Chapter 18 – The Cold War Section 3: Communism Spreads in East Asia

1. Chapter 18 – The Cold WarSection 3: Communism Spreads in East Asia • Objectives: • Analyze China’s Communist Revolution. • Describe China’s role as a “wild card” in the Cold War. • Explain how war came to Korea and how the two Koreas followed different paths. What did the Communist victory mean for China and the rest of East Asia?

2. Terms and People • Collectivization – the forced pooling of peasant land and labor in an attempt to increase productivity • Great Leap Forward – a Chinese Communist program from 1958 to 1960 to boost farm and industrial output that failed miserably • Cultural Revolution – a Chinese Communist program in the late 1960s to purge China of non-revolutionary tendencies, causing economic and social damage • 38th parallel – the dividing line between North Korea and South Korea after World War II • Kim Il Sung – North Korean dictator and ally of the Soviet Union • Syngman Rhee – noncommunist dictatorial leader of South Korea who was backed by the United States • Pusan Perimeter – the line where U.N. troops stopped the advance of North Korea in 1950 • Demilitarized zone – an area with no military forces

3. Communist forces led by Mao Zedong won a civil war in China in the wake of World War II. • Mao won the support of peasants by redistributing land. • People were also tired of the corruption in Jiang Jieshi’sNationalist government and his reliance on support from the West. • Communist forces took Beijing in 1949 and proclaimed a new communist state.

4. The Nationalists led by Jiang Jieshi fled to the island of Taiwan when the Communists won the war. • Taiwan was a one-party dictatorship until the late 1980s. • Mainland China never recognized Taiwan’s independence.

5. Mao’s leadership led to major changes in China. • China became a one-party totalitarian state. • Mao called for collectivization of land and labor. • He led a program known as the Great Leap Forward. Peoplewere organized into communes and urged to increase industrial and agricultural productivity. • In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to purge China of the “bourgeois.” Educated people were made to do manual labor.

6. Mao Zedong was a ruthless ruler. • Hedid not hesitate to have his critics killed or sent away to do manual labor. • His failed Great Leap Forward led to the deaths of as many as 55 million people from starvation between 1959 and 1961. Members of Mao’s Red Guard carry his picture in a parade during the Cultural Revolution.

7. China’s conversion to communism seemed like a victory for the Soviet Union and a defeat for the West. • In fact, the two were uneasy allies. • The Soviets withdrew all aid from China in 1960 due to border clashes and other disputes. • The United States saw some value in cooperating with China and set up formal diplomatic relations with the communist nation in 1979.

8. After World War II, the Americans and the Soviets temporarily divided Korea along the 38th parallel. • In North Korea, the Soviet Union supported communist dictator Kim Il Sung. • In the south, the United States backed Syngman Rhee. • North Korean forces overran most of South Korea in 1950.

9. The United States led a United Nations force to defend South Korea. • UN forces stopped the North Koreans at the Pusan Perimeter and then advanced north toward the Chinese border. • Mao sent a huge Chinese force to help the North Koreans. Most of the UN gains were lost.

10. The Korean War became a stalemate. • The two sides signed an armistice in 1953. • Troops remained on either side of the demilitarized zone near the 38th parallel, the dividing line between North and South Korea.

11. The two Koreas developed very differently after the armistice. • Capitalist South Korea experienced a boom and rising standards of living. • Communist North Korea went into decline. • Though anticommunist, South Korea was led by a series of dictators until the late 1980s.

13. What did the Communist victory mean for China and the rest of East Asia? Chinabecame a communist nation in 1949 and made advances into East Asia. This development led to war in Korea as a United Nations force worked to prevent the spread of communism there.

14. Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong or Mao Tse Tung) is the founder of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and one of the founders of the Chinese Communist party in 1921. He is recognized as one of the most prominent Communist theoreticians. He is also known as a great poet.Mao Zedong was a very practical person before 1949. He did many thorough investigations about China and he developed his theories based on his studies. He was so successful in his early years that people worshipped him and everyone loved him.Things changed after 1949. Mao was a great thinker, but he had no respect to any existing laws. Basically he was the law and he could not allow anybody else to challenge him. He challenged and destroyed the traditional Chinese culture, good and bad. He gave woman the same right as man, but destroyed the traditional value of woman. This also made him very unrealistic, as he said in a poem, "Ten thousand years is too long, seize the day." The Great Leap Forward (1958) is a direct result of such thinking.During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), everything took a very long pause except constant class struggle and population growth. Inflation was zero and salary freezes for everyone. Education was badly damaged. Mao developed his fighting (or struggling) philosophy in his late years, as he said, "Fighting with heaven, fighting with earth, and fighting with human being, what a great pleasure!" China was isolated from the rest of the world and nobody knew the outside world at all. Video: Chairman Mao Documentary – The Cultural Revolution – Destruction of China https://youtu.be/HXMMzL5THPk Declassified - History China 45 minutes

15. Mao's China - One Man's Revolution - BBC 20th Century History File https://youtu.be/TfJy_wduFy4 20 minutes