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Cultural Revolution

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 3, 2020 | Original: November 9, 2009

The Cultural Revolution was launched in China in 1966 by Communist leader Mao Zedong in order to reassert his authority over the Chinese government. Believing that current Communist leaders were taking the party, and China itself, in the wrong direction, Mao called on the nation’s youth to purge the “impure” elements of Chinese society and revive the revolutionary spirit that had led to victory in the civil war 20 years earlier and the formation of the People’s Republic of China. The Cultural Revolution continued in various phases until Mao’s death in 1976, and its tormented and violent legacy would resonate in Chinese politics and society for decades to come.

The Cultural Revolution Begins

In the 1960s, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong came to feel that the current party leadership in China, as in the Soviet Union , was moving too far in a revisionist direction, with an emphasis on expertise rather than on ideological purity. Mao’s own position in government had weakened after the failure of his “ Great Leap Forward ” (1958-60) and the economic crisis that followed. Chairman Mao Zedong gathered a group of radicals, including his wife Jiang Qing and defense minister Lin Biao, to help him attack current party leadership and reassert his authority.

Did you know? To encourage the personality cult that sprang up around Mao Zedong during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, Defense Minister Lin Biao saw that the now-famous "Little Red Book" of Mao's quotations was printed and distributed by the millions throughout China.

Mao launched the so-called Cultural Revolution (known in full as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) in August 1966, at a meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee. He shut down the nation’s schools, calling for a massive youth mobilization to take current party leaders to task for their embrace of bourgeois values and lack of revolutionary spirit. In the months that followed, the movement escalated quickly as the students formed paramilitary groups called the Red Guards and attacked and harassed members of China’s elderly and intellectual population. A personality cult quickly sprang up around Mao, similar to that which existed for Josef Stalin , with different factions of the movement claiming the true interpretation of Maoist thought. The population was urged to rid itself of the “Four Olds”: Old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas.

Lin Biao's Role in the Cultural Revolution

During this early phase of the Cultural Revolution (1966-68), President Liu Shaoqi and other Communist leaders were removed from power. (Beaten and imprisoned, Liu died in prison in 1969.) With different factions of the Red Guard movement battling for dominance, many Chinese cities reached the brink of anarchy by September 1967, when Mao had Lin send army troops in to restore order. The army soon forced many urban members of the Red Guards into rural areas, where the movement declined. Amid the chaos, the Chinese economy plummeted, with industrial production for 1968 dropping 12 percent below that of 1966.

In 1969, Lin was officially designated Mao’s successor. He soon used the excuse of border clashes with Soviet troops to institute martial law. Disturbed by Lin’s premature power grab, Mao began to maneuver against him with the help of Zhou Enlai, China’s premier, splitting the ranks of power atop the Chinese government. In September 1971, Lin died in an airplane crash in Mongolia, apparently while attempting to escape to the Soviet Union. Members of his high military command were subsequently purged, and Zhou took over greater control of the government. Lin’s brutal end led many Chinese citizens to feel disillusioned over the course of Mao’s high-minded “revolution,” which seemed to have dissolved in favor of ordinary power struggles.

Cultural Revolution Comes to an End

Zhou acted to stabilize China by reviving educational system and restoring numerous former officials to power. In 1972, however, Mao suffered a stroke; in the same year, Zhou learned he had cancer. The two leaders threw their support to Deng Xiaoping (who had been purged during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution), a development opposed by the more radical Jiang and her allies, who became known as the Gang of Four. In the next several years, Chinese politics teetered between the two sides. The radicals finally convinced Mao to purge Deng in April 1976, a few months after Zhou’s death, but after Mao died that September, a civil, police and military coalition pushed the Gang of Four out. Deng regained power in 1977 and would maintain control over Chinese government for the next 20 years.

Long-Term Effects of the Cultural Revolution

Some 1.5 million people were killed during the Cultural Revolution, and millions of others suffered imprisonment, seizure of property, torture or general humiliation. The Cultural Revolution’s short-term effects may have been felt mainly in China’s cities, but its long-term effects would impact the entire country for decades to come. Mao’s large-scale attack on the party and system he had created would eventually produce a result opposite to what he intended, leading many Chinese to lose faith in their government altogether.

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The early period (1966–68)

• Rise and fall of Lin Biao (1969–71)
• Final years (1972–76)

What were the goals of the Cultural Revolution?

• Who was Mao Zedong?
• What is Maoism?
• How has China changed since Mao Zedong’s death?
• What is Mao Zedong's legacy?

Cultural Revolution

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• Table Of Contents

What was the Cultural Revolution?

The Cultural Revolution was an upheaval launched by Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong during his last decade in power (1966–1976) to renew the spirit of the Chinese Revolution.

Why was the Cultural Revolution launched?

Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution because he feared that China would develop along the lines of the Soviet model, which he did not approve of, and because he was concerned about his own place in history.

Mao Zedong had four goals for the Cultural Revolution: to replace his designated successors with leaders more faithful to his current thinking; to rectify the Chinese Communist Party; to provide China’s youths with a revolutionary experience; and to achieve policy changes so as to make the educational, health care, and cultural systems less elitist.

When did the Cultural Revolution occur?

The Cultural Revolution took place from August 1966 to the autumn of 1976. It was officially ended by the Eleventh Party Congress in August 1977.

Cultural Revolution , upheaval launched by Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong during his last decade in power (1966–76) to renew the spirit of the Chinese Revolution . Fearing that China would develop along the lines of the Soviet model and concerned about his own place in history, Mao threw China’s cities into turmoil in a monumental effort to reverse the historic processes underway.

During the early 1960s, tensions with the Soviet Union convinced Mao that the Russian Revolution had gone astray, which in turn made him fear that China would follow the same path. Programs carried out by his colleagues to bring China out of the economic depression caused by the Great Leap Forward made Mao doubt their revolutionary commitment and also resent his own diminished role. He especially feared urban social stratification in a society as traditionally elitist as China. Mao thus ultimately adopted four goals for the Cultural Revolution: to replace his designated successors with leaders more faithful to his current thinking; to rectify the Chinese Communist Party; to provide China’s youths with a revolutionary experience; and to achieve some specific policy changes so as to make the educational, health care, and cultural systems less elitist. He initially pursued these goals through a massive mobilization of the country’s urban youths. They were organized into groups called the Red Guards , and led by students such as Song Binbin . Mao ordered the party and the army not to suppress the movement.

Mao also put together a coalition of associates to help him carry out the Cultural Revolution. His wife, Jiang Qing , brought in a group of radical intellectuals to rule the cultural realm. Defense Minister Lin Biao made certain that the military remained Maoist. Mao’s longtime assistant, Chen Boda , worked with security men Kang Sheng and Wang Dongxing to carry out Mao’s directives concerning ideology and security. Premier Zhou Enlai played an essential role in keeping the country running, even during periods of extraordinary chaos . Yet there were conflicts among these associates, and the history of the Cultural Revolution reflects these conflicts almost as much as it reflects Mao’s own initiatives .

Mao’s concerns about “bourgeois” infiltrators in his party and government—those not sharing his vision of communism—were outlined in a Chinese Communist Party Central Committee document issued on May 16, 1966; this is considered by many historians to be the start of the Cultural Revolution, although Mao did not formally launch the Cultural Revolution until August 1966, at the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee. He shut down China’s schools, and during the following months he encouraged Red Guards to attack all traditional values and “bourgeois” things and to test party officials by publicly criticizing them. Mao believed that this measure would be beneficial both for the young people and for the party cadres that they attacked.

The movement quickly escalated; many elderly people and intellectuals not only were verbally attacked but were physically abused. Many died. The Red Guards splintered into zealous rival factions, each purporting to be the true representative of Maoist thought. Mao’s own personality cult , encouraged so as to provide momentum to the movement, assumed religious proportions. The resulting anarchy , terror, and paralysis completely disrupted the urban economy. Industrial production for 1968 dipped 12 percent below that of 1966.

During the earliest part of the Red Guard phase, key Politburo leaders were removed from power—most notably President Liu Shaoqi , Mao’s designated successor until that time, and Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping . In January 1967 the movement began to produce the actual overthrow of provincial party committees and the first attempts to construct new political bodies to replace them. In February 1967 many remaining top party leaders called for a halt to the Cultural Revolution, but Mao and his more radical partisans prevailed, and the movement escalated yet again. Indeed, by the summer of 1967, disorder was widespread; large armed clashes between factions of Red Guards were occurring throughout urban China.

During 1967 Mao called on the army under Lin Biao to step in on behalf of the Red Guards. Instead of producing unified support for the radical youths, this political-military action resulted in more divisions within the military. The tensions inherent in the situation surfaced vividly when Chen Zaidao, a military commander in the city of Wuhan during the summer of 1967, arrested two key radical party leaders.

In 1968, after the country had been subject to several cycles of radicalism alternating with relative moderation, Mao decided to rebuild the Communist Party to gain greater control. The military dispatched officers and soldiers to take over schools, factories, and government agencies. The army simultaneously forced millions of urban Red Guards to move to the rural hinterland to live, thus scattering their forces and bringing some order to the cities. This particular action reflected Mao’s disillusionment with the Red Guards because of their inability to overcome their factional differences. Mao’s efforts to end the chaos were given added impetus by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, which greatly heightened China’s sense of insecurity.

Two months later, the Twelfth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee met to call for the convening of a party congress and the rebuilding of the party apparatus. From that point, the issue of who would inherit political power as the Cultural Revolution wound down became the central question of Chinese politics.

Chinese Revolution

The cultural revolution begins.

The Cultural Revolution (1966-76) was a mass campaign that transformed government and society in the People’s Republic of China.  According to its leader and figurehead Mao Zedong , the Cultural Revolution aimed to restore socialism by cleansing the state, the party and society of bourgeois and reactionary elements. To achieve this, Mao mobilised and agitated thousands of students from the schools and universities of Beijing. These students were intensely loyal to Mao, their fanaticism exceeding anything seen in revolutionary Paris or Nazi Germany. The Red Guards , as they became known, were hostile to anyone or anything that opposed the Chairman or impeded his vision for a socialist China. Working in numbers, the Red Guards used pressure, coercion and violence to force obedience to Mao’s will. Through the actions and propaganda of the Red Guards, Mao’s political power and prestige were restored. For millions of ordinary Chinese, the Cultural Revolution was a period of restricted freedom, intimidation, social upheaval and economic disruption.

The context for the Cultural Revolution was Mao Zedong’s loss of power after the disaster of the Great Leap Forward . Mao surrendered the national presidency to Liu Shaoqi (April 1959), though he remained chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Still greatly respected, Mao continued to exert considerable influence over the party and government policy, though he was not the dominant figure of the 1950s. Control of economic policy was picked up by Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping , Chen Yun and others. From 1960 on, this group wound aspects of the Great Leap Forward, bringing an end to the Great Famine and overseeing China’s economic recovery. They implemented their reforms cautiously, avoiding direct criticisms of Mao, who still retained enormous public support and veneration. Meanwhile, Mao fumed about the economic reforms of the early 1960s. He considered these reforms an abandonment of socialist economic principles and a betrayal of his revolutionary vision. The party, the government and the revolution had been hijacked, Mao claimed, by “those who have taken the capitalist road”.

Finding the precise origin of the Cultural Revolution is difficult. Many historians trace the Cultural Revolution to a play called Hai Rui Dismissed from Office . Written by Wu Han, a Beijing historian, it dramatised the career and downfall of Hai Rui, a 16th century official who dared to voice criticisms of the Jiajing Emperor. Hai Rui was removed from office and sentenced to death, though his sentence was commuted when the emperor died first. When Hai Rui Dismissed from Office was performed in 1961, many interpreted it as an allegory about the downfall of Peng Dehuai. Like Hai Rui, Peng had dared to criticise the emperor (Mao) and had paid for it with his career and his reputation. Mao’s defenders interpreted it this way too and reacted strongly. In late 1965 Yao Wenyuan , a future member of the Gang of Four, penned a lengthy essay condemning the play as political slander. “ Hai Rui Dismissed is not a fragrant flower but a poisonous weed,” Yao said. “If we do not clean it up, it will be harmful to the affairs of the people”.

Mao had long been concerned about art and literature and the dangers they posed to his regime. “Writing novels is popular these days, isn’t it”, he mused in 1962. “The use of novels for anti-party activity is a great invention. Anyone wanting to overthrow a political regime must create public opinion and do some preparatory ideological work.” By the start of 1965, Mao was urging a ‘cultural revolution’. In January the Politburo, responding to Mao’s demands, set up a ‘Five Man Group’ to review anti-socialist attitudes in fields like history, philosophy, literature, law and dramatics. The Five Man Group, led by Peng Zhen , interpreted Mao’s concerns as an academic debate, not a serious political issue. Peng saw no need for state intervention in fields like literature or the arts, nor did he believe culture should be forced to follow party lines. The group’s inaction infuriated Mao, who was insistent that anti-socialist cultural expressions be identified and criticised.

“There is no master script [for the Cultural Revolution]… no blueprint, no scenario, no game plan. All there is are random, scattered remarks – some spontaneous, others carefully hedged; some just possibly meant to be taken at face value, others almost certainly intended to obscure rather than elucidate… We have no firm answers.” Michael Schoenhals, historian

By the second half of 1965, Mao had decided to take action himself. Yao Wenyuan’s essay attacking Hai Rui Dismissed provided a logical starting point. In November, Mao ordered state newspapers to publish Yao’s essay in its entirety. Peng Zhen, believing this risked turning an academic debate into a political confrontation, attempted to block the publication of Yao’s essay but was overruled by Zhou Enlai. Mao’s supporters began to produce a wave of similar essays and articles, each critical of anti-socialist ideas in cultural pieces. Peng’s Five Man Group moved to block these as well. In early 1966 it released a document, the ‘February Outline’, which acknowledged the existence of bourgeois or reactionary sentiments in culture. The solution, it said, was to “seek truth from facts”, to fight bourgeois ideas with better socialist ideas. The February Outline also harked back to an earlier campaign , urging the party to “let one hundred schools of thought contend”.

