT had 4.5 million troops. And Chiang Kai Shek has the absolute numerical and technological superiority.
And Chiang Kai Shek thought he could push through this militarily. At the same time, the civil war is deeply unpopular and the Communists realize they need to do something different to rally the population to their cause. Because before, the reason they gain a lot of support and a lot of ground in Northern China because Communists were the only force fighting Japanese in those areas.
So people automatically flock to them because they’re the only Chinese resistance force. But KMT is still legitimate government of China. And Chiang Kai Shek particularly, reached the pinnacle of his prestige on August 15 on the Japanese surrender as the leader of China who led China through this very difficult period. So now Mao reversed the former policy of United front. So during the Japanese invasion.
The Communist United Front is to unite all forces who oppose Japanese invasion, including National bourgeois, including landlord class. But now, just as the civil war was breaking out, the Communist Party passed a resolution to start land reform in all the Communist areas. That means taking away the land from the landlords and divide it among the peasantry, among the tenant farmers and all the other poor farmers who didn’t have land.
And that would be a game changer because previously the Chinese public didn’t have a reason really to pick a side Communists versus the KMT. Maybe for sentimental values because in Northern China a lot of the area has been under the Communist control for many years during the Japanese occupation. But still KMT represented the legitimate government of China.
But now with the land reform, the peasantry now have a reason to align themselves with the Communist Party. They’re deriving a real benefit. They’re getting land. And another thing is the KMT support arrived from bourgeois and the landlord class. Most of the MMT officers came from the landlord class.
One of the reason for the first KMT-CPC split back in 1927 was back then Mao and his Communist colleagues were doing radical land reforms in the countryside when the Northern Expeditionary Force was passing through. And a lot of the KMT officers class was greatly incensed because they saw their family fortune getting confiscated and handing over to poor peasants.
And so that’s why they supported Chiang Kai Shek to purge the Communists. And again, Chiang Kai Shek support is mostly through his military. So the CPC and KMT locked in in this Titanic battle for control of China. But Mao is right that most of Chinese population at this time was rural peasantry and only a very few percentage of population are the landlords.
So he’s sacrificing the landlord class to unite all the peasants under the Communist banner. Now the peasants have a reason to defend their land because if the KMT forces come through their town, they’re going to take back the land and back to the landlords. So there’s a reason now for the peasant to side more than ever with the Communist side.
Also another factor is remember the Communist Army at the time mostly consists of the locals who have been recruited during the war against Japanese aggression. And the KMT army, which is from Southern China, from different part of China. They’re coming in as outsiders, right? So the war on the Communist base became a war of the Northern Chinese peasantry defending their land from this outsider who’s coming in to take it away from them.
[00:14:12.730] – Grumbine
Let me ask you a quick question though. You talk about land reforms and I understand under communism the idea of private property is a non thing. When you talk land reforms, can you give me a quick departure and then bring us right back? I don’t want to lose our track, but I think that’s an important thing to state.
[00:14:29.450] – Zha
That’s a good question. Because collectivization hadn’t started at this time. So land reform during Chinese Civil War means literally taking away the land from landlord and divide it to give it to the poor peasants who don’t have land. So it will still remain their private property, but it will be private property of these formerly poor peasants.
[00:14:50.590] – Grumbine
Gotcha.
[00:14:51.410] – Zha
Yeah. There’s a book written by American William Hinton, who is American, who was present during the Chinese Civil War in 1947. He went to North China. I think he may be associated with the US military. He was present. So at the time, a bunch of US journalists also made it to the Communist areas, as well as a representative from the US military, because US military during World War II was exploring ways to leverage the Communist guerrillas against the Japanese.
There was a famous Dixie mission on the US Army to meet with Mao to discuss plans for cooperation. And the Dixie mission to Communist base only ended when the Chinese Civil War began. And William Hinton went to Northern China. He went to a Communist base and he witnessed firsthand in the village of Tangong. He translated literally into English as the village of Longbow.
He witnessed land reform first hand and he wrote a eyewitness account of the land reform in China. It was published in 1966. It’s called Fanshen: a Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village. I highly recommend people check it out if they’re interested in how land reform was carried out in Northern China during this time, during the time of the Chinese Civil War.
This is probably one of the best English language resource on this subject. And what the land reform did was it bind the Chinese peasantry to the Chinese Communist cause, because now they’re defending their own land from the KMT army, who is coming to take it away from them. And that also increased Communist recruitment drive.
And then on the other side, the KMT side, as I said, the war remains deeply, deeply unpopular. A lot of the Chinese youth joined the army during World War II to fight the Japanese. They didn’t want to fight a civil war, but orders are orders. So already there was a moral difference from two sides. The Communist side were determined to defend their land.
