How successful was the First Five Year Plan? L/O – To evaluate the successes and failures of the First Five Year Plan

The Five Year Plan By 1953 the economy had stabilised and Mao began the First Five Year Plan. Impressed by the USSR, Mao sought to base his changes on the Soviet model. With the help of the USSR he began an ambitious programme to ‘build socialism’ in China, achieving 9% growth by ,000 Russian scientists and engineers supervised millions of Chinese on over 700 major projects. 156 were built directly by the Russians. Why do you think Mao used help from the USSR?

The Five Year Plan The focus was on heavy industries – steel, coal, chemicals. These would provide the raw materials to build planes, trains and engines which would improve transport. Light industry like clothing and consumer goods was neglected. Why was the emphasis of the Five-Year Plan on heavy industry?

The Five Year Plan By 1953, inflation had been reduced to 15% and the government was in complete control of industry. Mao also benefitted from the ‘National Resources Committee’ (NRC) which had been established by the GMD. It’s 200,000 managers and workers had stayed on in China after Also, the urban population had doubled from 57 to 100 million by Mao had a huge workforce to work in industry.

The Five Year Plan In many sectors, the Plan was a complete success: How reliable are these government statistics?

The Five Year Plan In some respects, these statistics need to be treated with caution. As in the USSR, officials tended to massage the figures to avoid punishment. CCP Cadres and industrial managers, as well as foremen and workers, were all anxious to appear to be fulfilling targets. Yet despite this, China had impressively achieved 9% growth from However all the 10,000 Soviet advisors had to be payed for. The $300 million loan also had to be payed back!

The Five Year Plan To pay for this rapid industrialisation, and to feed the workers, Mao also needed to boost agricultural production. Despite the introduction of Mutual Aid Teams, some peasants were to poor or ill- equipped to efficiently farm the land. From 1953, the CCP encouraged peasants to form lower-stage cooperatives families pooled their land and equipment to make one bigger, efficient farm. Each family was then paid rent for their land. “In 1951 we set up a Mutual Aid Team. The work went well, but there were lots of quarrels about whose land should be worked on first. It was difficult to solve all these problems. Some said ‘Why should his field be taken first? I’ve got a bigger crop.’ Whatever we did this went on. So we then began to talk about forming a peasant’s co- operative.”

The Five Year Plan These lower-stage cooperatives were eventually merged into higher-stage cooperatives families were forced to pool their land and labour. They lost their land and only received wages. They had to surrender all their equipment and animals to the cooperative. By 1957, over 90% of China’s peasants belonged to cooperatives. The 300 million peasants who had received land after the 1950 Agrarian Reform Law had now lost it!

f 1951 – Mutual Aid Teams set up 1953 – All peasants encourage to join co-operatives 1957 – Over 90% of peasants now in co-operatives