The February Outline led to an undeclared war between the Five Man Group and Mao and his supporters. Mao emerged victorious on May 16th, when the CCP’s Central Committee voted to disband the Five Man Group and replace it with “a new Cultural Revolution Group”. The committee’s May 16th circular condemned Peng Zhen in the strongest terms and demanded a reorientation of the Cultural Revolution on Mao’s own terms. Peng and three other members of the Five-Man Group were charged with counter-revolutionary sympathies, booted from office and purged from the CCP. The new Cultural Revolution Group was populated with supporters of Mao, including Zhou Enlai , Mao’s wife Jiang Qing , his secretary Chen Boda , security chief Kang Sheng and Yao Wenyuan himself. The Central Committee’s May 16th circular called on loyal party members to “thoroughly criticise and repudiate reactionary bourgeois ideas in the sphere of academic work, education, journalism, literature, art and publishing”, urging them to “seize the leadership in these cultural spheres”.

Mao’s challenge was taken up by young students in high schools and universities, later to become the Red Guards . On May 25th a dazibao (‘big character poster’) appeared on the walls at Tsinghua University in Beijing, urging students to rebel against their teachers and lecturers. They responded enthusiastically and the Reds Guards movement took shape over the following weeks. On July 16th Mao ended a period of public seclusion with his famous ‘good swim’ in the Yangtze River. Despite his age (72) and his portly frame, Mao spent more than an hour floating down the Yangtze. The ‘good swim’ demonstrated to the public that Mao was in good health and ready to retake control of the government. By the end of July, the Red Guards boasted more than one million members in Beijing alone. They looked to Mao for inspiration and direction. On August 1st he penned a letter to the Red Guards at Tsinghua University, offering them his approval and support. Five days later Mao published his famous directive to “Bombard the Headquarters!” and expel the “bourgeois dictatorship” which had “imposed a white terror”.

On August 18th the Chairman appeared before a rally of Red Guards in Tiananmen Square. Mao’s choice of dress – an olive green military uniform – was chosen to replicate theirs. Mao donned the armband worn by the Red Guards and stood for six hours, listening to speeches from Lin Biao , Chen Boda and various Red Guard leaders. Mao attended several similar rallies over the coming weeks. At each rally, the Red Guards were encouraged to attack the ‘Four Olds’: old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. Having formed enthusiastically but without much purpose or direction, the Red Guards were given free rein to attack the enemies of Maoist socialism. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was thus born. What began with some mild allegorical criticism of Mao Zedong in a 1961 play became a sweeping movement that would transform and disrupt China for years to come.

1. Mao Zedong had long wanted a campaign against anti-socialist and anti-CCP criticisms in art and literature. In 1965 he convinced the Politburo to set up a Five Man Group to examine instances of this. 2. In 1961 a play called Hai Rui Dismissed from Office was interpreted as an allegorical criticism of Mao and his purging of Peng Dehuai in 1959. This play was attacked in a November 1965 essay by Yao Wenyuan. 3. The Five Man Group tried to block publication of Yao’s essay and other similar pieces, infuriating Mao. In May 1966 the group was replaced by a clique of Mao loyalists: the Cultural Revolution Group. 4. In May to August 1966, Mao used rhetoric and propaganda to urge militant students to assemble and “bombard the headquarters” and force reactionary and bourgeois figures from positions of authority. 5. As the Red Guards swelled in number, Mao appeared before a series of rallies in August to October, wearing their uniform and symbols and urging them to destroy the ‘Four Olds’.

© Alpha History 2018-23. Content on this page may not be republished or distributed without permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use . This page was written by Glenn Kucha and Jennifer Llewellyn. To reference this page, use the following citation: G. Kucha & J. Llewellyn, “The Cultural Revolution begins”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date], https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/cultural-revolution-begins/. This website uses pinyin romanisations of Chinese words and names. Please refer to this page for more information.

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"Mao's Last Revolution": China's Cultural Transformation

• Denise Y. Ho

The beginning of China’s Cultural Revolution in 1966 heralded a decade-long period of political turmoil that included attacks on alleged class enemies, the toppling of Party officials high and low, and the reinstatement of political control via revolutionary committees supported by the military. The Cultural Revolution was simultaneously a political and a cultural movement, aiming not only at political upheaval but also the transformation of social and cultural life through Mao Zedong Thought.

An exhibition of Mao badges at the Jianchuan Museum Cluster in Anren, Sichuan Province, a private collection of Mao-era artifacts. Photo by the author. 

Historians refer to China’s Mao years as the period from the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 until his death in 1976. The Cultural Revolution decade that concluded the Mao years has been called “Mao’s Last Revolution,” the peak of high socialism. In 1981, the Chinese Communist Party offered its verdict of this era, but both popular memory and recent scholarship challenge the official interpretation.

The Cultural Revolution as Anniversary

What was the official beginning of the Cultural Revolution?

The scholars Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals call Mao’s attacks on the historian Wu Han in early 1966 the Cultural Revolution’s “first salvos.” This year journalists and others—including the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily —chose May 16 as the date when Mao Zedong articulated the justification for Cultural Revolution.

This article uses August 8 as the date when the central leadership adopted a decision on the Cultural Revolution, one that was published in the newspaper the following day.

The convention for marking the end of the Cultural Revolution is less ambiguous; most link it to Mao’s death in September of 1976, or to the subsequent arrest and trial of the Gang of Four , a group of political allies that included Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing.

By the Communist Party’s own official verdict in 1981, known as the “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party,” the Cultural Revolution lasted from May 1966 to October 1976. The resolution acknowledged the period’s tragedies and called them mistakes, laying blame at the feet of the Gang of Four and others, including Mao himself.

However, it was also a document of affirmation, one that—in condemning the Cultural Revolution’s excesses as leftist mistakes—underscored the priorities of socialism, the leadership of the Party, and Mao’s revolutionary legacy. Thirty-five years later this official pronouncement remains the accepted interpretation. Writing on the fiftieth anniversary this May, the  People’s Daily reiterated that the resolution “gave correct conclusions on a succession of major historical issues,” and that these conclusions “possess unshakable scientific truth and authority.”

But the very need to state that the official historical interpretation is true belies a uniform and authoritative understanding. The Cultural Revolution, on the contrary, remains a period for historical debate. Just as we might debate what date marked its beginnings, we might also debate what the Cultural Revolution was. New accounts, both popular and scholarly, reveal multiple understandings of the Cultural Revolution: what it was, what it was to whom, and why it mattered.

The Cultural Revolution as High Politics

In its beginnings, the Cultural Revolution was viewed from the lens of high politics. The journalists who observed as it unfolded made note of hierarchies of power, and the political scientists who wrote its first histories used the sources then accessible, official news reports and speeches that were shaped and given by those in political control.

The Cultural Revolution as high politics is the story of Mao and his inner circle, of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, of loyalty and betrayal. The milestones of this narrative include the attack on and fall of Liu Shaoqi , the Chinese head of state, and later the alleged planned coup and mysterious death of Lin Biao , Mao’s right hand man.

“The Chinese People's Liberation Army is the great school of Mao Zedong Thought,” a propaganda poster from the Cultural Revolution featuring Mao, 1969.

The 1981 resolution is in large part a story of high politics; it exonerates Liu and excoriates Lin Biao and the Gang of Four. Though the resolution makes brief mention of the “masses” and the “people” as workers, peasants, soldiers, intellectuals, youth, and officials, they are a faceless and nameless backdrop to the drama of central power.

And yet we know that the Cultural Revolution as a political movement was far more than high politics. As ordinary people experienced it, the Cultural Revolution was decidedly local, whether it became factional fighting within one’s school or work unit, or attacks on local powerholders and the creation of new revolutionary committees, or punishment and violence meted on class enemies old and new.

In a recent book, historians Jeremy Brown and Matthew Johnson highlight the difficulty of trying to separate out state officials from others in society. They call instead for a focus on everyday life at the grassroots because this was a time when state and society at the local level shared the same face. To look beyond high politics is also to acknowledge that there were many Cultural Revolutions.

The Cultural Revolution as Red Guards

Use the word “Cultural Revolution” and people think immediately of the iconic Red Guards . There is good reason for this: Mao himself celebrated youth, young people were truly inspired to make revolution, the Red Guards were—through their actions and their portrayal—made a symbol of the Cultural Revolution.

They flooded the streets in military uniforms to destroy the “old world,” they gathered by the million in rallies on Tian’anmen Square , and they went on epic journeys to reenact the Red Army’s historic Long March and to “exchange revolutionary experience.” Red Guards were both the sources of terror and the subjects of propaganda, Chairman Mao’s “revolutionary successors.” They were demobilized and sent to the country by 1968, becoming the generation of the “sent-down youth” and coming of age in exile.

Holding a copy of ”Selected Works of Mao Zedong," Red Guards are featured on the cover of a Guangxi elementary school textbook, 1971.

For young people the Cultural Revolution had its own chronology: the heady days of 1966, their rustification (moving from urban areas to the countryside) in 1968, and then long years of waiting before opportunities to go home were even possible.

But if Red Guards were the most visible—and today most remembered—group of participants, they were by no means the only one. Many young people did not participate in the Red Guard movement, and for them these years were marked by political apathy or other kinds of intellectual searching. Unmoored by the strictures of school and adult authority, they wandered and read forbidden books.

And of course, our focus on young people who would have been at school is to privilege a certain group. In Shanghai, for example, the Cultural Revolution’s participants included the industrial city’s workers, many of whom were discontent with stagnant economic conditions and systemic and rigid class structures. Other cities were engulfed with such factional violence to such an extent that order was restored only through military takeover.

However, it is the Red Guards who come to mind first, for a number of reasons—they were and are an icon that inspired others in the Global 1960s, and the youth of this generation became today’s leadership. In the Red Guards rest two central tropes of the Cultural Revolution: the utopianism of youth and the danger of chaos. The hot blood of youth is easier to forgive than the machine of the state, and chaos is easier to blame than power.

The Cultural Revolution as Urban and Intellectual

Scholars of the Mao period often make the point that we know much more of the Cultural Revolution, with its estimated over one million deaths, than we know of the Great Leap Forward movement and its subsequent rural famine (1958-1961), which claimed an estimated thirty million deaths. This is partly because many of those who suffered in the Cultural Revolution were intellectuals, but this is also because intellectuals are people who write, and after the Cultural Revolution these victims’ memoirs, literature, and essays were ways in which people could make sense of its suffering.

When people refer to a Cultural Revolution’s “lost generation,” they usually mean the young people who were sent to the countryside and who received limited schooling. But another way to think of a “lost generation” is to think of the elder generations who were silenced by previous political campaigns, who spent the decade imprisoned in so-called “ox pens” and assigned to menial labor, and who lost the opportunity to build “New China,” a chance some even returned from abroad to pursue. And of course many did not live to see the Cultural Revolution’s conclusion nor their names rehabilitated.

Without denying the tragedy of urban intellectuals, new scholarship has turned to the countryside to uncover different narratives. Some scholars, comparing the Mao years to the post-Mao years of reform , argue that some Cultural Revolution policies had a leveling effect that brought positive benefits to the countryside, including educational opportunities at all levels. Others have found the emergence of economic strategies that went against the planned economy, suggesting that reform-era policies built on a previous record of success.

But the countryside also had its tragedies. The sociologist Yang Su, for example, has shown how episodes of collective killings unfolded in the countryside in Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces, the distance from a center of power creating the conditions for violence against supposed class enemies. Systemic and targeted violence continued to unfold in later Cultural Revolution campaigns; unlike the Red Guard movement, this violence took place away from the public eye. We are only starting to explore the Cultural Revolution experience of those doubly marginalized: in rural areas and of ethnic minority status.

The Cultural Revolution as Social Transformation

The Cultural Revolution was the culmination of Mao’s efforts to transform Chinese society. This was manifest not only in slogans to “bombard the headquarters” and “overturn heaven-and-earth,” but also in the movement’s very premise. If others in the Communist Party leadership had believed that transforming society’s economic structure would ultimately lead to cultural transformation, Mao suggested otherwise: cultural transformation would herald the victory of China’s revolution.

"Eliminate the Four Olds and Establish the Four News," 1967 propaganda poster.

To be sure, the Cultural Revolution—and the Mao years at large—did change Chinese society: it overturned traditional family relationships, it called knowledge into question (substituting “red” for “expert”), it discredited authority political and intellectual, and it defined class not just in terms of property but also through history, standpoint, and behavior. Some critics of the Cultural Revolution today regard it as period in which traditional Chinese society was destroyed, with deep repercussions in our present.

Yet there is another way of framing the narrative of social transformation, one that takes Cultural Revolution rhetoric at face value. That is, that the Cultural Revolution was truly—in its origins—an attempt to prevent revisionism from taking hold in China’s Communist Revolution, that it was an attack on the class privilege that arose from socialist China’s bureaucratic system, and that it was an argument that class behavior should matter more than class background.

Studying bottom-up responses, what he calls “the Cultural Revolution at the margins,” anthropologist Yiching Wu makes the case that some individuals did take all of Mao’s claims seriously, but in their—sometimes brutal—silencing, the state foreclosed discussion of both these critiques and their alternate utopian visions. This version of the Cultural Revolution story is a foundation narrative for today’s authoritarianism.

The Cultural Revolution as History

Can the Cultural Revolution be history?

For the Chinese Communist Party, the Cultural Revolution is history in the sense that it is past. There was a verdict in 1981, and an historical accounting that rendered Mao Zedong seventy percent good and thirty percent bad. If the 1981 resolution concluded by discussing economic gains—among others—achieved during the ten years of turmoil, today’s Chinese regime under Xi Jinping claims that the same document has “withstood the test of experience, the test of the people, and the test of history.”

What the People’s Daily means by “the test of the people” is unclear, but by “the test of history” the editorialist argues that the post-Mao era of reform was successful because it negated the Cultural Revolution. He also criticizes “meddling from the left and the right that focuses on the problems of the Cultural Revolution,” suggesting that somehow any investigation that does not accord with official interpretation might lead China on a backward slide to 1966.

On the side of the former home of the landlord Liu Wencai in Anren, Sichuan Province, remnants of a Mao Zedong quotation linger from the Cultural Revolution. Photo by the author.