And the KMT, they are carrying out their orders basically. In the beginning stage of the war, the KMT, because they enjoy absolute numerical advantage, they were able to take the war to the Communist areas. And again, this is when the Communist troops would employ guerrilla tactics, withdrawing the KMT army until their supply line gets overstretched, and then attack their supply line, attack their weakest point.
And the Communists had a couple of brilliant, brilliant commanders. And one of the problems with the KMT is that, again, China was not only nominally United, so KMT has these core armies whose personal loyalty is to Chiang Kai Shek, but he has also these warlord’s armies, which Chiang Kai Shek just use them as cannon fodder to throw them against the communists.
And these warlords army knew it. Those warlord army commanders and these warlords, they knew it. They knew Chiang Kai Shek would willingly sacrifice them to kill the Communists. Many of them actually when push comes to shove they would defect to the Communist side because when they’re surrounded by the Communists for example they don’t want to die for Chiang Kai Shek.
[00:18:23.810] – Grumbine
Right.
[00:18:25.170] – Zha
And so we could spend hours and hours on the Chinese civil war. But in the end the Communist triumph against incredible odds. And then when the tide turned, the Communist driven the KMT forces out of mainland China. Chiang Kai Shek had to flee to Taiwan. Taiwan was actually a Japanese colony because Japan forced China to give Taiwan to Japan as a result of the first Sino Japanese war in 1895.
Around the time when Mao was born, Taiwan was given to Japan became a Japanese colony for 50 years. But at the end of World War II, Taiwan was returned back to China. So when Chang Kai Shek lost the civil war, Taiwan became his last refuge. He took the rest of his KMT army and fled to Taiwan. And the separation between Taiwan and mainland China remains to this day because in 1950 Mao had ordered his general to prepare to cross the Taiwan Strait.
But then Korean War broke out in June 1950 and as soon as the Korean War broke out, even before the Chinese involvement in the Korean War, US sending the 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait. And because PRC at the time didn’t have a Navy there’s nothing much they could do about sailing across the Taiwan Strait at the time. So that’s why the separation remains today.
And now maybe we can talk about Mao post PRC period because this could be potentially a very controversial topic because Mao himself said he accomplished two great deeds. He said only two things I have done in my lifetime is worth mentioning. One is kicking Chiang Kai Shek out to Taiwan. Two is Great Cultural Revolution.
So I think on the first part most people in China today would side with Mao because China was war torn was disunited for so long under thumbs of various imperialist power. And what Mao did through unifying China, finally, in 1949 as he announced on top of Tiananmen when he said Chinese people have finally stood up. That resonates with a lot of people.
That achievement of Mao, I think most Chinese people especially Chinese people on mainland China would agree. Now the second part, the second part we’re going to talk about some mistakes that Mao made. So one thing you ask about land reform is about private property. And of course private property in communism is a contradiction.
And land reform during the civil war the land were taken away from the landlords and given away to peasants but as their private property. And by the way one of the crimes of Mao supposedly by his detractors to point out the land reform was particularly brutal, many landlords were killed. Some estimated up to a million landlords were liquidated.
And I don’t know about the numbers, but people can read the details in the book I recommended by American William Hinton, Fanshen, talking about land reform. So land reform in some cases is pretty brutal. There are cases where landlords were killed and then their property divided up, and sometimes even their families were affected.
They completely divide up the land of the former landlord and leaving nothing to his family. This is true. But this is against the brutality and the cruelty that existed in feudal China prior to the land reform. William Hinton talked about this. He put it into context about the ruthless exploitation of the Chinese peasantry by the landlord class.
And so I don’t think many people in mainland China today would criticize Mao for land reform. At most they will say the manner it was carried out, it’s too drastic. Maybe we don’t have to kill the landlord. But I think that the whole concept of land reform, I don’t think many people would be against that. In fact, that’s what won the Communist civil war is a land reform, right.
So the landlord class was cast out during the Chinese civil war. So I talked about United front that Mao talked about during the Japanese invasion, which is uniting everyone, including landlords and bourgeois. So landlord was cast out because of land reform. But national bourgeois at this point still remain part of the United front. So people look at the current Chinese National flag. There’s a five star flag.
The person who originally designed the five star flag, he took the symbolism from what Mao said during 1930s about building a new democracy, about building the United front. So the biggest star in the center that represents the Communist Party. And the four little stars represent workers, peasants, petit bourgeois and national bourgeois.
So those bourgeois are still represented by stars on the Chinese National flag. Okay, that was the original design. I’m talking in 1949, during the founding of People’s Republic. When I went to elementary school in China, I learned about the big star being the Communist Party. I learned about one of the little star being the peasants, one of the little star being the workers.
