Summary Mao's China - Economy (Industry and Agriculture)

Economy
Industry 1952-65

 Before Communist power gain
- Problems
 Industry
o Industry crippled after WW2 + civil war  1949, inflation at 1000% as
GMD borrowed money + output dropped to 25% of pre war level
 Solutions
o price stability fully recovery by 1953 by introducing + regulating new
currency
o Industry nationalised after 1949 + attempt to improve productivity by
educating unskilled workforce

 1952-57: 1st Five Year Plan (Soviet inspired heavy industry plan)
- Aims
 Wanted to become self sufficient industrial powerhouse (both food +
manufactured goods) to protect China in potentially hostile capitalist
world  aimed to follow Soviet method of rapid industrialisation +
collectivisation (Mao heavily influenced by Stalinist ‘Short Course’, history
of USSR detailed stages of development)
- Methods
 All industry nationalised by 1956
 Over 10,000 Soviet civil technicians worked on over 300 major heavy
industrial projects (eg iron + steel, industrial machinery + chemicals)
 Financed by food requisitioning from APCs, higher levels of taxation in
cities + loans from USSR (eg $300 million loan to be paid with interest)
- Successes
 Over 200 industrial plants built by Soviets (core of China’s new industrial
sector)
 Industrial production increased 19% / year, coal production doubled +
steel production quadrupled
 Number of lorries increased from virtually zero to 7,500
- Failures