But if “being history” is to be examined, researched, analyzed, critiqued, and debated, then the official history of the Cultural Revolution is not history. In China today, many individuals—from amateur historians who seek their family history to academics who must publish in limited ways or abroad—are doing history, even if they cannot do so openly.

Some of these scholars are doing the work of preservation, hoping that future generations may be able to write a people’s history of the Cultural Revolution. Outside of China more can be published, but these scholars also work with limited sources and restricted access. The Cultural Revolution will become history when all of these historians can submit to “the test of history,” to see if the images we make are indeed an accurate mirror.

The Cultural Revolution will be history when it belongs to the public, when it allows for grassroots accounts, access to sources, social reckoning, and the right to memorialize. In China today there is but one officially designed Cultural Revolution historic site, a graveyard in the city of Chongqing where Red Guards who died in factional fighting are buried—but it is locked, off-limits to all but descendants.

On university campuses, one can see busts and statues of individuals whose dates reveal that they died in the ten years of turmoil—but such monuments are celebrations of lives rather than investigations into their endings. There are few other traces, save glimpses of faded slogans on old buildings—but these markings are an idle curiosity, often slated for demolition (see photo above). Only when ordinary citizens can choose how to mourn, what to remember, and which traces to preserve can historical event face “the test of the people.”

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What Are the Cultural Revolution’s Lessons for Our Current Moment?

By Pankaj Mishra

On September 24, 1970, the Rolling Stones interrupted their concert at the Palais des Sports in Paris to invite a French Maoist called Serge July onstage. News of an earthshaking event called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution had been trickling out of China since 1966. Information was scarce, but many writers and activists in the West who were opposed to the United States and its war in Vietnam were becoming fascinated with Mao Zedong , their earlier infatuation with Soviet-style Marxism having soured. Jean-Paul Sartre hawked copies of a banned Maoist newspaper in Paris, and Michel Foucault was among those who turned to China for political inspiration, in what Sartre called “new forms of class struggle in a period of organized capitalism.”

Editors at the influential French periodical Tel Quel learned Chinese in order to translate Mao’s poetry. One of them was the feminist critic Julia Kristeva , who later travelled to China with Roland Barthes . Women’s-liberation movements in the West embraced Mao’s slogan “Women hold up half the sky.” In 1967, the Black Panther leaders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale financed the purchase of guns by selling copies of Mao’s Little Red Book. In 1971, John Lennon said that he now wore a Mao badge and distanced himself from the 1968 Beatles song “Revolution,” which claimed, “If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.” But the Rolling Stones’ Paris concert was Maoism’s biggest popular outing. July, who, with Sartre, later co-founded the newspaper Libération , asked the throng to support French fellow-Maoists facing imprisonment for their beliefs. There was a standing ovation, and then Mick Jagger launched into “Sympathy for the Devil.”

Western intellectuals and artists would have felt much less sympathy for the Devil had they heard about the ordeals of their counterparts in China, as described in “ The World Turned Upside Down ” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a thick catalogue of gruesome atrocities, blunders, bedlam, and ideological dissimulation, by the Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng. Yang mentions a group of elderly writers in Beijing who, in August, 1966, three months after Mao formally launched the Cultural Revolution, were denounced as “ox demons and snake spirits” (Mao’s preferred term for class enemies) and flogged with belt buckles and bamboo sticks by teen-age girls. Among the writers subjected to this early “struggle session” was the novelist Lao She, the world-famous author of “ Rickshaw Boy .” He killed himself the following day.

There were other events that month—“bloody August,” as it came to be called—that might have made Foucault reconsider his view of Maoism as anti-authoritarian praxis. At a prestigious secondary school in Beijing, attended by the daughters of both Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping , students savagely beat a teacher named Bian Zhongyun and left her dying in a handcart. As detailed in a large-character poster that was adopted by cultural revolutionaries across China, one of the indictments against Bian was her inadequate esteem for Mao. While taking her students through an earthquake drill, she had failed to stress the importance of rescuing the Chairman’s portrait.

Red Guards—a pseudo-military designation adopted by secondary-school and university students who saw themselves as the Chairman’s sentinels—soon appeared all over China, charging people with manifestly ridiculous crimes and physically assaulting them before jeering crowds. Much murderous insanity erupted after 1966, but the Cultural Revolution’s most iconic images remain those of the struggle sessions: victims with bowed heads in dunce caps, the outlandish accusations against them scrawled on heavy signboards hanging from their necks. Such pictures, and others, in “ Forbidden Memory ” (Potomac), by the Tibetan activist and poet Tsering Woeser, show that even Tibet, the far-flung region that China had occupied since 1950, did not escape the turmoil. Woeser describes the devastation wrought on Tibet’s Buddhist traditions by a campaign to humiliate the elderly and to obliterate what were known as the Four Olds—“old thinking, old culture, old customs, and old habits of the exploiting classes.” The photographs in Woeser’s book were taken by her father, a soldier in the Chinese military, and found by her after he died. There are vandalized monasteries and bonfires of books and manuscripts—a rare pictorial record of a tragedy in which ideological delirium turned ordinary people into monsters who devoured their own. (Notably, almost all the persecutors in the photographs are Tibetan, not Han Chinese.) In one revealing photo, Tibet’s most famous female lama, once hailed as a true patriot for spurning the Dalai Lama, cowers before a young Tibetan woman who has her fists raised.

Closer to the center of things, in Xi’an, the Red Guards paraded Xi Zhongxun, a stalwart of the Chinese Communist Revolution who had fallen out with Mao, around on a truck and then beat him. His wife, in Beijing, was forced to publicly denounce their son— Xi Jinping , China’s current President. Xi Jinping’s half sister was, according to official accounts, “persecuted to death”; most probably, like many people tortured by the Red Guards, she committed suicide. Xi spent years living in a cave dwelling, one of sixteen million youths exiled to the countryside by Mao.

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According to estimates quoted by Yang, as many as a million and a half people were killed, thirty-six million persecuted, and a hundred million altogether affected in a countrywide upheaval that lasted, with varying intensity, for a decade—from 1966 to 1976, when Mao died. Mao’s decrees, faithfully amplified by the People’s Daily , which exhorted readers to “sweep away the monsters and demons,” gave people license to unleash their id. In Guangxi Province, where the number of confirmed murder victims reached nearly ninety thousand, some killers consumed the flesh of their victims. In Hunan Province, members of two rival factions filled a river with bloated corpses. A dam downstream became clogged, its reservoir shimmering red.

In 1981, the Chinese Communist Party described the Cultural Revolution as an error. It trod carefully around Mao’s role, instead blaming the excesses on his wife, Jiang Qing, and three other ultra-Maoists—collectively known, and feared, as the Gang of Four. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader supervising this pseudo-autopsy, had been maltreated during the Cultural Revolution, but he had also abetted it, and was eager to indefinitely postpone close scrutiny. He urged the Chinese to “unite and look forward” ( tuanjie yizhi xiang qian kan ). As class struggle gave way to a scramble for upward mobility, the sheer expediency of this repudiation of the past was captured in a popular pun on Deng’s slogan: “look for money” ( xiang qian kan ).

In the four decades since, China has moved from being the headquarters of world revolution to being the epicenter of global capitalism. Its leaders can plausibly claim to have engineered the swiftest economic reversal in history: the redemption from extreme poverty of hundreds of millions of people in less than three decades, and the construction of modern infrastructure. Some great enigmas, however, remain unsolved: How did a well-organized, disciplined, and successful political party disembowel itself? How did a tightly centralized state unravel so quickly? How could siblings, neighbors, colleagues, and classmates turn on one another so viciously? And how did victims and persecutors—the roles changing with bewildering speed—live with each other afterward? Full explanations are missing not only because archives are mostly inaccessible to scholars but also because the Cultural Revolution was fundamentally a civil war, implicating almost all of China’s leaders. Discussion of it is so fraught with taboo in China that Yang does not even mention Xi Jinping, surely the most prominent and consequential survivor today of Mao’s “chaos under heaven.”

Notwithstanding this strategic omission, Yang’s book offers the most comprehensive journalistic account yet of contemporary China’s foundational trauma. Memoirs of the Cultural Revolution, first appearing in the nineteen-eighties, belong by now to a distinct nonfiction genre—from confessions by repentant former Red Guards (Jung Chang’s “ Wild Swans ,” Ma Bo’s “ Blood Red Sunset ”) to searing accounts by victims (Ji Xianlin’s “ The Cowshed ”) to family sagas (Aiping Mu’s “ The Vermilion Gate ”). The period’s outrages animate the work of many of China’s prominent novelists, such as Wang Anyi, Mo Yan , Su Tong, and, most conspicuously, Yu Hua , whose two-volume novel “ Brothers ” includes an extended description of a lynching, with details that seem implausible but that are amply verified by eyewitness testimony.

Yang provides the larger political backdrop to these granular accounts of cruelty and suffering. At the outset of the Cultural Revolution, he was studying engineering at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University, and he was one of the many students who travelled around the country to promote the cause. In 1968, he became a reporter for Xinhua News Agency, a position that gave him access to many otherwise unreachable sources. This vantage enabled him to write “ Tombstone ” (2012), a well-regarded history of the Great Famine, caused by Mao’s Great Leap Forward. The new book is almost a sequel, and Mao remains the central figure: China’s unchallenged leader, as determined as ever to fast-forward the country into genuine Communism. With the Great Leap Forward, Mao had hoped to industrialize China by encouraging household steel production. With the Cultural Revolution, he seemed to sideline economic development in favor of a large-scale engineering of human souls and minds. Social equality, in this view, would come about by plunging the Chinese into “continuous revolution,” a fierce class struggle that would permanently inflame the political consciousness of the masses.

Yang describes the background to Mao’s change of direction. The spectacle of Khrushchev denouncing Stalin, in 1956, only to be himself removed and disgraced, in 1964, made Mao increasingly prone to see “revisionists” at every turn. He feared that the Chinese Revolution, achieved at tremendous cost, risked decaying into a self-aggrandizing, Soviet-style bureaucracy, remote from ordinary people. Mao was also smarting from the obvious failure of his economic policies, and from implicit criticism by colleagues such as Liu Shaoqi, China’s de-jure head of state from 1959 onward. Yang describes, in often overwhelming detail, the intricate internal power struggle that eventually erupted into the Cultural Revolution—with Mao variously consulting and shunning a small group of confidants, including his wife, a former actress; China’s long-standing Premier, Zhou Enlai; and the military hero Lin Biao, who had replaced Peng Dehuai, a strong critic of Mao, as the Minister of Defense in 1959, and proceeded to turn the People’s Liberation Army into a pro-Mao redoubt.

Sensing political opposition in his own party, Mao reached beyond it, to people previously not active in politics, for allies. He tapped into widespread grievance among peasants and workers who felt that the Chinese Revolution was not working out for them. In particular, the Red Guards gave Mao a way of bypassing the Party and securing the personal fealty of the fervent rank and file. As the newly empowered students formed ad-hoc organizations, and assaulted institutions and figures of authority, Mao proclaimed that “to rebel is justified,” and that students should not hesitate to “bombard the headquarters.” In 1966, he frequently appeared in Tiananmen Square, wearing a red armband, with hundreds of thousands of Red Guards waving flags and books. Many of his fans avoided washing their hands after shaking his. Mao’s own hands were once so damaged by all the pressing of callow flesh that he was unable to write for days afterward. Predictably, though, he soon lost control of the world he had turned upside down.

Late in 1966, the younger Red Guards were challenged by an older cohort, who formed competing Red Guard units; they, in turn, were challenged by heavily armed “rebel forces.” All factions claimed recognition as the true voice of the Chairman. By early 1967, workers had joined the fray, most significantly in Shanghai, where they surpassed Red Guards in revolutionary fervor. Mao became nervous about the “people’s commune” they established, though he and his followers had often upheld the Paris Commune, from 1871, as a model of mass democracy. So ferocious was one military mutiny, in Wuhan, that Mao, who had arrived in the city to mediate between rival groups, had to flee in a military jet, amid rumors that a swimmer with a knife in his mouth had been spotted in the lake by Mao’s villa. “Which direction are we going?” the pilot asked Mao as he boarded the plane. “Just take off first,” Mao replied.

Growing alarmed by the sight of continuous revolution, Mao tried to restore order in the cities, exiling millions of young urban men and women to the countryside to “learn from the peasants.” He purged Liu Shaoqi, who died shortly thereafter, and Deng Xiaoping was sent to work in a tractor-repair factory in a remote rural province. Mao increasingly turned to the People’s Liberation Army to establish control. He replaced broken structures of government with “revolutionary committees.” These committees, dominated by Army commanders, were effectively a form of military dictatorship in many parts of China. Partly in order to keep the military on his side, Mao named his Defense Minister, Lin Biao, as his official successor, in October, 1968. But a border conflict with the Soviet Union the following year further expanded the military’s power, and a paranoid Mao, soon regretting his move, sought to isolate Lin. In an extraordinary turn of events, in 1971, Lin died in a plane crash in Mongolia with several of his family members; allegedly, he was fleeing China after failing to assassinate Mao.

Prompted, even forced, by internal crises and external challenges, Mao opened China’s doors to the United States and, in early 1972, received Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in Beijing, much to the bewilderment of those in the West who had seen China as leading a global resistance to American imperialism. (When Kissinger flattered Mao, saying that students at Harvard University had pored over his collected works, he demurely replied, “There is nothing instructive in what I wrote.”) The following year, Mao brought back Deng Xiaoping, entrusting him with China’s ailing economy. Then he changed his mind again, once it became apparent that the lingering malevolence of the Gang of Four was causing people to rally behind Deng. Mao had just re-purged Deng and launched a new campaign against Deng’s “capitalist roading” when, in September, 1976, he died. Within a month, the Gang of Four was in prison. (Jiang Qing, given a life sentence, spent her time in jail making dolls for export, until authorities noticed that she embroidered her name on all of them; she killed herself in 1991.) The Cultural Revolution was over, and Deng was soon ushering China into an era of willed amnesia and “looking for money.”