But I don’t remember the other two stars, petit bourgeois and national bourgeois, all right? Because something happened between 1949 and 1980. So in 1950s, that’s when Mao wanted to start practicing after China was finally united. That’s when Mao wanted to push China to a path of communism, to a full Communist utopia. And one of the first things they did was nationalizing industries.
So nationalizing factories and private industries. This was first carried out in a way where the government would buy out the capitalists in places like Shanghai. They would buy out their factories and hand over control of the factory to the workers union. And so initially it was not just like the troops came in and take over the factories, they bought out the factories.
Of course, you might say there was an implied coercion. The factory owner probably don’t have much choice, but it was through purchase. And initially it was called a cooperative, half private, half public. They would purchased 50% of the factory, for example, and still let the factory owner retain 50%. This become a private public joint venture.
[00:25:38.000] – Grumbine
Public private partnership. Yes. One of the things that jumps out at me with what you’re saying, that reminds me of pipelines and other things in the US. We talk about they took away the land or they took away and nationalized the factories. But we have eminent domain here in the United States and we claim property all the time.
We don’t like it anymore here than probably they liked it over there. But when the interest of the state is there, we’ve proven that we’ll just go ahead and take it. So I’m not sure there’s too much of a big difference in the grand scheme of it all.
[00:26:13.750] – Zha
I was actually shocked when I first learned about eminent domain in the United States in early 2000. I was talking about this with my friend and they said, yeah, we have eminent domain where they can just take. I’m like, what? Because I was not used to that, because in China, people can Google online called “nail houses”.
That’s when sometimes Chinese government wants to purchase land from the property owner to build a highway, for example. But sometimes these landowners want to held out for a higher price or they don’t want to sell. And what happened is the local government will build around these houses. So it became this phenomenon called nail houses.
So you have this house in the middle of the highway. Right, because the owner didn’t want to sell to the state their own house or they wanted to hold out for a higher price. So you have a very Chinese phenomenon, cuts of nail houses, because that nail that sticks out. So that’s what I was used to. So I was really shocked when I learned about eminent domain in the US. You can just take them away.
Okay. So that transformation nationalizing private industry happened throughout 1950s and in conjunction, Mao also pushed for collectivization in the countryside. And initially it happened on a voluntary basis. They encouraged these farmers who have received land through land reform to get together to form the farmers collective.
And then starting from mid 1950s, Mao felt that that pace wasn’t happening fast enough because he wanted to see communism happen in his lifetime. He can’t wait for everything to happen organically. So then he start to push for full scale collectivization all across the country. And that’s what basically culminated in the Great Leap Forward.
From my, again, anecdotal stories both of my grandpa had KMT affiliation. My grandfather on my dad’s side, during the Japanese occupation of his hometown, the Japanese occupation army posted sentry. They have checkpoint all over the place, especially at the city gate. And my grandpa was living in the countryside because he came from a landlord family.
So he inherited country estate from my great grandfather. But he ran a medical practice in the town, so he would go in town every morning to his clinic. And the Japanese sentry forced every Chinese person to salute the Japanese sentry at the city gate. Now, my grandpa is a member of the Chinese gentry. He’s an intellectual. He was educated. He felt offended by having to salute a Japanese occupier.
So he pretends that he didn’t hear the command. But the Japanese sentry grabbed him and slapped him in public. And then he felt so humiliated, he decided to seek out underground resistance. And at the time, in the area of southeastern China, my Grandpa’s hometown is about 45 minutes south of Shanghai. In that area, there’s no Communist organized resistance.
All the underground resistance is KMT affiliated. So he joined KMT under such circumstances, he was made a propaganda chief for the KMT underground resistance because he was literate. He know how to read and write. Because at that time, 90% of the Chinese population didn’t know how to read and write. And so he was responsible basically for printing out flyers and writing propaganda leaflet. I kind of picture this as Monty Python Life of Brian.
[00:30:00.830] – Grumbine
Exactly that.
[00:30:02.130] – Zha
My grandpa going around the town painting graffiti and putting up anti Japanese posters. But luckily he didn’t get found out. And he waited till the Japanese surrender. But when the Japanese surrender happened, the KMT official came from Shanxi to our town and said, well, thank you for your service. You can go home now.
And then the Japanese official themselves, they’re like kind of carpet baggers who came from outside of the town. They start taking over all the former property that was confiscated by the Japanese. They made it their own personal property. And that caused a lot of resentment because they’re like, wait a minute, we wanted to overthrow Japanese because they were the ones appropriating our property.
But outsiders just came and then take over. What makes you different from the Japanese? And so that is also another reason that the KMT lost the Civil War.
