In 1954, Soviet-style political and legal institutions are imported into

China. A new constitution is promulgated, and China officially becomes

a peoples democratic dictatorship. Now the CCP launches a program
of agricultural collectivization designed to eliminate private ownership
of land and other productive assets in the countryside. By 1956, the
socialist transformation of the Chinese economy is complete. All rural
villages have been collectivized, and all urban industrial and commercial
firms have been converted from private to state ownership. But many
people resent the power and privileges monopolized by Communist Party
members and cadres.
To prevent a Hungarian-style revolt and to assuage the CCPs critics, Mao
in 1956 initiates a campaign to let a hundred flowers blossom. Chinas
intellectuals respond with a torrent of criticism against CCP leadership.
Stung by this rebuke, Mao terminates the Hundred Flowers campaign and
introduces an Anti-Rightist Rectification movement.
Increasingly concerned with the revisionist policies of Nikita Khrushchev
in the USSR, Mao in 1958 launches a radical program of social engineering
known as the Great Leap Forward. Hastily designed and poorly planned,
the Great Leap causes enormous economic hardships. Between 1959 and
1961, upward of 30 million people die of malnutrition and related causes.
Seeking to limit the damage, two of Maos lieutenants, Liu Shaoqi and Deng
Xiaoping, begin dismantling the Great Leap. In doing so, they run afoul of
Mao, who believes them to be following in Khrushchevs footsteps.
Intent on preventing a restoration of capitalism in China, Mao launches
the Socialist Education movement. But many of his comrades have
become disillusioned with his radical policies, and they pay little attention
to his exhortations. In response, Mao launches the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution.
Encouraging Chinese students to boldly expose hidden bourgeois
powerholders in Chinese society, Mao unleashes the Red Guards in the
fall of 1966. Schools are dismissed, and young people are urged to make
revolution against Chairman Maos enemies. By the spring of 1967, the
Cultural Revolution has spread to the CCP itself, with tens of thousands of
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