The surreal events of the Cultural Revolution seem far removed from a country that today has, by some estimates, the world’s largest concentration of billionaires. Yet Xi Jinping’s policies, which prioritize stability and economic growth above all, serve as a reminder of how fundamentally the Cultural Revolution reordered Chinese politics and society. Yang, although obliged to omit Xi’s personal trajectory—from son of Mao’s comrade to China’s supreme leader—nonetheless leaves his readers in no doubt about the “ultimate victor” of the Cultural Revolution: what he calls the “bureaucratic clique,” and the children of the privileged. Senior Party cadres and officials, once restored to their positions, were able to usher their offspring into the best universities. In the system Deng built after the Cultural Revolution, a much bigger bureaucracy was conceived to “manage society.” Deeply networked within China’s wealthy classes, the bureaucratic clique came to control “all the country’s resources and the direction of reform,” deciding “who would pay the costs of reforms and how the benefits of reform would be distributed.” Andrew Walder, who has published several authoritative books on Maoist China, puts it bluntly: “China today is the very definition of what the Cultural Revolution was intended to forestall”—namely, a “capitalist oligarchy with unprecedented levels of corruption and inequality.”

Yang stresses the need for a political system in China that both restricts arbitrary power and cages the “rapaciousness” of capital. But the Cultural Revolution has instilled in many Chinese people a politically paralyzing lesson—that attempts to achieve social equality can go calamitously wrong. The Chinese critic Wang Hui has pointed out that criticisms of China’s many problems are often met with a potent accusation: “So, do you want to return to the days of the Cultural Revolution?” As Xi Jinping turns the world’s largest revolutionary party into the world’s most successful conservative institution, he is undoubtedly helped by this deeply ingrained fear of anarchy.

Outside China, the legacy of the Cultural Revolution is even more complex. Julia Lovell, in her recent study, “ Maoism: A Global History ,” demonstrates how ill-informed Western fervor for Mao eventually helped discredit and divide the left in Europe and in America, enabling the political right to claim a moral high ground. Many zealous adepts of Maoism in the West turned to highlighting the evils of ideological and religious extremism. Sympathy for nonwhite victims of imperialism and slavery, and struggling postcolonial peoples in general, came to be stigmatized as a sign of excessive sentimentality and guilt. This journey from Third Worldism to Western supremacism can be traced in the titles of three books from the past four decades by Pascal Bruckner, one of the French dabblers in Maoism—“The Tears of the White Man: Compassion as Contempt” (1983), “The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism” (2006), and “An Imaginary Racism: Islamophobia and Guilt” (2017).

Misperceptions of China abound in this sectarian discourse. As the Soviet Union imploded after a failed experiment with political and economic reform, China, the last surviving Communist superpower, was presumed to have no option but to embrace Western-style multiparty democracy as well as capitalism. But China has managed to postpone the end of history—largely thanks to the Cultural Revolution. In the Soviet Union, when Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his hopeful plans for perestroika and glasnost, the Communist Party and the military had faced little domestic challenge to their authority since the death of Stalin; along with bureaucratic cliques that had serenely fattened themselves during decades of economic and political stagnation, they were able to contest, and finally thwart, Gorbachev’s vision. In China, by contrast, such institutions had been greatly damaged by the Cultural Revolution, with the result that Deng, setting out to rebuild them in his image, faced much less opposition. Class struggle during the Cultural Revolution had left the old power holders as well as the revolutionary masses utterly exhausted, desperate for stability and peace. Deng shored up his authority and appeal by reinstating purged and disgraced officials and by rehabilitating many victims of the Red Guards, including, posthumously, the novelist Lao She.

During the worst years of the Cultural Revolution, Mao had rejected all emendations to his economic playbook. Even when China seemed on the verge of economic collapse, he railed against “capitalist roading.” Deng not only accelerated the marketization of the Chinese economy but also strengthened the party that Mao had done so much to undermine, promoting faceless officials known for their administrative and technical competence to senior positions. China’s unique “model”—a market economy supervised by a technocratic party-state—could only have been erected on ground brutally levelled by Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

“History,” E. M. Cioran once wrote, “is irony on the move .” Bearing out this maxim, cultural revolutions have now erupted right in the heart of Western democracies. Chaos-loving leaders have grasped power by promising to return sovereignty to the people and by denouncing political-party apparatuses. Mao, who was convinced that “anyone who wants to overturn a regime needs to first create public opinion,” wouldn’t have failed to recognize that the phenomenon commonly termed “populism” has exposed some old and insoluble conundrums: Who or what does a political party represent? How can political representation work in a society consisting of manifold socioeconomic groups with clashing interests?

The appeal of Maoism for many Western activists in the nineteen-sixties and seventies came from its promise of spontaneous direct democracy—political engagement outside the conventional framework of elections and parties. This seemed a way out of a crisis caused by calcified party bureaucracies, self-serving élites, and their seemingly uncontrollable disasters, such as the endless war in Vietnam. That breakdown of political representation, which provoked uprisings on the left, has now occurred on an enlarged scale in the West, and it is aggravated by attempts, this time by an insurgent ultra-right, to forge popular sovereignty, overthrow the old ruling class, and smash its most sacred norms. The great question of China’s Maoist experiment looms over the United States as Donald Trump vacates the White House: Why did a rich and powerful society suddenly start destroying itself?

The Trumpian assault on the West’s “olds” has long been in the making, and it is, at least partly, a consequence of political decay and intellectual ossification—akin to what Mao diagnosed in his own party. Beginning in the nineteen-eighties, a consensus about the virtues of deregulation, financialization, privatization, and international trade bound Democrats to Republicans (and Tories to New Labour in Britain). Political parties steadily lost their old and distinctive identities as representatives of particular classes and groups; they were no longer political antagonists working to leverage their basic principles—social welfare for the liberal left, stability and continuity for the conservative right—into policies. Instead, they became bureaucratic machines, working primarily to advance the interests of a few politicians and their sponsors.

In 2010, Tony Judt warned, not long before his death, that the traditional way of doing politics in the West—through “mass movements, communities organized around an ideology, even religious or political ideas, trade unions and political parties”—had become dangerously extinct. There were, Judt wrote, “no external inputs, no new kinds of people, only the political class breeding itself.” Trump emerged six years later, channelling an iconoclastic fury at this inbred ruling class and its cherished monuments.

Trump failed to purge all the old élites, largely because he was forced to depend on them, and the Proud Boys never came close to matching the ferocity and reach of the Red Guards. Nevertheless, Trump’s most devoted followers, whether assaulting his opponents or bombarding the headquarters in Washington, D.C., took their society to the brink of civil war while their chairman openly delighted in chaos under heaven. Order appears to have been temporarily restored (in part by Big Tech, one of Trump’s enablers). But the problem of political representation in a polarized, unequal, and now economically debilitated society remains treacherously unresolved. Four traumatic years of Trump are passing into history, but the United States seems to have completed only the first phase of its own cultural revolution. ♦

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By Daniel Immerwahr

The Chinese Cultural Revolution and Traditional Leadership Style Essay

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In the year 1966, Mao Zedong felt that the leaders of the communist party in china were leading not only the party but the entire country in the wrong direction. 1 He, therefore, decided to initiate a revolution that would lead the country back to its traditional leadership style, where power is not with the bourgeoisie but with the people. His call was for the youth to eliminate all the foreign and new elements in Chinese society and bring back the spirit that had won them the civil war decades before. 2 With the help of other radical leaders such as Lin Biao, he mobilized the youths to form paramilitary groups, which they called the Red Guards, to fight against the bourgeoisie mentality perpetrated by the then leaders of the CCP, Liu Shaoqi, and Deng Xiaoping. 3

The Red Guards formed by the youths later disintegrated into different factions, all of which fighting for supremacy. This forced Mao to bring in the army to help in restoring order in the country. The army pushed all the youth paramilitary groups to the rural areas, subduing the movement. 4 Out of these groups, there emerged a radical group that envisioned a new thought of the revolution. They called themselves Shengwulian and were based in Hunan Province. 5 They were opposed to both the ideologies of Mao and the other leaders of the party. According to them, the revolution was about one class overthrowing the other. 6 They also added that “the revolution had turned the relationship between the people and party leaders from that of leaders and the led to that of rulers and the ruled and between exploiters and the exploited.” 7

I think Mao’s intentions were good but his approach was dictatorial. He envisioned a nation where all the citizens are equal. He detested the leadership that was in power at the time for their bourgeoisie spirit and wanted all the citizens to live as one equal community. However, his use of the military in the suppression of the Red Guards was uncalled for. That was very autocratic.

He should have listened to all their grievances and consolidated them into a philosophy that would help him lead them as a united group. Worse still, his betrayal of a former ally, Liu Biao, portrayed him as a very selfish individual whose only interest was power. He interpreted Liu’s actions as a way of usurping his position. As a result, he decided to go after him, causing his death. Liu was involved in a fatal plane crash while fleeing from Mao.

Mao’s course was both ill and well-intentioned. His good intentions are seen in his struggle to rid the country of capitalistic and bourgeoisie mentality. According to him, the country was better off with communism, where they lived as one community with no superior and inferior citizen, and not with a set up where leaders want to get rich at the expense of the majority of the citizens.

He wanted the change to happen in the shortest time possible. Hence, he had to use radical means to ensure that this happened as fast as he wanted it. However, a critical view of the revolution shows that he might have used the revolution as an avenue to restore his power and influence, having lost it six years earlier. 8 Besides, the use of the army in suppressing the Red Guards and his former ally, Liu, shows that his interests were not in the equality he claimed to stand for, but in getting power.

Blum, Susan Debra, and Lionel M Jensen. China off Center . Honolulu: University of Hawai Press, 2006.

Wu, Yiching. The Cultural Revolution at the Margins, London: Harvard University Press, 2014.

• Yichang Wu. The Cultural Revolution at the Margins, London: Harvard University Press, 2014, 146.
• Ibid., 147.
• Ibid., 148.
• Ibid., 149.
• Ibid., 152.
• Ibid., 166.
• Susan Debra Blum and Lionel M Jensen. China off Center . Honolulu: University of Hawai Press, 2006, 120.
• Ibid., 125.
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• Cultural Revolution

7 questions about China's Cultural Revolution answered

May 16 marks 50 years of China's Cultural Revolution. Here's what you should know about the political movement.

1. What is the Cultural Revolution and its goal?

The Cultural Revolution (May 1966 - October 1976) was a political movement launched by Chinese leader Mao Zedong, with the express purpose of eradicating "the bourgeois headquarters" and seizing power from capitalist roaders, or people accused of favouring capitalism, according to the official Chinese narrative.

It plunged the country into chaos, with the economy paralysed and millions of Chinese persecuted in violent struggles.

Mao consolidated power after purging officials he deemed to be political rivals, notably State President Liu Shaoqi. The paramount leader rose to a god-like status amid a series of propaganda campaigns.

2. Who were the Red Guards?

The Red Guards often refer to the fanatical armband-wearing students who pledged allegiance to Mao and vowed to act in line with his instructions during the Cultural Revolution. As the political movement gained momentum, young workers and peasants also joined the Red Guards.

Mao gave the Red Guards free rein to confiscate private property, destroy national treasures and torture whoever they labelled "counter-revolutionaries". Official record shows they murdered 1,772 people in Beijing alone in August and September 1966.

The violence soon spun out of control after the Red Guards started to storm government and party buildings. The group was also plagued by factionalism that led to armed clashes.

The central government decided to restore order from early 1967, with the People's Liberation Army deployed to crack down on armed factions. Members of the main Red Guard units were subsequently dispersed after Mao launched the "Up To the Mountain, Down To the Village" movement, which saw millions of jobless youth sent to villages for re-education.

3. What were the Four Olds?

The Four Olds - a concept proposed in 1966 by Marshal Lin Biao, Mao's then heir apparent - referred to the "old ideas, culture, customs and habit of the exploiting classes" that need to be destroyed.

Lin did not elaborate on the definitions, so the Red Guards took it upon themselves to smash things and torture people they thought are representative of the Four Olds.

The radicals started a reign of red terror by confiscating private property belonging to teachers and former businessmen. They evicted some 77,000 "monsters and freaks" from Beijing, and publicly humiliated and attacked "counter-revolutionaries" including officials, intellectuals and monks in the so-called struggle sessions.

Also, the Red Guards desecrated thousands of historical sites in Beijing. In what may be the worst case of destruction, they smashed 6,618 registered cultural artefacts in the Confucius Temple in Shangdong province.

They also renamed people, streets and schools to remove "feudal" overtones. Personal names like Wei Dong (Protect Mao) and Xiang Hong (Follow Red) gained popularity. In Beijing, the Chang'an Avenue, named after the capital of the Han and Tang dynasties, was changed to "East is Red Avenue". Some even proposed to rename Beijing the "East is Red City", but it was rejected by Premier Zhou Enlai.

4. What is the Little Red Book?

The Little Red Book, or Quotations from Chairman Mao, was the bible of the Red Guards, who often waved it while chanting the quotes as part of the ritual to show loyalty. Some people even started their daily conversations with a Mao-quote.

The book, first launched in 1964, came with different editions, but the compact ones that could fit into a pocket were the most popular. Billions of copies were believed to have been printed during the Cultural Revolution.

Marshal Lin promoted the book to the Red Guards during Mao's first rally with the students in 1966. He reportedly called on the students to "say Long Live in your months, hold the Quotations in your hands".

Here are some oft-used quotes from the Little Red Book:

Study well, and make progress every day. A revolution is not a dinner party. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. We should support whatever our enemies oppose and oppose whatever our enemies support. All reactionaries are paper tigers.

5. Who were the sent-down youth?

The sent-down youth, also known as "educated youth", were the young people who left cities to work and live in the rural areas between 1950s and 1970s. Many of them lost the opportunity to go to university.

The authorities began to glorify labour in the countryside as early as 1953, but mass migration of the young started in late 1960s when Chairman Mao launched the "Up To the Mountain, Down To the Village" movement.

More than 16 million people, mostly students, were sent to the countryside between 1967 and 1976 for re-education, which historians say was a means to disperse the Red Guards. Another reason for the movement could be a lack of urban employment opportunities, with more than four million idle high school graduates in 1968.

6. How many people died as a result of the Cultural Revolution?

China did not release official data on the number of victims, but various estimates put the death toll at between hundreds of thousands and several million.

