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The difference between Indian and Chinese power structure can understood if one looks as the Chinese model of power from the time the Communists took charge.
On removing the KMT, the CCP brought an end to the hyperinflation that was raging through China and launched land reforms. 30% of the land was with the landlords while others with the peasants. The CCP planned to remove gradually the class of landlords since such class could destabilise the power of the Communists, the landlords being a rich and influential class. It maybe noted that the Communists wanted to do this gradually since their experience in areas held by the Communists before the Revolution was not quite satisfactory since the peasants sought retribution from the landlords and it became bloody wherein it is believed a million perished.
Like any Communist govts, they believed that industrialisation was the path to progress. However, wealth had to be created. Hence, China being an agrarian, it fell oin the farmers to provide the wealth and so farmers had to sell their crop at govt fixed low rates and were taxed 30% of their income.
China’s new irrigation and flood projects helped to average a 15% growth per year. This wealth helped China launch its first 5 year plan in 1953.
The Communist Party wanted order for China and a restoration of the economy. China had been disrupted by more than ten years of war, first against the Japanese and then civil war, and in the years 1950-53 China was involved in the Korean war. But from 1950 to 1952 farm production in China averaged a growth of fifteen percent per year -- an advance helped by new irrigation and flood projects.
China population in the countryside was four-times larger than was the Soviet Union's in the late 1920s, but China's agricultural production was only about twenty percent what the Soviet Union's had been at this time -- less agricultural wealth that could be transformed into investments in industry. But with this wealth, the Communists, in 1953, launched their first five-year plan for industry.
With the end of the Korean War where troops were demobbed and the famine of 1953 and 1954, the rural masses migrated to the cities and the unemployment was high, it was leading to a dangerous situation that could challenge the Communist regime. There was also a disparity amongst the rich and the poor farmers causing the CCP to re-examine the issue of free enterprise and how much should be allowed while still building the ideal socialist State.
To offset the disparity amongst landholding of the farmers, the Communist Party launched their collectivised farming programme and it was embraced by the peasantry and 90% joined the programme by 1956. There were community kitchen and none could cook at home, though each family was allowed a small plot to cultivate and sell the produce. Thus free enterprise remained but truncated while Socialism grew and the Communist Party was one step nearer the Socialist State.
The birth rate was high and migration to town continued. China required finances and it economy was agriculture based. While the manufacturing sector grew by 4% during 1956 – 1957, more finances were required. Hence, China lowered taxes to 25% for farmers so that they had some incentives.
Being from a peasant family, even though of the richer variety, Mao had little love for intellectuals and always stated that all should learn from the masses. One of his famous saying was that the peasant maybe rough with cowshit shodden feet, but they were cleaner than intellectuals. He wanted no elite in China or even in the Party.
The dissent was growing within the China and the Party. To discover the anti Mao elements, Mao launched the “Let a Hundred Flower Bloom”. Having discovered dissent, he launched a pogrom under the guise of a class struggle against what he termed as Rightists, Right Opportunists and Toilet Rightist.
Then Mao to get rid of the elite of all variety as also to ensure economic success greater than other third world countries, Mao mobilised the masses spontaneity with the programme – The Great Leap Forward, which was advertised as a technological revolution – as a proletarianisation of the economy before mechanisation. Agriculture was to have priority and instead of heavy industry, the emphasis would be on light industry. The mass was to be mobilised at the local levels.
Collective farming gave way to Peoples’ Communes, which had from 10,000 to 20,000 personnel and were twice the size of the collective farms, during the Great Leap. Community kitchen were organised and the masses handed over their tools and animals to the Commune.
Women were mobilised to work and not do ‘wifely’ duties. The people were organised into work brigades!
Apart from farming, during the period 1958 -1959, roads, factories, damns, dykes, irrigation channels and lakes were built. Land was reclaimed and terraces were carved in the mountains for farming with manual labour. But the drive to ‘produce steel’ by mobilising farmers at the expense of food production and encouraging deforestation proved disastrous. They had to work long hours and none could grow food on their own plot or the commune. Production quotas and statistics were fudged. The masses ate what was available from the Communes. They ate into the food reserves. With lower production, the situation was worsening. By 1959, quite a few were starving.