[00:31:11.430] – Intermission
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[00:32:02.350] – Zha
During this postwar period, a lot of the KMT corruption raised a lot of popular discontent, especially this KMT carpet bagger officials caused a lot of local resentment. And my grandpa, even though his KMT affiliation during World War II, he welcomed the Communist Army marching in because he thought that the end of the KMT corruption.
And my other grandpa he was a self-educated man. He also came from a landlord family. He was the youngest son. His older brother wasted the family fortune by smoking away in opium dens. But when he was young, the family lost all the land, and the local bully also took over what remained of their family land. My grandpa actually became a proletarian.
He started as an apprentice to chefs, and he did things like peddling vegetables in the market. And he took the spare time to attend night classes at Chongqing University. And then he passed some tests. At that time, modern education was just starting in China. So he passed himself off as a College grad. Even though he just took classes, he just sat in on Chongqing University lectures.
But he was able to get a post as a high school teacher. During World War II, a lot of the Chinese factories on the coast relocated to Chongqing, which at the time was a Chinese wartime capital. One of the capitalists decided to move their textile factory to Chongqing. But he wanted to have the children of his workers educated. So he contacted someone he knows to fund a school.
But that guy, he doesn’t know anything about how to run a school. So he seek out my grandpa. So my grandpa become a founder of this high school, and it became the high school’s principal. But the fact was that the high school and the elementary school was attached to the textile factory, which was then taken over by the KMT army during the war to manufacture the KMT uniform.
So then he accidentally gained his KMT affiliation. And then even so, my teacher grandpa was also in support of the Communist when they came to liberate our city Chongqing because he felt under KMT rule, especially during the Chinese war, the inflation was rampant. KMT starts printing money to pay for everything. And because the Communist controlled Northern China, a lot of the agricultural land.
And the KMT war on the Communist area in Northern China caused food shortages, and inflation was high. And then the KMT government just keep on printing money, which drove hyperinflation in China. And so both of my grandpa were fully in support of the Communist in 1949.
[00:34:49.270] – Grumbine
Let me jump in there for just a second because this is kind of my sweet spot. Was this the yuan at the time? What was the currency of the Chinese state?
[00:34:58.820] – Zha
Oh, yeah, the currency unit is called yuan.
[00:35:01.850] – Grumbine
This is the Renminbi…I always screw it up.
[00:35:04.370] – Zha
Yeah, Renminbi is currency of the new Communist China RMB literally means “people’s money”. Renminbi and yuan is interchangeable. Yuan is a unit. It’s like a dollar, like a basic unit. Okay, so originally the Chinese currency back in the Qing dynasty was based in silver. China for a long time, since 16th century was based on silver.
[00:35:28.770] – Grumbine
Or pegged to a commodity.
[00:35:30.270] – Zha
Yeah, because China was the first country in the world to invent paper. And Chinese government is the first in the world to invent paper money like 1000 years ago during Song dynasty.
[00:35:41.510] – Grumbine
Fiat currency from China. No kidding. Okay, keep going.
[00:35:45.010] – Zha
Actually from my part of China in Sichuan, before the Chinese currency was in copper. But in Sichuan where my mom’s side of my family is from. At that time Sichuan does not produce copper. So at that time local government was using iron. But to be able to purchase anything with iron you got to be a power lifter to carry all these iron bars around.
So I’m talking about 1000 years ago in Song dynasty. Sure. So at that time a bunch of Chinese private banks started to issue these paper certificates. With this certificate you can go to the bank to exchange for copper coins.
[00:36:25.090] – Grumbine
Convertibility.
[00:36:26.050] – Zha
Yes, yes. Instead of carrying iron bars around. So after the Mongol conquest during the Yuan dynasty, the Yuan central Imperial government discovered paper currencies they’re like wow, this is great, we can just keep on printing that cause major inflation and that’s one of the reason that brought down the Mongol rule in China.
[00:36:49.390] – Grumbine
Can I interrupt? This is so important what you were talking about when you start seeing hyperinflation, when it comes down to the real resources, if you don’t have the productive capacity to absorb the quote unquote printing of money, it’s really the lack of resources that is creating the situation because if you don’t have the production to match the other side of it.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s pegged to gold or pearls. What matters is that the real resources are there. So what you probably experience in this case is a resource issue while they’re printing money against something with no actual production to back it up.
[00:37:26.330] – Zha
And at the time one of the problems was the Mongols waged a nearly half century war against Southern China to conquer it and then after that Kublai Khan keep on pushing expansionist policy to launch two invasion against Japan, several invasion against Vietnam, invasion against Myanmar and then one invasion against Java Island on present day Malaysia.
So to pay for all these wars the Yuan dynasty Imperial government keep on printing money that had major consequences. Inflation finally led to popular revolt that ended the Mongol rule in China. But the next government, the Ming dynasty, China adopted the same policy. They keep on printing money. So in the end nobody placed any value on paper currency anymore.