An article published in 2003 by The China Quarterly claims that between 750,000 and 1.5 million of people died in the countryside, with a similar number permanently injured. About 36 million suffered some form of political persecution, the article adds.

Professor John Fairbank, a prominent American historian of China, says the number of victims "hover around a million".

Hong Kong's Cheng Ming magazine, citing China's undisclosed "internal investigation", says 1.72 million people suffered from unnatural death, and another 237,000 died in "armed struggle".

7. How did the Cultural Revolution end?

The capture of the Gang of Four on Oct 6, 1976, is often seen as marking the end of the Cultural Revolution.

As Mao's health declined in the later stages of the Cultural Revolution, the clique wielded tremendous power and took aim at moderates like Premier Zhou, raising the ire of the party's influential elders.

Shortly after Mao's death, his designated political heir Hua Guofeng won the support of the army and party elders, and staged a coup against the Gang of Four. Hua later said crushing the clique symbolises the end of the Cultural Revolution.

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Introduction to the Cultural Revolution

The “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” usually known simply as the Cultural Revolution (or the Great Cultural Revolution), was a “complex social upheaval that began as a struggle between Mao Zedong and other top party leaders for dominance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and went on to affect all of China with its call for “continuing revolution.” 1 This social upheaval lasted from 1966 to 1976 and left deep scars upon Chinese society.

The roots of the Cultural Revolution date back to the early 1960s. After the catastrophic Great Leap Forward, in which more than 20 million people died, Chairman Mao Zedong decided to take a less active role in governing the country. More practical, moderate leaders, such as Vice-Chairman Liu Shaoqi and Premier Zhou Enlai, introduced economic reforms based on individual incentives—such as allowing families to farm their own plots of land—in an effort to revive the battered economy. Mao detested such policies, as they went against the principles of pure communism in which he so firmly believed. Nevertheless, China’s economy grew strongly from 1962 to 1965 with the more conservative economic policies in place.

At the same time, Mao started to worry that local party officials were taking advantage of their positions to benefit themselves. Rather than resolving such cases internally to preserve the prestige of the CCP, Mao favored open criticism and the involvement of the people to expose and punish the members of the ruling class who disagreed with him; he framed this as a genuine socialist campaign involving the central struggle of the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie.

Buildup to the Cultural Revolution

Overall, Mao began to fear that the CCP was becoming too bureaucratic and that Party officials and planners were abandoning their commitment to the values of communism and revolution. 2 Since the Great Leap Forward, he believed that he had been losing influence among his revolutionary comrades, and thus, the battle for China’s soul.

Some members of the Communist leadership argued for a new campaign of radicalism to overcome what they perceived as the stagnation of the country. Mao’s wife Jiang Qing and other officials argued that artistic and cultural works were beginning to criticize communism and should focus more on promoting a revolutionary spirit. Lin Biao, the head of the national army (called the People’s Liberation Army or PLA), was perhaps Mao’s strongest ally. Lin organized hundreds of Mao’s quotes into a book called Quotations from Chairman Mao, better known as the “Little Red Book.” Lin required every soldier to read the book and emphasized adherence to the Party line and loyalty to CCP leaders in the Army. Mao praised the PLA as an example for the Chinese people, and Mao’s status and image reached new heights when all Chinese began to study his book of quotations and memorize passages of the book; Mao became a prophet-figure in the minds of many Chinese.

The Beginning of the Cultural Revolution

When Jiang Qing and her allies complained in late 1965 that various cultural productions were openly criticizing the Communist leadership, Mao decided that China needed a new revolutionary movement. Beginning in May 1966, Jiang Qing’s allies purged key figures in the cultural bureaucracy and criticized writers of articles seen as critical of Mao.

That same month, the top party official in Beijing University’s Philosophy Department wrote a big character poster, or dazibao , attacking the administration of her university. Faculty at the country’s other universities soon began to do the same, and radicals among faculty and students began to criticize Party members. This wave of criticisms spread swiftly to high schools in Beijing. Radical members of the leadership, such as Jiang Qing, distributed armbands to squads of students and declared them to be “‘Red Guards—the front line of the new revolutionary upheaval.” 3

Mao endorsed the revolutionary discourse and the attacks on authority figures, whom he believed had grown complacent, bureaucratic, and anti-revolutionary. Local Red Guards attacked anyone whom they believed lacked revolutionary credentials, and then turned on those who simply failed to wholeheartedly support their efforts. In August 1966, the Central Committee issued a directive entitled the “Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (a.k.a. the Sixteen Points) in an effort to define the revolution’s goals. Later that month, Mao began to greet huge parades of Red Guards holding aloft the “Little Red Book.”

However, despite official directives and encouragement from the Party leadership, local forces were left to act according to their own definitions, and many of them ended up inflicting violence upon their communities and clashing with each other. Nobody wanted to be considered a “reactionary,” but in the absence of official guidelines for identifying “true Communists,” everyone became a target of abuse. People tried to protect themselves by attacking friends and even their own families. The result was a bewildering series of attacks and counterattacks, factional fighting, unpredictable violence, and the breakdown of authority throughout China.

Some believe that this chaotic, violent response stemmed from the two decades of repression that the Party had imposed on China. Two particularly effective methods by which the CCP controlled the Chinese population were assigning class labels to each person, and giving the boss of each work unit nearly unlimited control over and knowledge of the lives of all the workers accountable to him or her. As a result, freedom of expression was denied, people were totally dependent on their bosses and were obliged to sacrifice and remain completely obedient to the Chinese nation, and only Party members exercised direct influence over their own lives. Thus, to the youth of the day, the Cultural Revolution represented a release from all their shackles, frustrations, and feelings of powerlessness. It also gave them the freedom to enact revenge on those whom they believed exercised undue influence over them or whom they had been told were “class enemies.”

Descent into Chaos

The chaos and violence increased in the autumn and winter of 1966, as schools and universities closed so that students could dedicate themselves to “revolutionary struggle.” They were encouraged to destroy the “Four Olds”—old customs, old habits, old culture, and old thinking—and in the process damaged many of China’s temples, valuable works of art, and buildings. They also began to verbally and physically attack authority figures in society, including their teachers, school administrators, Communist Party members, neighbors, and even their friends, relatives, and parents. At the same time, purges were carried out in the high ranks of the Communist Party.

On New Year’s Day 1967, many newspapers urged coalitions of workers and peasants to overthrow the entire class of decision-makers in the country. The Red Guards were instructed to treat the Cultural Revolution as a class struggle, in which “everything which does not fit the socialist system and proletarian dictatorship should be attacked.” 4 Radical revolutionary groups responded with fervor, attempting to gain control over local organizations. However, the end result was that local authorities and Party leaders were now dragged into the fighting that was quickly enveloping the rest of society. In the absence of coordination, rival “revolutionary units” fought Party leaders and each other, and the unending series of local power struggles multiplied even further.

Overall, the Red Guards and other groups of workers and peasants terrorized millions of Chinese during the 1966–1968 period. Intellectuals were beaten, committed suicide, or died of their injuries or privation. Thousands were imprisoned, and millions sent to work in the countryside to “reeducate” themselves by laboring among the peasants.

The breakdown of order reached its peak in the summer of 1967: opposing worker and student factions clashed throughout the country, with particularly intense violence in Beijing and Guangzhou, and massive fighting between local militant groups and the PLA in Wuhan led to the deaths of more than a thousand protestors. In perhaps the final straw, radicals assumed control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in August 1967 and began to appoint their own radical diplomats to Chinese embassies around the world.

Return to Order

At this point, most party leaders, including Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, Lin Biao, and Jiang Qing, agreed that the disorder was becoming too widespread to control and the country was in serious danger of falling into anarchy. They began to emphasize studying Mao’s works rather than attacking class enemies, used workers’ groups to control student groups, and generally championed the PLA while denouncing “ultra-left tendencies.” Nevertheless, armed clashes continued until the summer of 1968, when Mao called on troops to quell an uprising at Qinghua University in Beijing. Five people were killed and 149 wounded in the confrontation, including workers who were shot by students. After this final gasp of violence, a semblance of order returned to the country: “Revolutionary Committees” consisting of representatives from the PLA, “the masses,” and “correct” Communist Party cadres were established to decide on leadership positions and restore order.

Although its most chaotic phase had ended, the Cultural Revolution officially continued, and with it the unpredictable persecution of many Chinese. For example, the “Campaign to Purify Class Ranks,” which lasted from late 1967 until 1969, attempted to rid the Party of those with “bad” class backgrounds. Its goal was to identify Communist Party cadres who had ties to the West or to landlords or rightists and subject them to psychological pressure in group sessions to confess their mistakes. Ironically, this led to the persecution of many of the most militant Red Guards: these were people who had tried to abandon their poor class background and prove their “Redness” by acting militantly during the Cultural Revolution. Despite their previous revolutionary fervor, they were now tortured and banished from the CCP.

Many Chinese accused of being counterrevolutionaries were sent to the countryside to engage in hard rural labor as a complement to their political indoctrination. They were urged to praise Mao and Lin Biao and to condemn Liu Shaoqi as a revisionist bourgeois. Their conditions were extremely basic, and many who were old or weak suffered from the demanding labor and lack of comforts.

Lin Biao’s Downfall

In 1969, Lin Biao was named Mao’s successor at the National Party Congress. The same year, Soviet troops clashed with Chinese troops on China’s northern border, leading to widespread support of the PLA, which Lin Biao led. However, in 1970, Mao began to criticize some of Lin’s top officers and changed the constitution so that Lin could not ascend to a higher post. Then, in late 1971, the CCP announced that Lin had attempted to assassinate Mao due to frustration over seeing his political ambitions blocked. Lin had then tried to flee China with his family in a plane, which crashed in Mongolia in September 1971, killing all on board. This story was impossible to prove, and many believe it was fabricated. Nevertheless, the Party now painted Lin Biao as a “renegade and traitor” and condemned him as an enemy of the people. However, after revering Lin Biao as one of the country’s greatest heroes for nearly a decade, the about-face caused many Chinese to doubt, perhaps for the first time, the honesty of the Communist Party and its leaders. Most historians believe that Mao felt threatened by Lin’s growing power and popularity and began to worry that Lin would overthrow him. Thus, Mao eliminated Lin to consolidate his role as uncontested leader of the Party.

The Later Years of the Cultural Revolution

The early years of the Cultural Revolution had left the educational system in disarray. High schools and universities were gradually reopened in the late 1960s and especially the early 1970s, but it wasn’t until 1973 that examinations for entrance into universities were reinstated. These examinations replaced “revolutionary purity” as the basis for college admissions. Overall, it is estimated that some 16 million urban Chinese youth had been sent to work in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. While they were supposedly there to develop solidarity with the peasants and contribute their labor to the revolution, they were also relocated to ease the overcrowding of Chinese cities. Years of living in the countryside meant that this generation lost out on educational opportunities and that its intellectual capacity was underdeveloped.

Another result of the 1969 border clashes with the Soviet Union was China’s quest to find friends abroad. China reestablished ties with the West after President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China and signed trade deals with Western nations. To ensure that the influx of elements of Western culture would not dilute the Cultural Revolution’s ideals, Mao simultaneously launched the “Anti-Lin Biao Anti-Confucius” campaign, urging Chinese to stay true to Marxist values.

End of the Cultural Revolution

By 1974, China’s two most powerful leaders, Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, were chronically ill and unable to govern effectively. The four main remaining leaders of the Cultural Revolution, led by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, engaged in an internal power struggle with more moderate, pragmatic Party members like Deng Xiaoping.

Zhou Enlai died in January 1976. Many Chinese deeply mourned his death because they believed that he was a moderating force who had put the well- being of the Chinese people before all else. On April 5, 1976, thousands of Chinese gathered in Tiananmen Square to commemorate Zhou and to ask for “more openness in government, an end to dictatorship, and a return to the true spirit of Marxism-Leninism.” 5 As with all previous such requests under the CCP, these demonstrations were suppressed.

Chairman Mao Zedong, China’s supreme leader for 27 years, died on September 9, 1976. The entire country entered an extended period of grief over Mao but did not protest as they had after Zhou’s death. Hua Guofeng, the CCP’s second-in-command, seized power and arrested the four remaining leaders of the Cultural Revolution, labeling them the “Gang of Four.” They were accused of dozens of crimes, including masterminding most of the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution against Mao’s wishes. They made handy scapegoats for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, leaving Mao’s reputation officially unblemished. The arrest of the Gang of Four on October 6, 1976, is thus considered by many to mark the end of the Cultural Revolution.

The reversal of the extreme policies of the Cultural Revolution continued in December 1978, when a conference of Party leaders declared victory in the struggle against Lin Biao and the Gang of Four and proclaimed that China could now progress to “socialist modernization,” which in practice meant opening up to the West and transitioning to capitalism. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping became the undisputed leader of China. He led the country down a definitive road toward capitalism, greater economic freedom, and stronger links with the outside world. The Cultural Revolution had ended, and in its place was something quite nearly its opposite: pragmatism, interdependence, openness to outside influences, and capitalism. The CCP’s monopoly on power and attempts to control the population remained, but the Cultural Revolution had severely damaged the CCP’s legitimacy, and it would no longer enjoy the trust and absolute power it had during that tumultuous 10-year period of modern Chinese history.

1 Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2001). 2 The example of the Soviet Union haunted Mao. When Nikita Khrushchev became the leader of the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death in 1953, he criticized Stalin, instituted political and economic reforms, and backed away from the absolutism that characterized Stalin’s rule. Mao greatly admired Stalin, so he was shocked at Khrushchev’s reforms and believed that the Soviet Union had abandoned true communism. These tensions resulted in a break in relations between the two former allies in the early 1960s. 3 Spence, 604. 4 Spence, 607. 5 Spence, 621.

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A larger-than-life portrait of the late Communist Party leader Mao Zedong overlooks the daily crowd in Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing. Mao's death in 1976, brought to a close the Cultural Revolution, his 10-year experiement in violent ‘class struggle’ begun 50 years ago this May, that killed millions and took China to the brink of collapse.

Fifty Years Later, How Is the Cultural Revolution Still Present in Life in China?

A chinafile conversation.

