so from the perspective of the United States the spread of Communism during the Cold War was about as welcome as a warm fart in an elevator but spread it did and that's exactly what we're talking about in this video so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it so the adoption of Communism in China was kind of a big deal now I briefly mentioned in the last unit how China's 2,000-year dynastic rule ended with the revolution of 1911 under the leadership of sunat sin which established China as a republic however
by the 1920s internal tension was brewing against the Nationalist party because of their perceived dependence on filthy Western powers and institutions and their main antagonist were the newly formed Chinese Communist Party under the leadership of ma zong so starting in 1927 there was a bitter conflict between the Chinese Communists and the Chinese nationalists over who would control China but in 1931 Japan went ahead and invaded northern China and so by 1935 the Communists and the Nationalist put their conflict aside for a minute and United to deal with the Japanese now if you're paying attention to
dates you'll recognize that we're on the eve of World War II during all of this and so once the Japanese were defeated by the Allied Powers the two rival Chinese factions went ahead and started up that civil War right where they had left off and long story short the Communist won with significant help from the Soviets and had themselves a Communist Revolution in China and chairman ma dong stood in tenan square in 1949 and proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China and under Ma's leadership China nationalized its industry and redistributed land to peasants
by means of a massive collectivization of Agriculture now you may recall that Stalin did this very same thing in Russia and as a result of all the Rebellion that occurred because of it many many millions of people died because of famine however unlike the Soviet Union this collectivization in China was a relatively peaceful and bloodless process because of the trust that the Communist Party had built up with peasants during the Civil War period oh and by the way since the AP World History National exam is starting to breathe down your neck you might want to
check out my AP World heimler review guide which has everything you need to study as fast as possible it's got whole unit review videos that you're not going to see here on YouTube no guides to follow along practice questions practice exams and answer keys for every dang bit of it so if that's something you're into check the link in the description anyway ma brought the Chinese economy squarely under State Control through a program called the Great Leap Forward which was an economic plan to rapidly industrialize China through the development of heavy industry you see it
was during this period that relations between China and the Soviet Union became seriously strained because ma believed that the Soviet version of Communism had become corrupted and here is where the Chinese flavor of Communism begins to seriously contrast with the Soviet flavor so in contrast to Stalin's 5-year plans which aimed to industrialize the Soviet Union by focusing mainly on urban areas Mal focused on small scale industrialization in rural areas however the industrial goods created in rural areas were on the whole poor quality add to that bad Harvest led to the starvation of somewhere between 20
and 50 million Chinese people far worse than the Soviet famines that were caused by communist control there but to be clear it was the turd Chairman Mao who largely caused this deadly event because he was concerned to show the world that his brand of Communism was working just fine he refused foreign aid during the famine and continued to export the very grain that could have saved millions of people's lives okay so that's how communism is working out in China so now let's turn our attention to how communism and socialism was spreading to other parts of
the world by means of land reform and the redistribution of resources and just for poops and Giggles let's begin in Africa or more to the point Egypt so the British and the French completed work on the Suz canal in 1869 and took pains to control that highly strategic link between Europe and Asia and I cannot emphasize just how important this little Canal was to the economic well-being of European powers like instead of having to export and import Goods all the way around the entire stinking continent of Africa they could just take this massive shortcut which
saved them all kinds of money so for them no Suz no success it sorry and that sets the stage for a massive conflict in Egypt so in 1952 Gamal abdal Nasser led a movement to overthrow the British and went ahead and proclaimed Independence for Egypt okay we're in the era of decolonization so that makes sense Egypt you go ahead and have your Independence but then Nasser did something that got those Western Powers matter than a wet hen now he wasn't a communist but he did Implement socialist reforms for Egypt's Land Resources most notably the nationalization
of the Suz Canal which meant that the canal would now be under the control of Egypt alone oh Gamal you done did it now needless to say this development seriously threatened European interest and so British French and Israeli forces invaded Egypt in retaliation the Soviet leader Nikita CRF threatened a nuclear strike against the Invaders and at that point US president Dwight Eisenhower put pressure on Britain and France to withdraw and they did okay second let's see how communism is spreading in Asia and for that we're going to visit our friends in Vietnam now during World
War II Japan occupied Vietnam which was at that point a French Colony but after Japan Was Defeated Vietnam declared its independence both from Japan and France and in the wake of that declaration two rival governments were established in Vietnam a communist government in the north and an anti-communist government in the South and if that smells to you like a proxy war Brewing well then baby you are spot on but we're not going to focus on the proxy war here but rather how communism took shape in Vietnam so the communist government of the north quickly began
a program of land redistribution a few wealthy land owners held nearly all of Vietnam's agricultural land but under this program their ownership was cancelled and land was given to the rural peasantry and finally let's consider the spread of Communism into the Western Hemisphere namely Latin America and for that let's sit a spell with Cuba so in 1956 Fidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba that eventually established it as a communist state and chief among his goals was to purge Cuba of dependence on and subservience to the United States who had been controlling Cuba economically for
decades therefore with support from the Soviet Union Castro immediately launched a program of land distribution and raised wages which resulted in the transfer of about 15% of Cuba's wealth from the rich to the poor additionally Castro nationalized much of the land that belonged to various us corporations who had exploited Cuba's economy for their own benefit which was a situation not unlike NASA's nationalization of the Suz canal and so with their interest under attack the us CIA led a failed attempt to overthrow Castro which only further radicalized him in his communist beliefs and led him to
develop even closer ties with the Soviet Union Okay click here to keep reviewing for Unit 8 and click here to grab my AP World heimler review guide which has everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May glad we got to hang out not catch on the flipflop himler outout