So by the end of Ming dynasty everybody switched to hard currency which means silver in China at the time. And that’s also when Colombian exchange happened, when the Spaniards discovered silver mines in Bolivia and Mexico and through the trans Pacific Manila galleon trade they will ship silver from Acapulco, Mexico to Manila to Philippines and then to trade for the Chinese manufacturer goods brought over by the Chinese merchants who came to Manila to trade.
So that’s how 50% of the silver mined in the Americas ended up flowing into China in the 17th, 18th, 19th century and also at the time silver was discovered in Japan. So silver from both Japan and South America were flowing into China to make silver the currency of China for a long, long time. One of the problems that triggered the Opium War is that British had to pay for Chinese goods in silver.
After a certain point, British figure, you know what, we’re just going to sell drugs to the Chinese and they reverse the silver flow. So whereas before silver will flow into China, after British start selling drugs, silver start flowing out of China into the British hand. But silver remain a Chinese currency for a long, long time. And there was already inflation.
Because much of China was under Japanese occupation, they were pushed into to this very tiny corner of China in southwest were basically thrown a lifeline by the Allies through the airlift, through the Himalayan humps. But after the war, because the corruption of the KMT, and also because they are waging war on the Communist areas, which is a productive farmland.
And as I mentioned, Manchuria, 90% of China’s industrial output become a major battlefield. And KMT keep on printing money to pay for its wars, to pay for the Civil War. And that drove inflation sky high. All the stories you hear about people pushing a wheelbarrow of money to pay for basic things like lighters, those stories were from those times.
And so both of my grandpa were fully in support of the Communist victory because they thought that would finally bring end to the chaos. So according to the recollection of my grandpa, the early fifties were the best time. So in the early 50s, the war has finally ended. The economy was recovering, the country seems to be on the right track.
Everything is growing, everyone has enough to eat. And then in the mid 50s, this is when Mao felt the pace of China’s march toward communism wasn’t sufficient. He pushed for full collectivization. And at that time, also a lot of the local officials who knew this was Mao’s intent, they also started to inflate the figures of harvest.
For example, they say, oh, the collectivization was so great, we boosted our harvest numbers by 200%. And then during the Great Leap Forward, Mao thought he could mobilize the populace the way he mobilized the peasantry during the Civil War and World War Two to work on the Chinese economy. He thought that the wartime communism could be carried over during peacetime Communism.
And that’s when he encouraged farmers to build backyard furnace to make steel, which a lot of times the farmers melted down their farm tools and pots and pans and produce useless iron because the farmers couldn’t make the temperature high enough to actually produce useful industrial steel. And while all the peasants were busy doing these things, the actual farm work was neglected.
And also during the collectivization, the incentive system was also changed because before farmer has their own land, after land reform, they’re producing for themselves. And now everything is collectivized. And Mao really wanted to rush the whole society into Communist utopia, so he told many people, you guys don’t need to eat at home anymore.
Everyone eat at cafeteria. So even in the countryside they have a cafeteria to serve the whole village. They melt down all the people’s pots and pans in their families to make steel in the backyard furnace. This is one of the reasons Great Leap Forward turned into a big failure. And local officials also inflated the local harvest numbers to prove the superiority of the collective system.
Some Communist officials were reporting problems. For example, the PLA commander, Defense Minister Peng Dehuai, he did an inspection tour in the countryside. He thought, okay, this is not working. He wanted to put the advice to Mao that we should put a hold on the drive of the Great Leap Forward and to reevaluate.
Initially, Mao agreed to a meeting with all his Communist Party members to talk about the Great Leap Forward. But Mao still believed that the fast forward to communism is possible. He thought the reason all these problems occur is because saboteurs people were trying to sabotage the revolution. But to Mao’s surprise, a lot of his longtime colleagues in the Communist Party sided with Peng Dehuai.
There was a time when he said, “Let a hundred flowers bloom” and that’s when Mao wanted to practice democracy. He felt like the Communist cadre class may have been too complacent. And he felt like a lot of the cadres are kind of adopting the attitude of the former Imperial Mandarin class. Mao’s idea is to create a classless society where everyone is equal.
But he felt like the Communist bureaucracy is recreating kind of the Imperial Mandarin system where the mandarins are Lord over the common people and the Communist cadre just become the red Mandarin. So he wanted to correct that. This is when Mao launched the “Let a Hundred Flower Bloom” campaign to open public criticism of the Communist Party policy.
But to Mao’s surprise, when he encouraged criticism, the criticism keep on pouring in. During the United Front period, both through World War II and Civil war, talk about Mao tried to bring in elements of Chinese society. First anyone who against Japanese invasion and then anyone who is against the KMT rule.