• by Guobin Yang, Federico Pachetti, Francesco Sisci, Denise Y. Ho, Edward Friedman, Perry Link
• April 19, 2016

Fifty years ago this May 16, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a chaotic, terrifying, and often deadly decade-long campaign to “purify” C.C.P. ideology and reassert his political dominance. Despite its profound and traumatic impact on Chinese society, the legacy of the Cultural Revolution is seldom formally addressed in public. —The Editors

Guobin Yang

The Cultural Revolution was a period of violent passions and deep traumas. Violence was committed in the name of the noblest ideals or out of the darkest human motivations.

Public apologies from some of the perpetrators of indiscriminate violence do not come easily. Yet two high-profile apologies were made in recent years. In 2013, Chen Xiaolu, son of Marshall Chen Yi, publicly apologized to the teachers at his former school who were subject to torture in the Cultural Revolution. On January 12, 2014, former students in the Experimental Middle School of Beijing Teachers University apologized to their former teachers for the violence that had occurred in their school. The deputy school principal Bian Zhongyun was cruelly beaten to death by students on August 5, 1966.

We still know little about how individuals deal with their personal traumas of the Cultural Revolution. For many, the pain lives on. In a study published in 1994, for example, anthropologists Arthur Kleinman and Joan Kleinman find that those who suffered personal misfortunes in the Cultural Revolution continued to have bodily complaints such as dizziness, exhaustion, and pain, which they argue are expressions of their traumatic experiences.

There are also stories of extraordinary courage.

I interviewed Ms. Wang, one of Bian Zhongyun’s daughters, in August 1999. After many years, we reconnected in 2014, and finally met again in Beijing in March 2015. I was struck by how little she had changed after 15 years. Ms. Wang is a person with a quiet demeanor and amiable appearance, but extraordinary inner strength. Since retirement, she has devoted herself to a project called Baoquan Tea House, named after the place where the founders of this tea house had been sent down during the Cultural Revolution. Not exactly a tea house, the project runs regular cultural events related to the history of the sent-down movement with a mission to “critically reflect on half a life’s road of passion, loss, and hardship.”

I was surprised and moved to hear that Ms. Wang and her friends were conducting a survey of the current conditions of former sent-down youth in Beijing, and the questionnaire they used for their survey was based on the one I designed and used for my own research in 1999. They even gave me a copy of my original questionnaire, which Ms. Wang had kept since 1999!

After the 2014 public apology by former students of her mother’s school, I sometimes wondered how Ms. Wang would respond to those acts of apology. But I did not ask her anything. Seeing how committed she was to her Baoquan Tea House project and to the experiences and stories of her fellow sent-down youth-turned retirees, I seem to get an inkling of the deeper meaning of their project. It is a project of preserving and understanding history and memory with a silent bravery, the kind of silent bravery that I saw in Ms. Wang’s attitude toward the history and memory of the traumatic experiences of her own family. Through their own example, Ms. Wang and her friends show how closely connected to that history they still are and how courageously they bear the burden of the passions and traumas of the past.

Federico Pachetti

I would agree with Yang’s comment that we still know little about how individuals dealt with personal trauma during the Cultural Revolution. Unfortunately, given the sharp restrictions put in place in late 2012, we likely never will if the archives in China remain inaccessible.

Given the current situation in China, I would be surprised to see many more public apologies the likes of which Yang mentioned coming out in the next few years. Unlike Mao, Xi Jinping desires authoritarian stability over revolutionary chaos. Furthermore, in light of recent unexpected economic setbacks, sustaining a high rate of growth in the national GDP stands, more than ever before, at the core of China’s most strident preoccupations. To speak out against the crimes committed against ordinary people during the Cultural Revolution would be seen as undermining the legacy of the Chinese Communist Party, its grip on power, and its authority over China’s citizens. The paradox is stark since that same party had, by 1981, already distanced itself from policies carried out during the Cultural Revolution, officially defining the movement as a mistake.

Today, that same party is very much in power, and it comes as no surprise that silence was chosen over both condemnation and glorification. The CCP still is recovering from the damage the Cultural Revolution did to its legitimacy. One can argue that the Party never fully recovered the authority that it possessed before Cultural Revolution began.

If any sign of the Cultural Revolution was presented in the daily life of contemporary China, the CCP would quickly suppress it. The real question isn’t ‘How Is The Cultural Revolution Still Present in Life in China?’ but rather, ‘How Is It Possible for the CCP to Consolidate Power While Simultaneously Criticising Atrocities Committed During the Revolution?’

Today the nation risks becoming a divided society. But China cannot afford to be embroiled in the sort of impasse that caused the People’s Liberation Army to resort to restoring order forcefully during the Cultural Revolution. Any flicker of sharp internal division that recalls the rifts of the Cultural Revolution in the minds of many Chinese politicians is likely to be silenced.

Francesco Sisci

The problem with the Cultural Revolution in China is not simply that of the bitter or sweet memories and regrets of participants; it is not that of the moral wounds and scars millions had to bear walking out a decade of upheavals (a whole literary genre, popular in the 1980s in China, was called ‘the literature of scars’).

The real issue is that the Party was against the Party.

The leaders who emerged in the 1980s and took China on the path of reforms were people “struggled against” during the Cultural Revolution, they were survivors of the Cultural Revolution. They survived Mao and his red guards because while Mao took power in China and struggled with them he didn’t kill them as Stalin had his adversaries in the U.S.S.R. some decades before.

In this very complicated picture there are two more twists. The Cultural Revolution was violent, but it also was a cry for freedom, an uproar for liberty. The Democracy Wall of the late 1970s was the creation of former Red Guards who wanted freedom of expression and democracy as the ‘fourth modernization.’ Moreover, the Cultural Revolution recalls a period of youth for people now in their 60s; it was an idealistic and deceptive—but no less appealing—drive for equality in a world where, today, the undeserving spoiled brats of rich second generation ( fu er dai ) literally kill poor peasants.

This complex tangle of sentiments is fit for the plot of a Greek tragedy or a Tang Dynasty poem where all is grey. But it can’t blend in a couple of easy black and white formulae of the simplistic propaganda machine.

To this we can add that unlike in the West, where redeeming confession—to a priest or to God, in private or to the assembly of the Church—has been a tradition for centuries, in China there is no consistent tradition of confession. In fact, confession often leads not to forgiveness but to greater punishment. This was patently true during the violent self-criticism sessions of the Cultural Revolution where victims were forced to confess their “crimes.”

All in all, either the Party or the common people have no urge to confront the Cultural Revolution, they don’t know how to cope with it, and it remains an unresolved, tortured knot in the souls of a generation of Chinese people, to kept swept under the carpet, festering under the skin for decades to come.

Denise Y. Ho

Leading up to this year’s 50th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution, individual reckonings in China have taken on two forms. On the one hand, people who were Red Guards and participants in violence have stepped forward to apologize to their victims, often their former teachers. This has been taking place quietly for more than two decades though, as Guobin Yang points out, the recent high-profile apologies have reignited debate over responsibility. Who should apologize? On the other hand, as Yang’s previous research has shown, people across the political spectrum have taken to the Internet as a public space, writing blogs, collecting accounts, and publishing articles. These forms of commemoration are heralded as ways to provide a people’s history vis-à-vis the 1981 Party Resolution that remains the official line.

While these types of reckoning are indeed laudable, I am concerned about their individual form. That is, even if apologies acknowledge personal responsibility for another human’s suffering, even if a memoir adds a brick to our historical understanding, I wonder how they will add up. Is it not just more literature of the wounded for our digital age? Reading over the linked articles in the popular press, it appears that we are repeating old tropes about the Cultural Revolution: the Cultural Revolution was a mistake, it was demented/madness, it was a nightmare/trauma/disaster/chaos. The descriptions are the same, and the categories of agents to which journalists gesture are the same: Red Guards, Mao, Beijing, and China. Writing over 25 years ago, Lynn White stated that “the Cultural Revolution’s standard definition, in both scholarly and official literatures, has obscured a search for the roots of its violence.” It seems that we are still searching for a new definition.

For a real definition would require not only individual repentance and accounts. A true history would study agents, individual and systemic; it would seek to understand power and how it was wielded. The counterargument to this, of course, is that the Cultural Revolution developed when a system was under attack, when there was a power vacuum. Indeed, instability and confusion are persuasive explanations. In sociologist Yang Su’s study of Guangdong and Guangxi, for example, he analyzes county gazetteer data to show how the further a community was from a center of power, the more likely a breakdown in authority would lead to collective killings. But at the same time, Su explains, this violence was a product both of breakdown and of state policies and their local interpretations. So even chaos has a system; behind disaster is the state.

In an op-ed for Al Jazeera , writer Lijia Zhang has invoked—as many will this year—the Cultural Revolution museum that Ba Jin called for in 1986. Why, she and other Chinese intellectuals ask, hasn’t there been a Cultural Revolution museum? In fact there have been Cultural Revolution museums, but they are virtual, they are unofficial, and—as Jie Li and I have written of the Jianchuan Museum Cluster —they are private memorials. There hasn’t been either an official Cultural Revolution museum or a public Cultural Revolution museum. If the former is truth and the latter is reconciliation, only official reckoning will make public acknowledgement possible. But left with a narrative of chaos and personal memories, we speak not of power nor of responsibility.

Edward Friedman

In 1958, Mao's Great Leap Forward policies began to starve to death huge numbers of Chinese villagers. But villagers seldom write memoirs or have intellectuals inquire about their continuing traumas. One scholar who asks about the traumas suffered by the 82% of the Chinese people who were living in rural areas during the Leap is Professor Ralph Thaxton. Imagine what it was like for a woman to go to the village party secretary and have to offer her body to him in order to get food to keep her baby alive.

The manuscripts I have read on this topic of famine and rape/prostitution are by Chinese women who still felt uncertain about publication, but had spent much time gathering the data and privately shared their work with me.

The sad facts are that (a) Maoism was far more inhuman that most of us even now can imagine, and (b) the suffering of the poorest and most marginalized was worst, and is least known.

How is the Cultural Revolution, to quote our question, “still present in Chinese life today”?  The contributors so far have made points on how ripples and waves from the tumult still persist in memory.  They make excellent points.  I think, though, that we should also try to measure not just visible waves but underlying undulations of tsunami size—effects that are almost too large to be captured by “memory” and too pervasive to be regarded as anything but normal to people still caught in their mid-stream. Late Maoism—by which I mean the Great Leap famine and the Cultural Revolution—was an epochal turning point for life in China.

In the 1980s, Westerners were mistaken to look at the exciting new Chinese pursuit of “reform”—freedom, democracy, markets, and so on—and to assume that the ferment all sprang from the inherent attraction of “Western” ideas. The attraction was, to be sure, real, but it was superficial compared to the much deeper wellspring of reform, which was widespread popular revulsion against the disastrous conditions that the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution had left behind. In the mid-1970s, “Anything but this!” was the mood of the day among everyone from farmers who wanted their land back to intellectuals who wanted their universities back.

Beijing calls Deng Xiaoping the “architect of reform.”  But was he?  He was an architect—and a good one—of techniques for handling reform demands from below while keeping the Party on top. But he was hardly the origin of demands for reform. If we ask which Communist leader, objectively speaking, was most responsible for the rise of the reform surge, then surely the answer is Mao, not Deng.

Deng’s most crucial act in handling reform was the June Fourth massacre of 1989.  He could have used billy clubs, tear gas, or water hoses that night, but chose tanks and machine guns in order to deliver an unmistakable message, all across China, that enough is enough and political “trouble-making” will end. Where, then, could the surging and still-discontent populace turn? It went in the only direction that was open to it: money-making. Material values now ruled, and the devil could take the hindmost. There is irony in the fact that the symbols of bourgeois success in Chinese society—fancy cars, expensive handbags, slick hair-dos, and the like—that were excoriated under Mao now were marks of success.  People knew what the bourgeois model was, and now that the Party said it is good, not bad, then OK, they went for it.

Today China’s economy is slowing, and Xi Jinping faces the puzzle of where to turn next to keep the Communist Party atop the turning ball of Chinese society. In the 1950s, the Party’s claims to legitimacy were grounded in social idealism; in the 1980s “reform” was the basis, and beginning in the 1990s it was the economy. But now? A virulent form of nationalism seems next in line. I don’t know what will happen. But are today’s surging tides related to the body-blow that Mao Zedong delivered to the country in the 1960s? Without a doubt, in my view.

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In the period 1850 to 2001, new technologies emerged that had significant social, political, and economic effects. Develop an argument that evaluates the extent to which changes in the spread of ideas/information before and after World War I impacted societies.

Step 1: Analyze the Prompt

As you choose which question you will answer, begin thinking about what your thesis will entail and how your essay will demonstrate a complex understanding. The notes of a sample high- scoring writer are below. Note that the writer plans to develop a complex argument by addressing not only changes, as required by the prompt, but also continuities in societies before and after World War I.

Thesis : changes: faster spread of ideas made news, politics, and war more immersive and fast-paced; continuity: cross-cultural interactions transform all cultures (complex understanding, historical skill)

Step 2: Plan Your Response

• Context : Gutenberg → 2nd industrial revolution (steamship, train, telegraph) → digital revolution (radio, TV, Internet)
• Thesis : changes: faster spread of ideas made news, politics, and war more immersive and fast-paced; continuity: cross-cultural interactions transform all cultures ( complex understanding, historical skill )
• Evidence : War of 1812 versus WWII, Vietnam, Gulf War
• Evidence : American Revolution versus Cold War
• Evidence : language: Arab traders & Swahili, and modern business & English
• ¶ conclusion: impacts of tech on society have become more pervasive, though tendency towards cross-cultural influence has persisted

Step 3: Action! Write Your Response & Step 4: Proofread

Sample high-scoring response.

A key change between these eras of communication is how the speed of ideas’ dissemination impacts their force of impact and makes news more pervasive in civilians’ lives. In the distant past, the slow rate of communication caused reactions that were often months, or even years, after the initial communication. For instance, the final battle of the War of 1812 was fought after the signing of the war’s peace treaty because news had not yet traveled by ship across the Atlantic Ocean. In contrast, the peace treaties of WWII were celebrated in cities around the world mere minutes after news of their signing was shared by telegram and radio signals. The quick spread of images and video from the Vietnam conflict helped intensify Americans’ resistance to the war. In recent decades, 24-hour live coverage of conflicts, as in CNN’s being the first to provide constant coverage of a war during the Gulf War, allowed policy- makers and civilians to respond instantly to developments. As news became quicker, so its impact became more significant and more immediate.