1960 saw drought in the North and floods in the South. Agriculture plummeted. Mao realised the fudging of agricultural statistics now. 20 million died of malnutrition. Fertility rate fell by 60 % between 1957 and 1961 as people were weak and starving.
Mao blamed the weather conditions and USSR as they had withdrawn their advisers. The backyard steel production had also failed where their kitchen utensils were consigned to the fire to make steel.
Marshal Pen, the defence minister, Mao’s old confidante from the Long March and friend, but a person who did not have Mao’s revulsion of the elite, reported to the CCP as to the real conditions resulting in his dismissal and house arrest! He replaced him with Lin Bioa, who was a Mao loyalist and the man behind Mao’s ‘Little Red Book’ and a total sycophant.
The situation was so bad that Mao gave way to a little window. Mao allowed expertise, beyond ideology to survive, though controlled. In the countryside, trained Party apparatchiks were sent to control Communes and bring it under the Communist party, backed by the PLA.
But attempts were made to re-establish mess halls and to abolish private plots. And here too Mao's masses abandoned him: the peasants resisted. Government authorities did not want to press the issue., so mess halls remained abandoned. The Party gave in to peasant sentiment and restored as much as twelve percent of tillable land to private ownership and production -- which coincided with the Party wishing to encourage individual responsibility and initiative rather than group conformity.
Party pragmatists encouraged the re-establishment of open markets in the countryside. Peasants were encouraged to trade locally. And for the sake of industrialisation in the cities farming families were encouraged to buy goods made in urban factories rather than to engage in communal industries.
With a good harvest in 1962 and a return to incentives over official altruism came a rise in industrial production and productivity, and in 1964, the Party leader second to Mao, Zhou Enlai, wishing to encourage and reassure everybody, announced that the recovery from economic disaster was complete.
Then, in 1965, Mao, at the age of 72, came out of seclusion. He complained about the retreat, about the rise of a new class of bureaucrats, a new exploiting class. China, he believed, was going the way of the Soviet Union and becoming a bureaucratic state. The Party, according to Mao, had been taken over by "capitalist roaders" -- by people with a bourgeois mentality. Mao, like Trotsky, was advocating "permanent revolution" -- although he did not label it as such. Reinvigorating his leadership, Mao was about to create what was to be known as the Cultural Revolution.
Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, a former actress, belonged to a group of artsy Maoists who wished for socialist purity in literature and the performing arts. In February 1966, the minister of defense, Lin Biao, still siding with Mao, invited Jiang Qing to establish cultural policy for the People's Liberation Army. Jiang Qing and her group were encouraged. They charged that China's garden of culture was infested with "anti-socialist poisonous weeds." Jiang Qing called for a revolution against bourgeois culture -- a cultural revolution.
Mao spoke out about a spiritual regeneration taking precedence over economic development -- a communist attitudinal spirituality. And he spoke of weeding from authority those who had chosen to lead China down "the capitalist road." Old comrades directly beneath Mao -- Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping - chose to accommodate Mao rather than collide with him head-on. And Liu Shaoqi, who had been a leading pragmatist, tried to curry favor with Mao by orchestrating an "anti-revisionist" campaign.
Still believing in the wisdom of the masses, Mao moved again for their support. He was especially interested in young people. Young people, he said, were the most willing to learn and were "the least conservative in their thinking." Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, agreed with Mao's move, and she allied her group with student unrest in Beijing. The disturbed students were filled with idealism. China's students were more in tune with Mao's idealism than they were with the pragmatism practiced by Mao's Party rivals. Jiang Qing's cultural revolutionaries distributed armbands to the students and declared that they were a new vanguard -- Red Guards. And Mao, still a venerated figure, encouraged the student radicals, announcing that they should "learn revolution by making revolution."
Youth tend to be more passionate than older folks -- whose enthusiasms are tempered by experience if not disappointment -- and Mao's Red Guards were passionate. In Beijing their ranks swelled with disaffected youths from the provinces, attracted by the rhetoric, by their reverence for Mao as the father of China's revolution and by the excitement. During the autumn of 1966, Mao was reviewing gigantic parades at Tiananmen Square, his Red Guards chanting and waving the little red book of "Quotations from Chairman Mao" that Lin Biao had put together for the Red Army.