So a lot of third parties, like the Chinese Democratic parties, other left leaning parties, they all joined the Communist side because they thought the Chiang Kai Shek was a military dictator, which he was. Right. But they thought once the Communist took side because of Mao’s advocacy for United Front, they thought Communists would do a power sharing with the other parties.
But they were disappointed to see that Communist essentially took over all the important posts of the government. So they felt like Mao didn’t fulfill the pledge for this kind of United front. Remember the 1949 flags? Five star flags. The two star was petit bourgeois and national bourgeois. So these people felt like we’re supposed to be included in the government, we’re supposed to have a say.
And they felt the Communist party was taking authoritarian road. So there are tons of criticisms for him. And that really surprised both Mao and his Communist colleagues. So that’s when Mao finally decided to put a stop to that. This became the anti-rightist campaign in 1957. And so they felt like the counter revolutionaries using this opportunity to launch attack on the Chinese revolution, an attack on the Chinese Communist party.
And then they start a purge of the so called rightist element. And that’s what both of my grandpa got labeled as rightists. So my grandpa, the doctor, the communists are still practical. They know they still need doctors. They label him a rightist, but they didn’t publicize it. So internally they label him a rightist. So what that means is his salary gets cut to one third of his former salary and he’s forced to do self criticism, attend struggle sessions like in the hospital.
He helped, he was struggled by the hospital employees. My second eldest uncle, he wanted to be an engineer. But at that time, because of my Grandpa’s KMT affiliation, my uncle wasn’t allowed to go to college because at the time, Mao divided people by classes. Okay, these people who are old society ruling class, they’re supposed to be cast down to allow the working class to rise up.
But unfortunately, that casting down of the old ruling class also affected their family. So my uncle, for example, was not allowed to go to college even though he was top in his class. In fact, he scored the highest in the College entrance exam in his city. He wanted to be an engineer. Now he cannot become an engineer who wanted to go to factory to become a worker because he wanted to be a proletarian.
But the local government said, no, no, no, we have other plans for you. You need to study with your father to learn Chinese medicine because we don’t want the arts of Chinese medicine to die off. So you are his son, so you should pick up his mantle. My uncle wasn’t very willing because my uncle is like, come on, we’re in the nuclear age now, we’re splitting atoms.
Why do I have to learn this voodoo Chinese traditional medicine crap? But he had no choice. He was forced to be apprenticed to my grandpa, but he was also forced to participate in the struggle session against his own father during cultural revolution, which he was kind of bitter because he didn’t want to be there in the first place.
And then he was made to participate in the public denunciation of his own dad. So all these things happen. And my other grandpa, who was a teacher and a principal, he was denounced by his own fellow protégé, this new young teacher, he was helping along, but this guy, for some reason saw a chance to unseat my grandpa and take his position.
I guess in this political movement and denounce my grandpa for both his former KMT association and for supposedly corruption because my grandpa would take all these young teachers out to lunch. So he’s saying, where does my grandpa get all this money to host a banquet all the time? So they accused my grandpa of corruption.
My grandpa was labeled a rightist and he was sent to a labor camp which at the time was euphemistically called cadre school where the cadre is going there to get reeducated. But in fact, he was made to work on the farm to raise food for themselves. So that started from 1957, the anti rightist campaign. The political movement go hand in hand with Mao’s attempt to reshape Chinese society into the one he wanted.
You know a lot of detractor of Mao ascribe this to kind of Mao’s hunger for power. But that’s not true because Mao already had power at this point. He had almost unrivaled power. He didn’t need more power. But what he wanted, he wanted to fast forward to communism. That’s what he wanted. He wanted to do whatever is necessary.
And Mao is very headstrong because he felt the end justifies means and he really believed in the righteousness of his own cause. So he thought any means necessary to achieve what he felt was justified end. And he was right most of the time during the Chinese Civil War. And he thought he was also correct in trying to hurry up with creating a Communist utopia.
But that created a lot of problems and doing Great Leap Forward. So this is where we’re talking about getting into the controversy now because the result of Great Lead Forward in 1958 is that first the commander of PLA, Peng Dehuai, tried to put a stop to that during Lushan meeting among the Communist cadres. But Mao took it personal.
He saw that as attack on himself. He already had personal beef with Peng Dehuai stretching back to World War II because during World War Two, Peng Dehuai led the 100 Regiment offensive against the Japanese. But that exposed the Communist strength in Northern China. And so Japanese did the retaliation campaign which I talked about earlier, the Three All—the Kill All, Leave All, Burn All—scorched-earth campaign to wipe out the popular support of the Communists.