Another change is that the quick and pervasive spread of ideas has made political conflicts more ideological and propaganda-based, further drawing societies into global disputes. Political rebellions of the eighteenth century, such as the American and French Revolutions, were based on Enlightenment ideals such as equality and representative government; they made use of propaganda in the form of printed political cartoons, tracts, and engravings to spread their ideals among the populace. However, the news communication made possible by radio and television after World War II helped propel the ideological conflict between the communist Soviet Union and the democratic United States into a worldwide phenomenon that intensely impacted both nations’ citizens. Technology was able to so effectively spread this war of ideas that the two major superpowers never engaged in direct battle themselves; still, citizens were drawn into a culture of propaganda that demonized the other side, made bomb shelters and bomb drills a part of daily life due to fear of nuclear warfare, and saw governments pour millions of dollars into the space race. Technology thus made it possible for conflicts to become all-immersive, even if they were based on ideas rather than physical confrontations.

Despite changes in communication, constants about its impacts remain. Cross- cultural communications still transform societies as they borrow and adapt ideas from others. For instance, from the eighth century onward, Arab traders who traveled throughout West Africa and along the eastern and northern coasts not only enriched communities economically but also spread Islam. Further, the necessity for communication among traders led to the rise of Swahili, a language that combined Arabic and African words and is still the lingua franca in much of East Africa today. Similarly, in modern times, as Britain and then the United States dominated world trade, English became a kind of worldwide lingua franca of modern business. Just as Arab traders spread their religion, American culture also diffused to other societies: almost every nation in modern times, for instance, built American-style fast food restaurants. Mirroring the trends related to the spread of news and politics, cultural diffusions in recent decades occurred at a faster rate and to a more pervasive extent than in the past. Whereas primarily traders would have adopted Swahili as it developed over generations, today English is taught in grade schools throughout the world.

Cultures that interact always influence each other. In the past century, how- ideas travel at a faster pace. As they have in ever, technology has made the impact of this spread of ideas more pervasive and significant as news and political the past, societies will continue to transform as they encounter ideas from other cultures, but with this increased intensity of communication, the impacts of ideas will continue to escalate.

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Home — Essay Samples — Geography & Travel — China — Cultural Revolution in China

Cultural Revolution in China

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• Cultural Revolution Essays

Cultural Revolution Essays (Examples)

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Unknown cultural revolution in most of the.

Unknown Cultural Revolution In most of the literature, China's Cultural Revolution gets a bad rap. It is considered a time of social turmoil that eventually led to an economic disaster for the country. There are accounts of intellectuals being persecuted as well as violence in many communities. However, the author, Dongping Han, gives a different account of this period. In many cases, history is written by the winners. Therefore, the capitalistic model that eventually won the debate undoubtedly discredited the communist roots of the Cultural Revolution. In this sense, Han points out many of the accomplishments that China was able to produce during this period. As a product of the Cultural Revolution himself, Han is able to give many personal stories of the movement's success. The fact that Han has actually lived through this experience gives his stories a great deal of credibility. He speaks of the period favorably and gives lots….

Chinese Cultural Revolution Which Began in the

Chinese Cultural Revolution, which began in the early 1960's and endured until the death of Mao Tse-tung, drastically altered the cultural arena of China from an agrarian system to one of modernity and acceptance by Western nations. Yet the Cultural Revolution was in effect based on communist principles which affected its ability to transcend the needs of the majority at the expense of the needs of the individual, meaning that it failed to achieve true freedom for the Chinese people. The intermingling of Chinese and Western cultures, beginning in the middle years of the 19th century, effectively ended China's seclusion from the rest of the world and brought about profound changes in all cultural manifestations. As a result, this interplay between foreign and domestic entities gave rise to revolutionary changes in China's political and economic systems, not to mention its social structure and intellectual attitudes and ideas. Also, the forced insertion….

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brahm, Laurence J.A Concise Review of China's Political Structure. UK: Reed Academic Press, 1995.

Chang, Chi Yun. The Essence of Chinese Culture. Taipei: Asia-China Imperial Press, 2000.

Clubb, O. Edmund. 20th Century China. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.

Henderson, Betty. Journeys into Chinese Culture. UK: Constable Press, 1999.

Chinese Cultural Revolution Which Was Started by

Chinese Cultural Revolution, which was started by Mao Tse-tung in 1966 and did not conclude until after his death in 1976, is referred to officially by the current government of China as haojie; as GAO Mobo notes that "haojie is ambiguous because it can be a modern term for 'holocaust' or a traditional term to mean 'great calamity' or 'catastrophe'." (Gao 15). To some extent, those who lived through the Chinese Cultural Revolution, such as my grandparents, are uncomfortable with discussion of the effects. As a small child, I had often wondered what happened in China in the 1960s and 1970s that my grandparents refused to discuss it, or discuss their lives before emigration, first to Taiwan, then to America. But this was just one of the peculiarities of my "F.O.B." ("Fresh Off the Boat") grandparents, to use a term that sometimes recurs in Chinese-American conversations -- for example, they….

China and the Cultural Revolution

Autographic style book by Dr. Li Zhisui ( the private life of chairman mao pp433-546), and the short stories by Chen Jo-hsi, and the movie The Blue Kites, are all about these authors' and director's experiences of the tumultuous year of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. In what way do you think their works (book and movie) are valuable as historical documents? The Communist Revolution in China was fighting against corruption and government officials who were out of touch with the people. Once they were in power, the communists had their support to a certain extent. However, these views began to change as a series of brutal crackdowns resulted in many people losing faith in their leaders. (Schrecker) (Gao) To fully understand what was happening, a series of works were created which are highlighting these shifts. The most notable include: the Private Life of Chairman Moa, short stories by Chen Jo-Hsi….

Works Cited

The Blue Kite. Dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang. Kino International, 1993. Film.

Gao, Yuan. Born Red. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1987. Print.

Hsi, Chen. The Execution of Mayor Yin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979. Print.

Schrecker, John. The Chinese Revolution. Westport: Praeger, 2004. Print.

Chinese History the Cultural Revolution

It was a new means of defining a control over the cultural aspects of the society. Mao had envisaged a cultural background that would rise from the middle class, the social level on which the Communist Party based its electoral and strength. Given the tight control exercised by the communist party through all its regional, local, and national mechanisms, a new sense of fear and submission affected the society. This however represented a traditional means through which all communist parties ensured their control over the population. Through different institutions at the disposal of the state, the population was soon "re-educated." This in turn determined an annihilation of any potential dissidents or opposition that would at one point challenge the rule of the Communist party. After severe limitations and terror moments, the population was entrenched in a different mentality that had been inoculated by the Communist party. This is one of….

Bibliography

Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. Simon and Schuster, London, 1991.

Heng, Liang. Son of the Revolution. Vintage Books, New York, 1983.

Mao's Cultural Revolution and Jung Chang

“Returning Home Robed in Embroidered Silk” and the Cultural Revolution By comparing the Future Direction of the Party readings with Chang’s Chapter 8, what becomes apparent is the idea that the Party wants total control over its members’ lives, their thoughts, and their feelings. This is especially seen in Chapter 8 of Wild Swans, when Chang’s father and mother return to the father’s childhood home. The father is so happy to be back and his family is excited to see him—but they are also nervous because he was now a Communist official and they had all heard such bad things about Communism. The Communists wanted to root out all the old traditions; they wanted to liberate the daughter-in-law from the old traditions, for example—and so a great deal of attention was paid to Chang’s mother to see how she would react to her mother-in-law; whether she would kowtow as was the….

American History the Cultural Revolution

The mid-1970s would already bring the end of the Vietnam War, the major coagulating action of this period that marked the revolt of the younger generation. As we can see from this ample comment on Graham's article "Flaunting the Freak Flag: Karr v. Schmidt and the Great Hair Debate in American High Schools, 1965-1975," the hair debate was but a small element of a larger framework of conflicts between generation and revolt against an authority that was often perceived as not functional and as imposing rules that made no sense and had no logic. While at a national level, this translated into a political fight against the war in Vietnam and at cultural revolt against the older generation, at a micro level, it was a fight against the school authority. It could go to greater debates, such as those against racial discrimination, but also could include revolts against the imposing of….

1. Graham, Gael. Flaunting the Freak Flag: Karr v. Schmidt and the Great Hair Debate in American High Schools, 1965-1975. The Journal of American History Vol. 91, Issue 2. April 2006.

Chinese Cultural Revolution

In the course of the Cultural Revolution, the communist leader Mao Zedong proclaimed particular cultural requirements for both art and writings in China. This was a period that was filled with violence and harsh realisms for the people within the society. Authors such as Bei Dao, Gu Cheng and Yu Hua can be considered to be misty poets, whose works endeavored to shift from an inactive response to active formation. The aforementioned individuals are renowned authors, writers and poets celebrated for their influential literal works and their impact during the course of the Cultural Revolution in China. Through their short stories and poems, these authors strove to create a cultural force with the purpose of educating the public and offering them revolutionary principles and ideals. The art and literature that was delineated by these authors played a significant role in the sociopolitical realm and the demise of the Cultural Revolution….

China Mao and the Cultural Revolution

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Wild Swans is the story of three generations of women in China in the 20th century. The author is Jung Chang: her autobiography comprises the last third section of the book; the first two sections are devoted to telling the story of her grandmother Yu-Fang and her mother Bao Qin. Instead of writing a straight autobiography, Chang chose to begin her story two generations back—the purpose being to provide not only personal historical context but also a sense of the cultural historical context in which her family came into being. By beginning the book with the statement that her grandmother “became the concubine of a warlord general” at the age of fifteen, Chang immediately gives her story a sweeping, grand epic backdrop: she is no mere commoner of humble origins but rather a figure whose family was right in the heart or thick of the….

Cultural Environment China Is Now

"9.8% in urban areas; substantial unemployment and underemployment in rural areas; an official Chinese journal estimated overall unemployment (including rural areas) for 2003 at 20% (2004 est.)" (CIA orld Factbook "China") the occupation breakdown for the nation is also rather simplistic, with a large protion of the population still being engaged in agricultural industries: "agriculture 49%, industry 22%, services 29% (2003 est.)" (CIA orld Factbook "China") Cultural habits of China are relatively universal as the nation has relatively few national minorities and limited immigration from other nations due to its communist legacy. The majority ethnic group Han Chinese constitutes 91.9% of the total population with the significant minorities including Zhuang, Uygur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities, constituting only a total of 8.1%. There is though a significant social and cultural disparity between urban and rural populations. Urban China is relatively modern, with many conveniences….

CIA World Factbook "China" at  http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2005/geos/ch.html 

Goldberg, Jonah. "10 Million Missing Girls." National Review 30 Jan. 2006: 8.

Revolution Through the Lens of Agricultural Industrialization

Revolution Through the Lens of Agricultural Industrialization The revolutions in Cuba, Mexico and Brazil Bahia as described and detailed in the three text From slavery to freedom in Brazil Bahia, 1835-1900 by Dale Torston Graden, Insurgent Cuba race, nation and revolution, 1868-1898 by Ada Ferrer and The Mexican Revolution: 1910-1940 Dialogos Series, 12 by Michael j. Gonzales all tell varied stories regarding the thematic development of revolution and change. Each has a different story to tell about labor, free and slave, politics, race and freedom yet underlying each of these themes is a current that is not only consistent but largely underdeveloped. This theme is agricultural and its changing labor and production practices. This work will analyze and compare the treatment of agriculture as a theme associated with each local. Each nation demonstrates the story of profiteering through agriculture in varied ways, and the rejection of it. In each work a large….

Ferrer, Ada. Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

Gonzales, Michael. The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1940. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. 2002.

Torston Graden, Dale. From Slavery to Freedom in Brazil: Bahia, 1835-1900. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. 2006.

Cultural Transmissions by the Italian

Indeed the Germans, the French, and the rest looked back to an antiquity in which their ancestors had been subjugated by the legions. Nothing is more remarkable therefore than the rapid and irrevocable penetration of Italian ideas and practices among the "barbarians," as the Italian writers referred to them, some of whom were currently invading the peninsula." (Wiener, 124) it's also important to note that influence of antique classicism typical for Italian architecture of the 14-16th centuries is not observed in the north. Classical style of Italian cathedrals and churches, typical for Ancient Greek and oman pagan temples is usually not observed in buildings of enaissance epoch in Germany, Britain or France, where architecture was influenced by Gothic style, which got earlier spread in Europe. eformation and Counter eformation The spread of Protestantism over Europe, which is considered to be one of the most historically significant achievements of enaissance and Humanism….

Hileman, Tony Living on the Creative Edge of Our Culture available at www.americanhumanist.org/about/messageED1.php

Wiener, Philip P. The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas available at  http://etext.virginia.edu/DicHist/dict.html 

Kohl, Benjamin G., and Witt, Ronald G., eds., the Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society (1978)

Revolution the Bolshevik Revolution of

We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighboring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliationæthere can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement, the only choice is -- either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a "third" ideology, and, moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms there can be a non-class or an above-class ideology)." The Revolution of 1905 developed in two phases. First, a diverse group opposing the Tsar and encompassing much of the political spectrum took form.….

8. Freeze, Gregory. (2002) Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, ibid.

9. Freeze, Gregory. (1995) From Supplication to Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, ibid.

10. Carr Hallet Edward. (1981) A History of Soviet Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution. New York: The Macmillan Company, ibid.

Revolutions Ogburn Identifies Four Social Revolutions That

Revolutions Ogburn identifies four social revolutions that have occurred as the result of new technologies. The first was the move from the hunter-gathered model to pastoralism or horticulturalism, where people settled either to raise animals or to grow plants for food. Technologies for hunting or agriculture made such moves possible. As we were able to learn enough about food production to remain in one place for extended periods, we chose to do so. The next step was the move to an agrarian society. Using both animals and machinery, we were able to make significant improvements in food production, not just for food but for other uses as well. This allowed for much greater population density, as well as excess production for winter months. The third social revolution was the development of the industrial society. Machinery that dramatically increased productivity brought about industrial society, which incorporated a stronger division of labor. This lead….