Among other things, the students were moved by animosity towards the Soviet Union. They were with Mao in his attempt to prevent China from developing into a bureaucratic state, as had the Soviet Union. And, backed by their government, they also demonstrated displeasure with U.S. actions in Vietnam. Unlike protesting students in the United States at the time, China's Red Guards enjoyed the support of China's military, Lin Biao encouraging the students and describing Mao as "the greatest genius of the present era" and as "the great helmsman." And Lin Biao spoke of Mao as having created a Marxism-Leninism that was "remolding the souls of the people."
Through 1966, secondary schools and colleges closed in China. Students -- many from the age of nine through eighteen -- followed Maoist directives to destroy things of the past that they believed should be no part of the new China: old customs, old habits, old culture and old thinking -- the "four olds." In a state of euphoria and with support from the government and army, the students went about China's cities and villages, wrecking old buildings, old temples and old art objects. In their wake, monasteries and places of worship were converted into warehouses, and leading Buddhist monks were sent off to do manual labor. To make a new and wonderful China, the Red Guards attacked as insufficiently revolutionary their parents, teachers, school administrators and everyone they could find as targets, including "intellectuals" and "capitalist roaders" within the Communist Party.
In cities through China, Mao's movement was joined by a variety of people trying to prove they were as loyal to Mao as were the Red Guards. Politicians joined the movement in an effort to win against their political rivals. A mass hysteria had developed. Mobs of Red Guards grabbed prominent individuals whom they deemed insufficiently revolutionary, put dunce caps on their heads or hung placards around their necks, and paraded them through the streets. Officials were dragged from their offices. Their files were examined and often destroyed, and the officials were often replaced by youths with no managerial experience.
As had happened in the Soviet Union, the revolution in China was devouring its own. The purges in the Party went higher and higher, until Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi, were removed from their offices, and they and their families were humiliated. Filled with righteousness, the power of their numbers, and support from Mao, the campaigns for revolutionary change became violent. People seen as evil were beaten to death. Thousands of people died, including many who had committed suicide.
By September 1967, the chaos was too much even for Mao, Lin Biao and Jiang Qing. Civil war seemed to be in the making. Jiang Qing spoke out against what she called "ultra-leftist tendencies." With intolerance riding high and variation in opinion being inevitable, violent battles erupted between Red Guard factions. Mao ordered the People's Liberation Army to quell the Red Guard factionalism. Lin Biao and the People's Liberation Army called on the Red Guards to stop fighting each other and instead to study the works of Mao. The chaos and deaths continued, with the People's Liberation Army itself splitting into hostile camps. Mao was aware that some order was necessary, and he commanded that the Red Guards disperse, Mao describing the Red Guards as having failed in their mission.
By the summer of 1968, with the help of the army, the Red Guards were subdued. In large numbers, groups of young Red Guards were sent to labor in the countryside, confused in their being cast down from the height of glory and political importance. Mao's romance with the masses was all but over. For order, Mao was now counting on the People's Liberation Army, and he had the army form revolutionary committees in all provinces.
Mao wished to rebuild the Party, and the Ninth Party Congress was held in April 1969. There, a new Party constitution was adopted. With sixty percent of the former Party membership having been purged during the Cultural Revolution, room existed for new people within the Party, and two-thirds of those attending the congress were in military uniform -- reflecting the power of Lin Biao. New Party members were to be limited to those of proper class origin -- in other words, people with humble origins. Lin Biao was named Mao's successor. And at the Party Congress, Lin Biao denounced his old comrade from pre-revolutionary days, and his former rival, Liu Shaoqi. Liu, he said, was a "traitor and a scab." Liu Shaoqi had been put in prison during the cultural revolution, and he was to die in prison later that same year.
After the Party Congress, Mao moved to reduce the role of the military within the Party, and he moved against Lin Biao for reasons not easily ascertained. Perhaps Mao had come to see Lin Biao as too opportunistic and too powerful. Zhou Enlai was also opposed to Lin Biao, and Zhou also wished to reduce the role of the military in Party affairs. Unlike Lin Biao, Zhou favored improving relations with the capitalist powers -- Lin Biao favoring, instead, unending class struggle.
