China

After its victory in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party moved as quickly as possible to solidify its control over the country. Teams of party workers were sent to the countryside to create an agrarian capitalist revolution. Land was seized from landlords and distributed to ordinary farmers in small private lots. Peoples courts were set up to try landlords, local officials, and other formerly privileged people for abuses in the past. Millions of people were executed for real or imagined crimes against the people. In the cities intellectuals, businessmen, and other people of even modest wealth and privilege were shown, sometimes forcibly, that in the new China everyone was supposed to be equal, even if that meant equally poor. 

Unit Description: Areas to be covered include: 

• Mao Zedong

• China's first Five Year Plan

• The Hundred Flowers Movement

• Conflict in Tibet

• The Great Leap Forward

• Conflict over Taiwan

• The Cultural Revolution

• Nixon in China

Student reading for the unit includes the following pages from the textbook:

• From Revolution to Reform (880-883)

Videtapes used in the unit:

• The Mao Years ( two hours)

• The Dali Lhama

Links:

http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/mao.html (Mao Zedong)

http://www.cnn.com/ASIANOW/time/asia/magazine/1999/990823/mao1.html (Mao Zedong)

http://www.chinatoday.com/org/cpc/ (The Communist Party of China)

http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=0AC56000 (The Great Leap Forward)

http://csf.colorado.edu/mirrors/marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/ (Mao Zedong Reference Library)

http://www.marx2mao.org//Mao/Index.html (Mao Zedong Library)

http://chineseculture.about.com/culture/chineseculture/msubmao.htm (Chairman Mao)

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/wim/mythsofmao.html (Myths about Maoism)

http://www.geocities.com:0080/Athens/Agora/9854/red_guard.htm (The Red Guards)