Thesis Rationale Thesis: Mao’s Five Year Plan successfully industrialized China by improving the productivity and transportation. Mao’s ultimate goal was to make the nation an industrial superpower and create a new revolution in China. The focus was on heavy industries, such as steel, coal, and chemicals that would provide the raw materials for building planes, trains, and engines. Motivated Chinese workers surpassed all of Mao’s targets for the Five Year Plan.

It is only by using discussion, criticism and reasoning that we can really foster correct ideas, overcome wrong ideas and really settle issues. Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land. – Mao Zedong

The graph in the top right corner represents the success of Mao's reforms. The Five Year plan that Mao created greatly increased the rate of industrial production. Between 1952 to 1957 the production of coal, pig-iron, steel, chemical fertilizer, machine tools, crude oil, and electrical power doubled and or even tripled in some cases. The actual production even surpassed the target goal set by the government for all the products, excluding crude oil and electrical power. The numbers might not be the most accurate, but the achievements were still very impressive. As this graph shows, China became very modernized and industrialized throughout the span of the Five Year Plan. The black quote in the bottom right corner shows why Mao executed the Five Year plan and his reasoning/ planning behind it. He said that for China to become more economically powerful it must use elements of urban and rural capitalism. While Mao might have not followed what he said in that quote directly, he certainly did what he said he would do, which was raise China from its low economic position and make it an industrial superpower. Key

The image to the right of the red quote represents the advances in agriculture and farming production. Chinese farmers worked together and to make a plan that would ultimately increase and improve the agricultural growth. As seen in the image, the Chinese people had a fresh start and eventually worked their way up to grow more produce throughout the duration of Mao’s Five Year Plan. The image above the black quote on the left represents the important industrial projects throughout the nation. Throughout , the expansion of steel, electricity, and railroad production spread along the east coast and central China. Mao built new factories in small towns rather than cities, hoping to create new industries that could start from scratch. The new railways could transport raw materials across the nation, increasing the expansion of goods.

Key The image to the left of graph represents the leader of communist russia, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. The primary source shows the alliance that Russia and China had with each other, in which China gained supplies and knowledge from the Russians. Thousands of russian scientists and engineers supervised millions of chinese on almost 700 projects. Also thousands of chinese students were sent to study abroad in soviet universities and colleges. This represents our thesis statement because without Stalin, China would not have gotten the resources to become an industrialized country. The image to the left of the black quote represents how the Chinese government distributed there money. The primary source shows how the chinese government distributed money to all parts of their society to please them, and keep the different industries equal. One of Mao’s biggest supporting groups was the peasants, and mao made sure to distribute money evenly to keep all of his supporters happy. This supports our thesis, because without money being distributed evenly, Mao would have lost a lot of followers, and money, making it impossible to industrialize the country.

Key The image in the bottom left and the image above the black quote to the right both represent the improvement of different transportation methods such automobiles, trains, and aircraft. One of the main goals of the plan was to increase the raw materials provided to transportation improvement. Because of the plan, more factories were made in small towns. An increased number of industries allowed for 124 million tons of coal to be produced, 5.24 million tons of steel to be produced, and 2 million tons of crude oil to be produced from 1952 to These resources were dedicated heavily towards the improvement of transportation methods. Both pictures show the spread of modern transportation methods throughout China during the Five Year Plan. Because of the changes the plan brought, China industrialized and became a more reputable power.