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Change Under Mao, 1949-63 » China's First Five-Year Plan and Soviet Influence

What you'll learn this session

Study time: 30 minutes

Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B4, Key topic 3

Why the new Communist government turned to the Soviet Union for help in 1950
What the first Five-Year Plan (1953-57) aimed to do and what it achieved
How far China copied the Soviet model, and what that cost

By 1949 China had been wrecked by decades of war. Factories were damaged, railways were broken and prices had spiralled. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wanted to turn a poor farming country into a modern industrial power. It had no money, few engineers and no friends among the Western powers. Its only big ally was the Soviet Union, the Communist state led by Stalin, which had already turned itself into an industrial power.

Key terms:

Five-Year Plan: a government plan that sets targets for the whole economy over five years.
Heavy industry: industry that makes materials and machines, such as coal, steel, electric power and engineering.
Central planning: the state, not businesses or customers, decides what is made, where and how much.
Consumer goods: things people buy for daily life, such as clothes, bicycles and household items.
Loan: money lent that has to be paid back, usually with interest.

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The 1950 treaty with the Soviet Union

Mao Zedong travelled to Moscow in December 1949 and stayed until February 1950. On 14 February 1950 China and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance. It was to last for 30 years. The two countries promised to help each other if either was attacked by Japan or by a country allied to Japan. For the new government this was a security guarantee at a time when the USA refused to recognise it.

The treaty came with money. The Soviet Union agreed to lend China 300 million US dollars over five years. This was a large sum for a country that needed machinery and had little to sell abroad. Soviet help was therefore both a political promise and a way of paying for the first steps towards industry.

🤝 What China got

A treaty of alliance, a loan, machinery and expert help. China was no longer alone.

💰 What China owed

The loan had to be repaid, and China came to rely on Soviet machinery, experts and methods.

The first Five-Year Plan, 1953-57

Between 1950 and 1952 the government repaired the damage of war. In 1953 it began the first Five-Year Plan. It copied Stalin's methods in three main ways.

Heavy industry came first. Most of the state's investment went into coal, iron and steel, electric power and machine-building. Far less went into farming or consumer goods, even though over four out of five Chinese people lived in the countryside.
The state planned the economy. Targets came from the centre. By the end of 1956 almost all private firms had been taken over and run jointly with the state, so the CCP controlled industry.
The countryside paid for the cities. In 1953 the state began to buy the peasants' grain at fixed prices to feed the growing towns.

The plan's centrepiece was about 156 large projects designed with Soviet help, including steel, power and engineering plants. Many were built in the north-east, near coal and iron and near the Soviet border. The steelworks at Anshan in Liaoning was one of the most important. Another famous project was the first bridge over the Yangtze at Wuhan, opened in 1957.

Soviet influence: advisers and the Soviet model

Soviet influence reached much further than money. Thousands of Soviet engineers and advisers came to China to plan factories, train workers and supply blueprints and machines. Thousands of Chinese students and workers went to the Soviet Union to train. Chinese factories used Soviet designs, and Chinese planners copied Soviet methods, so the Soviet model shaped how China ran its economy.

Remember

In the 1920s the Soviet Union had also sent advisers to China, such as Borodin, to help the Guomindang. That help was to a party that was not yet in power. In the 1950s the help was given to a government that controlled the whole country.

Targets and results

By the official figures the plan was a big success. Steel output rose from 1.35 million tonnes in 1952 to 5.35 million tonnes in 1957, nearly four times as much. The plan set targets for large rises in coal, steel and power, and official figures said most were beaten. New factories, mines and railways appeared, and China began to make machinery that it once had to import.

The success was uneven.

Farming grew slowly, because it received little investment. This limited how much grain was available to feed the cities and to pay for imports.
Consumer goods stayed short, so ordinary people gained less than the industry figures suggested.
China relied on Soviet loans, machines and experts.
Some Chinese leaders, including Mao, began to ask if copying the Soviet model was the best road for a huge peasant country.

Change and continuity

The plan changed China more than any earlier government had managed. Industry grew fast, the state took control of it, and cities grew. What continued was that China was still mainly a country of farmers, and it was still dependent on a foreign power, this time the Soviet Union.

Common mistakes

Writing that the Soviet Union ran China. China chose to copy the Soviet model, and the CCP stayed in charge.
Mixing up the loan and the plan. The 1950 treaty and loan came first. The Five-Year Plan began in 1953.
Saying the plan helped everyone equally. Industry and cities gained most. Farming and consumer goods gained least.

Exam-style question

Explain two ways in which Soviet influence on China in the 1950s was different from Soviet influence on China in the 1920s. (In the 1920s Soviet advisers such as Borodin helped to reorganise the Guomindang and the United Front was formed with the CCP.) [6 marks]

Remember: one way alone cannot score more than half marks. Say something about both periods in each way.

Model answer

One difference is who received Soviet help. In the 1920s Soviet advisers such as Borodin helped to reorganise the Guomindang, which governed only part of China, whereas in the 1950s the help went to the CCP government, which controlled the whole country and had signed a treaty with the Soviet Union in February 1950.

A second difference is the kind of help. In the 1920s the advice was mostly about politics and armies, such as the Whampoa Military Academy, while in the 1950s it was about the economy, with a 300 million dollar loan, about 156 Soviet-aided factory projects and thousands of engineers and advisers for the first Five-Year Plan.

What lifts this to the top level: each way compares both periods with specific facts.

Exam tip

Use a link word such as "whereas" or "but" in each paragraph. It forces you to put a fact about both periods in the same sentence.

Recap

The treaty of 14 February 1950 gave China an alliance with the Soviet Union and a loan of 300 million dollars.
The first Five-Year Plan (1953-57) put heavy industry first and used central planning on the Soviet model.
About 156 big projects were built with Soviet help, and thousands of Soviet advisers came to China.
Steel output rose from 1.35 to 5.35 million tonnes, but farming and consumer goods lagged behind.

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