Mao visited regional military commanders and criticized Lin Biao. And Lin Biao was obliged to humble himself with public self-criticism. Reports suggest that Lin Biao's son, apparently outraged over treatment of his father, tried to strike back and to uphold his father's standing in the Party. This required drastic steps, namely a military coup. Lin Biao is said to have been a necessary part of his son's conspiracy -- a conspiracy, it is claimed, that intended to assassinate Mao. Someone kept the government informed of Lin Biao's activities, and the official story from China is that the government moved against Lin Biao, that on September 13, 1971 Lin Biao and his wife fled in an aircraft that crashed in Mongolia, killing all aboard.
With Lin Biao out of the way, Zhou Enlai's opening to the West took the form of what became known as the ping-pong diplomacy. A ping-pong team from the United States that had been competing in Japan accepted an invitation to China. The friendliness involved in the ping-pong matches in China was a sensation in the U.S. press, and a new atmosphere in relations arose between the United States and China. With Lin Biao out of the way, China was making gains in foreign affairs, China being admitted to the United Nations in October, 1971. And in February 1972, President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, journeyed to China.
With the Nixon visit, China won an improvement in its position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. The United States announced its recognition of Taiwan as a part of China and it announced interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan issue between the Chinese. Nixon and Mao exchanged pleasantries, Nixon flattering Mao with the comment that his writings had moved China and "changed the world," and Mao said that he had been able to change "only a few places around Beijing."
Mao was now 79 and suffering from Parkinson's disease. He had regrets over the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, and many people in China had regrets about Mao. The Great Leap Forward had tarnished his image within China, as had the demise of Lin Biao. In 1972 Lin Biao was officially declared as having been a "renegade and a traitor." And some people found fault with Mao for having previously praised Lin Biao, wondering how a man who was supposed to be wise had been so wrong about Lin Biao.
Conflict continued within the Party over which direction China should take. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, favored belligerence toward the capitalist powers, her hostility having been apparent to President Nixon during his visit. And she was still advocating cultural purity, attacking interest in Schubert, Beethoven and other Western composers.
Deng Xiaoping, who had been purged during the Cultural Revolution, was restored to prominence in the Party. Then on January 8, 1976, Deng's ally, Zhou Enlai, died of cancer. Mourning for Zhou was widespread. Deng gave the eulogy, but a rival, Hua Guofeng, was elevated to fill Zhou Enlai's position as Party leader. Deng was still thought by many as a "capitalist roader."
Students in Beijing, still clinging to Maoist idealisms, demonstrated in favor of rights for the poor and denounced "revisionists and capitalist roaders." Rival demonstrations also erupted, and, on April 5, thousands of students rioted at Tiananmen Square after finding that tributes placed there for Zhou Enlai the day before had been removed. The demonstrators displayed criticisms of Mao. Police cars were set afire. The outburst was quelled by security forces and an urban workers' militia, who arrested as many as 4,000 demonstrators. Deng was suspected of having encouraged the demonstration regarding tributes to Zhou, and those in the Party opposed to Deng rallied against him. Deng was purged again, but he was allowed to keep his Party membership.
Meanwhile, Mao's health was fading. On September 9, 1976, almost 27 years after he had declared the creation of the People's Republic of China, Mao died. A week of mourning was declared. The Soviet Union sent no condolences. Around 300,000 people filed by Mao's body and casket at the Great Hall of the People, at Tiananmen Square, but there was less emotion than had been expressed with the death of Zhou Enlai.
Hua Guofeng was declared Mao's successor as Party Chairman, and Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and three of her fellow cultural revolutionaries were imprisoned and named the "Gang of Four." Hua Guofeng announced his plan to "obey whatever Mao had said" and to continue "whatever [Mao] had decided." Across China, Hua Guofeng's policy became known derisively as the "two whatevers" Hua Guofeng's association with Mao was of little asset, and Hua Guofeng's standing in the Party faded.
This is from various extracts.
Read Wild Swans by Jung Chang (Flamingo) to understand the reality and anguish.]
Compare it with the way India is heading and its po9litical similarity/ dissimilarity!
Chalk and cheese?
What is Deng up to?
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