To what extent did the revolution bring about change?
-Political stability and unification
Through this revolution, we can see that the whole country grew significantly stronger and its people became unified through the Civil War. There was no longer the flawed monarchy system and this was a huge “bloodshed to end all blood”. Because of a unified country, there were no longer warlords fighting for power and land and China was able to identify the mistake they had been making for decades, that being the heavy internal conflict instead of unification. This halted development significantly and resulted in China gradually falling behind globally. This was resolved with the Civil War between the CCP and Guomindang. In essence there were two different political ideologies and the most heavily supported and to a certain extent superior for the people of China became victorious. Through this war it allowed for the making of a new government and that resulted in a proper non-corrupt government which in turn allowed China to begin flourishing as a modern country in the world. However, the problems did not end there and that will be covered in the consequences section. -Adopted Socialism
Moreover, the revolution led to the adoption of a new wave of socialism that focused on establishing a ruling class in the form of proletariat alliance, which in turn discouraged peasantry as the preferred method of production. Hence, the new wave of socialism primarily concentrated on improving socioeconomic outcomes through the equal distribution of income. This abolished the previous static social system that defined socialism less clearly. Overall, the previous social system limited the avenues, that allowed for people to establish production processes for personal gain. The Chinese society also expanded to restrict economic, political, and social inequalities as much as possible. As a result, the communist system created a framework, where exploitation of the system was kept to a minimum. The communist revolution also promoted mass campaigns targetting the capitalist ideology while focusing on enhancing collective interest. The end end of the regime also promoted national oppression while championing male supremacy. Additionally, it created political elite, where the working class and political leadership belonged to the specific communist party and state organs. |
-Change in political ideology
Following the CCP’s victory in the Civil war, the communist ideologies, specifically Maoism was imposed to the Chinese public. On one hand, it served its initial purpose as the glue that held the people of China together and it served as a social contract for all of China to recognize their unification. However, on the other hand it was obvious that Mao’s leadership of the new society was much less successful than his career as a revolutionary. However, Mao being the political genius that he is, was able to exploit party factionalism, isolate and exclude opponents, and disassociate himself from disaster. This caused his status to become somewhat godly amongst those in China but even Mao made mistakes and as a result his economic policies achieved negligible outcomes and contributed to one of the worst famines in human history. In a nutshell, there was very little change economically apart from a somewhat placebo effect at which everyone was happy at the fact that they were being poor. |