Impacts of Mao's economic policies

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Impacts of Mao's economic policies

Causes

  • The Agrarian Land Reform Law of 1950 to distribute land more evenly among landless peasants by destroying the landlord class
  • Five Antis and Three Antis Campaigns (1950-51) to target bribery, fraud and tax evasion in the hopes of gaining a "classless industry" with personnel with the "right ideology"
  • Stamping out opposition by spreading propaganda, registering urban people to the Public Security Bureau and trying those who acted against the Party

Effects

  • 300 million peasants benefitted; mostly "poor peasants" who had insufficient land and "hired hands" who had no land at all
  • Many thousands of people killed and CPC had a tighter grip on people (e.g. neighbours encouraged to spy on each other) -> harder to passively oppose the Party
  • Prevented people's free movement and restricted peasant movement from the countryside to the city. In business, an estimated 99% if businessmen were found guilty of "Antis" and 3000 were arrested and 500 executed

Overall summary

All of Mao's economic policies aimed to create a classless society where everything is equally distributed. This can be expected in a communist society. Additionally, communism was the only ideology that was allowed and if a person didn't actively support the Party or help it carry out its policies they were seen to be passively opposing the rule. However, lower classes such as peasants gained better positions within society while upper class people such as landlords lost their positions.

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