So Mao bitterly criticized Peng Dehuai for that because he felt that the Communist side has suffered greatly because of Peng Dehuai’s military adventurers. That’s what they call it. And then during this time he had Peng Dehuai criticized during that time in 1940s during the Yen unrecognisation campaign. And now he felt like panic. Peng Dehuai is trying to get back at him to criticize him for the Great Leap Forward.
And during the meeting he felt like, Peng Dehua was settling a score with him. So he directed his attack against Peng Dehuai. Peng Dehuai was a military man. He used to swear. So he said back in 1940’s, he used the word in Chinese Cao ni ma, which means fuck one’s mother. He said, you spent 40 days in Yan’an to fuck with me. He used the word fuck my mother.
You spent 40 days in Yan’an to fuck with me. Now what’s wrong with me is spending few days fuck with you, right? And then Mao said, what? You want to fuck my mom? And then the whole meeting became silent, right? The whole committee meeting is like, oh, crap.
And so Peng Dehuai was purged after that, and all the people who sided with Peng Dehuai criticizing Great Leap Forward was purged. And that means continuation of kind of the Great Leap Forward policy, which is full collectivization and also push forth these farmyard backyard furnace plans. But what happened was between 1959 and 1960, China experienced weather problems.
There was drought in several parts of China. But at the same time, when the harvest was reduced, the local official are still reporting record bumper harvest because they knew Mao like to hear that the progress toward communism is happening. So they would report these glowing numbers. What happened? The central government, based on these numbers of bumper harvest, report start to requisition grain from the local government for grain that’s not there. And that created a huge problem because
[00:53:48.550] – Grumbine
There’s your resources.
[00:53:49.840] – Zha
Yes, those grains were not there. A lot of the local officials also tried to cover up the reality on the ground. First they lie about the bumper harvest. And now in order to make up for the grain, they have to send to the central government, they order militias to find all the grains possible. And that led to starvation and famine.
This is the most controversial part, I guess, of Mao—the famine from 1959 to 1961. And this is also the most death occurred when people talking about tens of millions of people Mao killed, they’re talking about this period, the Great Famine.
[00:54:28.570] – Grumbine
Let me ask you this question. People were afraid to report that we don’t have great crops because Mao had escalated the Great Leap Forward. And so the fear of disappointing Mao. Was Mao aware that they were starving the people to give him the fake numbers? Or was he under the impression that everything was great and things were fine? Why is there a problem? This wasn’t an edict from Mao to say, starve, the people, bring me my grain. It was more a matter of them being afraid to let him down. I just want to try to understand how that occurred.
[00:55:04.090] – Zha
Yes, Mao. At this point, he was not a micromanager. Mao is a visionary. He threw out directives. In fact, this is how China operates today. People think China is like well-oiled machine—a monolith—Xi Jinping just snaps a finger and it gets executed at the village level. That’s not how it works. Usually what happens is the top Chinese leaders, they will issue a directive.
Basically, it points a direction. A lot of the implementation of the policies is left to individual local government officials at the ground level. So, is Mao aware of the famine on the ground? So at the time—this is the most controversial part—because at one point, people like Peng Dehuai did try to bring attention to Mao, say there are problems on the ground, but Mao kind of dismissed it.
Mao took it personal. The problem is Mao took that criticism personal. He thought Peng Dehuai was trying to get back at him for Mao’s criticism of Peng Dehuai during World War Two. And when Mao made the example of Peng Dehuai, that effectively silenced all internal criticism. Everybody now is scared to bring the issue to Mao because they saw what happened to Peng Dehuai.
Peng Dehuai was stripped of his top post. He was Defense Minister of China and then he was basically sent home packing after that.
[00:56:27.490] – Grumbine
It was really about something going back further. There was a beef between these two that had dated back to the civil war. This is something totally different than Mao and Peng Dehuai , but they had a personal beef. I think there’s two things going on, if I’m hearing you correctly.
[00:56:45.130] – Zha
There are two things. But also Mao didn’t like to hear that the direction of his policy is wrong because he felt like there might be implementation problem. His general direction is still correct. To lead China.
[00:56:58.970] – Grumbine
Got it? Yes.
[00:57:00.000] – Zha
His goal is to great leap forward China into full communism. He wanted to surpass the achievement of Soviet Union and especially after Khrushchev’s Destalinization campaign in Soviet Union. He felt like Soviet Union was becoming revisionist and he felt like China could take over the leadership of the world Communist movement by outperforming Soviet Union in production.
And Mao actually put up this goal is surpassing Britain, surpassing United States. But they actually put the goal in surpassing Britain in steel production in 15 years and surpassing the United States in 30 years. That actually did happen. But if it happened under very different circumstances much later under Deng Xiaoping. But the timeline was roughly correct. What Mao wanted to happen did happen, but happened under very different circumstances.
