AS
HISTORY
Unit 2O The Impact of Chairman Mao: China, 1946–1976
Wednesday 25 May 2016
Afternoon
Time allowed: 1 hour 30 minutes
Materials
For this paper you must have:
• an AQA 12-page answer book.
Instructions
• Use black ink or black ball-point pen.
• Write the information required on the front of your answer book. The Paper Reference is HIS2O.
• Answer two questions.
Answer Question 1 and either Question 2 or Question 3.
Answer both parts of each question chosen.
• In answering the questions you must use your own knowledge and understanding of the period.
Information
• The marks for questions are shown in brackets.
• The maximum mark for this paper is 72.
• You will be marked on your ability to:
– use good English
– organise information clearly
– use specialist vocabulary where appropriate.
Advice
• You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on each question.
IB/M/Jun16/E1
HIS2O
2
Answer Question 1 and either Question 2 or Question 3.
Each question has two parts. Answer both parts of each question chosen.
Question 1
Study the following source material and then answer the questions which follow.
Source A
The people’s communes satisfied a growing demand for labour, as Party officials
strained to accomplish ever more demanding tasks in the Great Leap Forward.
On the ground, however, villagers were less enthusiastic. As everyday life came
to be organised on military lines, villagers were ‘footsoldiers’ who had to ‘fight
battles’ on the ‘front line’. All over China, farmers were roused from sleep at
5
dawn at the sound of a bugle and filed into the canteen for a bowl of watery rice
gruel. Whistles were blown to gather the workforce, which moved in military step
to the fields, carrying banners and flags to the sound of marching songs. Party
activists and the militia enforced discipline, sometimes punishing underachievers
with beatings. At the end of the day, villagers returned to their living quarters.
10
Adapted from Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 2010
Source B
Adapted from an article in the ‘Peking Review’, 8 September 1959. The ‘Peking
Review’ was an official Chinese Communist Party publication.
The people’s commune movement is a continuation and development of the
great socialist revolution in the Chinese countryside. The people’s commune is a
powerful means for quickening the growth of our collective economy in rural
areas. Since it combines industry, agriculture, trade, education and military
affairs, it has certain elements of ownership by the whole people. The peasants 5
demanded a more rational and efficient organisation of labour. This new form of
social organisation was entirely the creation of the masses. During the summer
this year, although the weather was bad, we got an even bigger harvest than
that of 1958, the year of the Great Leap Forward.
Source C
Agricultural production in the autumn of 1958 was the highest in China’s history.
But by mid-December, the nation was seriously short of food. Even as China’s
leaders praised the brilliant leadership of Chairman Mao, the disaster that had
been brewing unseen for months was finally bubbling to the surface. Much had
gone wrong. Massive numbers of male peasants had been transferred from the 5
fields to work in the backyard steel furnaces. The women and children could not
bring in the harvest and crops rotted in the fields. The leading cadres of the party
were seeking to gain Mao’s favour with preposterous claims of vastly increased
production. Peasants were beginning to go hungry. Soon they would starve. The
greater the falsehoods, the more people died of starvation.
10
Adapted from Zhisui Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao,1994
IB/M/Jun16/HIS2O
3
0
1
Use Sources A and B and your own knowledge.
Explain how far the views in Source B differ from those in Source A in relation to the
people’s communes.
[12 marks]
and
0
2
Use Sources A, B and C and your own knowledge.
How far was the failure of the Great Leap Forward caused by peasants being taken
away from working in the fields to perform other duties?
[24 marks]
Either
Question 2
0
3
Explain why Mao favoured the emancipation of women.
4
‘Mao’s consolidation of power in the years 1949 to 1953 succeeded because of his
land reform policy.’
[12 marks]
and
0
Explain why you agree or disagree with this view.
[24 marks]
or
Question 3
0
5
Explain why Lin Biao fled from China in 1971.
6
‘By 1976, Deng Xiaoping had fully regained his power in the Communist Party.’
[12 marks]
and
0
Explain why you agree or disagree with this view.
END OF QUESTIONS
IB/M/Jun16/HIS2O
[24 marks]
4
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IB/M/Jun16/HIS2O