The Battle of the Yijiangshan Islands was a conflict between forces of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the RoC and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the PRC, over one of the last strongholds of Nationalist (RoC) forces near mainland China on the Yijiangshan Islands.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign, was a period from 1956 to 1957 in the PRC during which the CCP encouraged citizens to openly express their opinions of the Communist Party. Following the failure of the campaign, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong conducted an ideological crackdown on those who criticized the party, which continued through 1959.

The Anti-Rightist Campaign in the PRC, which lasted from 1957 to roughly 1959, was a political campaign to purge alleged "Rightists" within the CCP and the country as a whole. The campaign was launched by Chairman Mao Zedong, but Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen also played an important role. The Anti-Rightist Campaign significantly damaged democracy in China and turned the country into a de facto one-party state

The Great Leap Forward (Second of the Five Year Plans) of the PRC was an economic and social campaign led by the CCP from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through the formation of people's communes. Mao decreed that efforts to multiply grain yields and bring industry to the countryside should be increased. .

The Four Pests Campaign was one of the first actions taken in the Great Leap Forward in China from 1958 to 1962. The four pests to be eliminated were rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows.

The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis was a conflict that took place between the PRC and the ROC. In this conflict, the PRC shelled the islands of Kinmen (Quemoy) and the Matsu Islands along the east coast of mainland China (in the Taiwan Strait) to "liberate" Taiwan from the Chinese Nationalist Party, also known as the KMT; and to probe the extent of the United States defence of Taiwan's territory. A naval battle also took place around Dongding Island when the ROC Navy repelled an attempted amphibious landing by the PRC Navy.

The 1959 Tibetan Uprising began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the PRC since the Seventeen Point Agreement was reached in 1951.

The Great Chinese Famine was a period between 1959 and 1961 in the history of the PRC characterized by widespread famine. It is widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated death toll due to starvation that ranges in the tens of millions.

In 1961 the political tide at home began to swing to the right, as evidenced by the ascendancy of a more moderate leadership. In an effort to stabilize the economic front, the party, still under Mao's titular leadership but under the dominant influence of Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Peng Zhen, Bo Yib, and others initiated a series of corrective measures. The efforts were prompted by the party's realization that the arrogance of party and government functionaries had engendered only public apathy. On the industrial front, much emphasis was now placed on realistic and efficient planningand production authority was restored to factory managers. Another notable emphasis after 1961 was the party's greater interest in strengthening defence and internal security establishment. By early 1965 the country was well on its way to recovery under the direction of the party apparatus, or, to be more specific, the Central Committee's Secretariat headed by Secretary General Deng Xiaoping.

The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the PRC and the Soviet Union caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism""Leninism, as influenced by their respective geopolitics during the Cold War of 1947-1991.

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung is a book of statements from speeches and writings by Mao Zedong published from 1964 to about 1976 and widely distributed during the Cultural Revolution. The most popular versions were printed in small sizes that could be easily carried and were bound in bright red covers, thus commonly becoming known internationally as the "Little Red Book"