[00:57:59.650] – Grumbine
And on someone else’s watch.
[00:58:01.010] – Zha
Yeah, someone else’s watch exactly. Mao was used to mobilize the populace. He mobilized the populist during the war. Very effective. He thought he could also mobilize populist into production for a common goal, but that did not work out because in a way, Mao’s dreaming of Utopia, when putting into actual practice, kind of goes against human nature.
And Mao wanted to shape the human nature. He wanted people to be more selfless and more sharing and more cooperative with each other. But humanity has both sides. We have a side that’s community-building, sharing, but there’s also like a selfish side. Both sides exist. You can’t deny one side or the other. And I think Mao’s attempt to kind of shape human character.
It’s a big experiment, but I think, unfortunately, it results in pretty disastrous consequences during the Great Famine of 1959 and 1961. And most of the debt that attributed to Mao happened during this period during the famine period. Later some among the Chinese Communist leadership attributed that as 30% natural disaster 70% manmade and the manmade part was the local official reporting record bumper harvest and then the order comes from the central government to requisition the grain that wasn’t there.
[00:59:40.050] – End credits
Macro N Cheese is produced by Andy Kennedy, descriptive writing by Virginia Cotts and promotional artwork by Andy Kennedy. Macro N Cheese is publicly funded by Real Progressives Patreon account. If you would like to donate to Macro and cheese, please visit Patreon.com/realprogressives.
Carl Zha – Guest
Podcaster who was born in China. His family moved to the US when Carl was a teenager. On his podcast, Silk and Steel he talks about all things China past and present.
Mao Tse-tung
Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People’s Republic of China, which he ruled as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976.
Opium War
The First Opium War, fought in 1839–1842 between Qing China and the United Kingdom, was triggered by the dynasty’s campaign against the British merchants who sold opium in China. The Second Opium War was fought between the Qing and the United Kingdom and France, 1856–1860. In each war, the European force’s modern military technology led to easy victory over the Qing forces, with the consequence that the government was compelled to grant favorable tariffs, trade concessions, reparations and territory to the Europeans.
KMT /Guomindang (Chinese Nationalist Party)
The Kuomintang, also referred to as the Guomindang or the Chinese Nationalist Party, is a major political party in the Republic of China throughout its historical periods in both the Chinese mainland as well as Taiwan. It was the dominant ruling party of the Republic of China on the mainland from 1928 to 1949.
Chiang Kai-sheck
Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China from 1928 until 1949 in mainland China and then in Taiwan until his death in 1975.
Peng Dehuai
A prominent Chinese Communist military leader, who served as China’s Defense Minister from 1954 to 1959.
The Chinese Civil War
A civil war in China fought between the Kuomintang (KMT)-led government of the Republic of China (ROC) and forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lasting intermittently after 1927. The war is generally divided into two phases with an interlude: from August 1927 to 1937, the KMT-CCP Alliance collapsed during the Northern Expedition, and the Nationalists controlled most of China. From 1937 to 1945.
The Chinese Revolution
On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920’s
The Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward of the People’s Republic of China was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party from 1958 to 1962. Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society
Chinese Expeditionary Force
The Chinese Expeditionary Force was an expeditionary unit of the Republic of China’s National Revolutionary Army that was dispatched to Burma and India in support of the Allied efforts.
Northern Expeditionary Force
A military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the “Chinese Nationalist Party”, against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The purpose of the campaign was to reunify China, which had become fragmented in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1911. The expedition was led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and was divided into two phases. The first phase ended in a 1927 political split between two factions of the KMT: the right-leaning Nanjing faction, led by Chiang, and the left-leaning faction in Wuhan, led by Wang Jingwei. The split was partially motivated by Chiang’s purging of communists within the KMT, which marked the end of the First United Front
Joseph Stillwell
A United States Army general who served in the China Burma India Theater during World War II
George Marshall
An American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the US Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, then served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman.
William Hinton
A Marxist, he is best known for his book Fanshen, published in 1966, a “documentary of revolution” which chronicled the land reform program of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1940s.
Taiwan
During the 1950s and 1960s, after the Republic of China (ROC) government had withdrawn to Taiwan upon losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly referred to as “Nationalist China” (or “Free China“) to differentiate it from “Communist China” (or “Red China“) It was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when the ROC lost its seat to the People’s Republic of China.
Great Cultural Revolution
A sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until Mao Zedong‘s death in 1976. Launched by Mao, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and founder of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), its stated goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society
Struggle Sessions
Struggle sessions, were violent public spectacles in Maoist China, where “class enemies” of the Maoists were publicly humiliated, accused, beaten and tortured by people they were close to.