HW 7

Mao's aims as a ruler:
1.) Remove as many Nationalists from mainland china as possible. This was achieved by as violent a means as possible.
2.) Increase diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union
3.) Industrialize as much of mainland China as possible
4.) Ensure order through out China

Mao's methods were mostly of violence. The Great Leap Forward was adapted from the Soviet 5 Year Plan, but to a much less successful scale. Mao's control over the people manifested itself in the "mini-revolution" where Mao had declared members of the party to be capitalist supporters which led to an outburst of violence against government officials. Mao was able to make laws about anything he wanted so the line between use of force and legality is somewhat blurry. A blockage was ordered for the city of Changchun, which led to roughly 330,000 deaths. Mao had refused to allow the civilians to flee the city, instead allowing citizens to starve nearly to death, only to have Communist soldiers enter the city and begin executing them. Some Communist soldiers had such moral problems with the executing of civilians that many committed suicide afterwards.The Great Leap Forward was seen as a failure because it placed much too much stress of meeting the quotas set forth which led to the lack of materials and supplies for the peasants. Poor weather was blamed and wide-set famine and starvation was common. Mao commonly set forth propaganda stating that only the Communists were the friends of the peasants. Mao's most common form of propaganda was slogans that were to be repeated by all party members.