Did life improve for China’s peasants after 1949?
Yes
* Mao introduced literacy
campaigns.
* Rural clinics were established.
* Backward practices like foot
binding were abolished.
* Mao claimed to have freed the
peasants from the landlords.
* Peasants were able to send their
children to school and university
for the first time.
No
* Peasants were set against one
another. Wealthier peasants in a
village were attacked by poorer ones.
* Mao collectivised all land, taking it
from the peasants.
* Cadres who ran the villages were
often corrupt.
* The result of Mao’s policies in
agriculture was the famine that killed
at least 45 million Chinese; mainly
peasants.