Works Cited:

Boundless.com. (2007). The four social revolutions. Boundless.com. Retrieved April 13, 2013 from https://www.boundless.com/sociology/understanding-social-change/sources-social-change/four-social-revolutions/

Boundless.com. (2007). Ogburn's theory. Boundless.com. Retrieve April 13, 2013 from https://www.boundless.com/sociology/understanding-social-change/sources-social-change/ogburn-s-theory/

Revolutions Compare Similarities Differences Revolutions America France

evolutions Compare similarities differences revolutions America, France, Latin America. Identify common themes present revolution. What fighting ? Who influenced revolutions? What outcome revolution? What effect revolutions world?. evolutions in America, France, and Latin America: Causes, ideology, and consequences Perhaps the most notable difference between the 18th century revolution in America vs. The 18th century revolution in France was one of class: America was not, primarily, a class-driven revolution. The Founding Fathers and supporters of the American evolution came from the elites of American society. George Washington was an important British general during the French-Indian Wars and Benjamin Franklin was a prominent figure in American colonial politics before talk of revolution became common currency. The colonists' frustration at what they perceived as the British Crown's unreasonable taxation policy and their growing economic power that was not honored with political power within the Empire was at the heart of the American evolution. The British felt justified….

Kelly, Martin. (2012). Causes of the American Revolution. About.com. Retrieved:

 http://americanhistory.about.com/od/revolutionarywar/a/amer_revolution.htm 

Minster, Christopher. (2012). Causes of Latin American revolutions. About.com. Retrieved:

 http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/19thcenturylatinamerica/a/09independencewhy.htm

Could you provide some suggestions for titles for my essay on How did a diversity of views transform American society?

Impact of Diverse Perspectives on the American Tapestry The Crucible of Diversity: How American Society Was Forged by Clashing Ideals The Kaleidoscope of Perspectives: How Diversity Reshaped the American Social Landscape Convergence and Conflict: The Transformative Power of Disparate Views The Evolution of Tolerance: How Diversity Fostered Understanding and Respect Diversity as a Catalyst for Innovation and Progress The Changing Face of America: How Diverse Perspectives Redefined National Identity The Crucible of Democracy: How Diverse Voices Strengthened American Institutions Embracing the Mosaic: The Impact of Cultural Differences on American Society From Division to Unity: How a Multitude of Perspectives Bridged Divides Introduction The United States has long been a nation of....

Can you provide a concise outline of Mao Zedong\'s rise to power and his impact on China?

I. Introduction A. Background information on Mao Zedong B. Thesis statement: Mao Zedong was a prominent Chinese political leader who played a significant role in shaping China's history. II. Early Life and Rise to Power A. Birth and upbringing in Shaoshan, Hunan province B. Involvement in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) C. Participation in the Long March and establishment of Red Army III. Mao's Leadership Style and Ideology A. Introduction of Maoist ideology and Marxism-Leninism B. Implementation of land reforms and collectivization C. The Great Leap Forward and its impact on the Chinese economy IV. Cultural Revolution A. Launch of the Cultural Revolution ....

Mao Zedong's Rise to Power Early Life and Ideology: Born in 1893 to a peasant family in Hunan province Studied at Beijing University, influenced by Marxism and socialism Organized the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921 Guomindang-CCP Alliance (1923-1927): CCP allied with the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) led by Chiang Kai-shek Joined forces to defeat warlords and establish a unified China Shanghai Massacre (1927): Chiang Kai-shek turned against the CCP, leading to the Shanghai Massacre CCP retreated to rural areas and began guerrilla warfare Long March (1934-1936): CCP forces led by Mao embarked on a 6,000-mile retreat from southern China to Shaanxi Demonstrated the party's....

Family and Marriage

Unknown Cultural Revolution In most of the literature, China's Cultural Revolution gets a bad rap. It is considered a time of social turmoil that eventually led to an economic disaster…

History - Asian

Chinese Cultural Revolution, which began in the early 1960's and endured until the death of Mao Tse-tung, drastically altered the cultural arena of China from an agrarian system…

Sports - Women

Chinese Cultural Revolution, which was started by Mao Tse-tung in 1966 and did not conclude until after his death in 1976, is referred to officially by the current government…

Autographic style book by Dr. Li Zhisui ( the private life of chairman mao pp433-546), and the short stories by Chen Jo-hsi, and the movie The Blue Kites, are…

Anthropology

It was a new means of defining a control over the cultural aspects of the society. Mao had envisaged a cultural background that would rise from the middle…

“Returning Home Robed in Embroidered Silk” and the Cultural Revolution By comparing the Future Direction of the Party readings with Chang’s Chapter 8, what becomes apparent is the idea that…

Black Studies - Philosophy

The mid-1970s would already bring the end of the Vietnam War, the major coagulating action of this period that marked the revolt of the younger generation. As we can…

In the course of the Cultural Revolution, the communist leader Mao Zedong proclaimed particular cultural requirements for both art and writings in China. This was a period that was…

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Wild Swans is the story of three generations of women in China in the 20th century. The author is Jung Chang: her autobiography comprises…

"9.8% in urban areas; substantial unemployment and underemployment in rural areas; an official Chinese journal estimated overall unemployment (including rural areas) for 2003 at 20% (2004 est.)" (CIA…

Agriculture

Revolution Through the Lens of Agricultural Industrialization The revolutions in Cuba, Mexico and Brazil Bahia as described and detailed in the three text From slavery to freedom in Brazil Bahia,…

Indeed the Germans, the French, and the rest looked back to an antiquity in which their ancestors had been subjugated by the legions. Nothing is more remarkable therefore…

We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the…

Revolutions Ogburn identifies four social revolutions that have occurred as the result of new technologies. The first was the move from the hunter-gathered model to pastoralism or horticulturalism, where people…

American History

evolutions Compare similarities differences revolutions America, France, Latin America. Identify common themes present revolution. What fighting ? Who influenced revolutions? What outcome revolution? What effect revolutions world?. evolutions in America, France,…

Department of History

Essay questions.

• You can answer any of the questions attached to each week's readings and seminar.
• Within the period we have studied, write a question you want to answer; you can discuss your question with tutor to improve it.
• Or choose a question from the below. You can modify the question as you see fit; if you need, you can discussion the modified question with tutor.
• How did the burning down and looting of the Summer Palace affect the development of Chinese identities?
• Find a treaty signed between China and a Western power in the nineteenth century and analyse why the treaty was signed in the way it was, i.e., who gains what in the treaty and why? You can also compare two or more treaties if you wish.
• Was the failure of the first Chinese Republic (the 1911 Revolution) inevitable? Please give detailed analysis.
• Did the 1911 Revolution transform the Chinese political system?
• What were the social-political conditions that enable the Tapings to start their revolution?
• What were the economic conditions that enable the Tapings to start their revolution?
• Why were women raped by soldiers when Japanese troops took Nanjing in December 1937?
• How did the Second Sino-Japanese war change the course of modern Chinese history?
• What is the "Century of Humiliation"? And why has modern Chinese history been narrated in this way? Please include in your answer: Could there be other ways of narrating this history and what might they be?
• This is a documentary question. Please comment on the following in the context of the First Opium War: 'We find your country is sixty or seventy thousand li from China. Yet, there are barbarian ships that strive to come here for trade for the purpose of making a great profit. The wealth of China is used to profit the barbarians. That is to say, the great profit made by barbarians is all taken from the rightful share of China. By what right do they then in return use the poisonous drug to injure the Chinese people? Even though the barbarians may not necessarily intend to do us harm, yet in coveting profit to an extreme, they have no regard for injuring others. Let us ask, where is your conscience?' ("Lin Zexu's Communication to Queen Victoria"). What did this 'moral' question mean to Lin? How did the opium trade lead to the First Opium War? (You may wish to read the full letter and analyses from there).
• Is "war trauma" a significant historical force in the history of modern China?
• Is the period between 1911 and 1937 best understood in terms of the Nationalist or the Communist Revolution?
• What was 'cultural' about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)?
• "The New Qing History" transformed the historiography of modern China." Discuss.
• What was the global context of Chinese communist revolution?
• How important was the Canton one port system in shaping Sino-Western interaction?
• How has communism shaped modern Chinese history?
• How central a role did the concept of 'modernisation' play in the history of modern China?
• Is the characterisation of Mao Zedong as a 'red emperor' an appropriate way of understanding the history of modern China?

Cultural Revolution Essay

Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution was the greatest educational incident chronicled in the last hundred years and it took place from 1966 to 1976. Mao Zedong was the leader of the Cultural Revolution and he wanted to bring about the Cultural Revolution by setting goals to form a more affective bureaucracy. The Cultural Revolution was a time when Red Guards fought against a democratic society and the guards attacked an aspect called the "4 olds." The "4 olds" were old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old

Cultural Revolution In China

Culture revolution Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, despite the great achievements, China has taken a lot of detours because of the great leap forward and the cultural revolution. The great leap forward to China in the economy, including the people's life safety, pay a heavy price, the "cultural revolution" brought disaster ， a lot of cultural relics have been damaged, our country's political situation lead to the cultural revolution in the late of tragedy. Over the past 20

Benefits Of The Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution had an enormous impact on the people of China From 1965 to 1968. The cultural Revolution is the name given to the Chinese Communist party’s attempt, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, to reassert its authority over the Chinese government. The main goal of the revolution was simple: the Chinese Communist party wanted to reform the Chinese people so that they believed and followed the communist ideology of absolute social equality. The group of people that the CCP, under

Cultural Revolution Mao

“A revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall” Evaluate the accuracy of this statement in relation to the causes of the Chinese cultural revolution ‘A revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.’ This statement by Che Guevara suggests that in order for a revolution to occur, the leaders must not hesitate, but rather, they should take immediate and effective actions. This quote is particularly accurate for the Chinese Cultural

Essay on cultural revolution

The Cultural Revolution was the greatest educational incident chronicled in the last hundred years and it took place from 1966 to 1976. Mao Zedong was the leader of the Cultural Revolution and he wanted to bring about the Cultural Revolution by setting goals to form a more affective bureaucracy. The Cultural Revolution was a time when Red Guards fought against a democratic society and the guards attacked an aspect called the "4 olds." The "4 olds" were old ideas, old culture,

Mao Cultural Revolution

A. Plan of Investigation In 1966, Mao mobilized the Chinese youth to initiate the “Cultural Revolution”, a violent process eliminating old Chinese culture, customs, thoughts and habits, purging “counter-revolutionary” party members, and heightening Mao’s personality cult. I will summarize evidence collected from textbooks, official documents, biographies and eyewitness reports about the events between 1959 and 1966. I will describe the failure of the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s resignation as

Communism And The Cultural Revolution

Communist leader Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, which was an attempt to create a purely Communist China by eliminating the “Four

Chinese Cultural Revolution

The Chinese Cultural Revolution "A revolution is not a dinner party or writing an essay or painting a picture or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous"- Mao said in 1927 to a youth activist The reason for china to trying to become such a new generation was solely the opinion of Mao and his followers. Mao had seen the way the Russian revolution had gone astray

The Cultural Revolution : Mao Zedong

The Cultural Revolution, launched by Chairman Mao Zedong in the mid-1960s, dramatically transformed Chinese society. Paul Byrne (2012 p.80) suggests that as the Cultural Revolution continued to transform China, a cult of personality was built around Mao; anyone who questioned his wisdom was an enemy of the people. The Cultural Revolution was a period of time where anything capitalist or western was brutally destroyed. The Cultural Revolution aimed to destroy ‘The Four Olds’ these being, old ideas

1967 Cultural Revolution of China

Question: Why did Mao launch the Cultural Revolution? For instance, do you think the occurrence of the CR had any connections with the CCP 's organizing principle and guiding ideologies, such as democratic dictatorship and the democratic-centralism, or was caused more by other reasons? Also, although many things people did during the Cultural Revolution look so absurd, irrational, and even cruel today, millions of Chinese, especially the Chinese youth seemed to be obsessed with the movement during

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The beginnings of the Cultural Revolution also known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, dates back to the early 1960s. This movement took place after the Great Leap Forward, a period of active government where more than 20 million people died. During this time Vice-Chairman Li Shaoqi and Premier Zhou Enlai wanted to assume a less active and dominant role in governing the country. They wanted to offer economic reforms based on individual incentives. One incentive was to allow families the opportunity to farm their own land. These actions were detested by more conservative members. Nonetheless, China’s economy grew greatly from 1962-1965as a result of individual incentives. The Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 was compound social turmoil that stemmed from the struggle between Mao Zedong and other party leaders in efforts to control the Chinese Communist Party. The Cultural Revolution in China was one of the most multifaceted events in China’s history. Each member of Chinese society was involved and somehow affected by the revolution. Although Mao initiated the movement, it took on its identity. Mao used many manipulation tasks when dealing with the people of China, but during the movement people saw that as an opportunity to express themselves. The Cultural Revolution went through many stages, but the most violent ones were the first two years. Mao even called upon school age students to join in the movement. Building up to the Cultural Revolution, Mao lived in constant fear that the Chinese Communist Part y was adopting too many bureaucratic ideals. He felt that party officials were abandoning their commitment to communist values. Consequently, he felt that he had been losing influence among his comrades since the failure of the Great Leap Forward. In late 1965, Mao decided that China needed a new revolutionary movement after Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, complained that cultural productions were openly criticizing the Communist leadership. Mao endorsed the discourse and the Cultural Revolution began. The extensive violence during the Cultural Revolution was the most disturbing. China had suffered cruelty and violence before, but never to the extent of the Cultural Revolution. Students revolted within educational institutions and led to violence. Libraries were burned and schools were vandalized. The violence was so rampant that the military patrolled the streets followed by body trucks looking for the remains of the dead. “The suicide rate drastically increased as people escape persecution jumped from building, drank insecticide and would lie across train tracks, or throw themselves in front of cars” ( Schoenhals, p. 566 ). Also, many people died during the Revolution due to illnesses that went untreated due to the refusal of medical facilities to give aid to counter revolutionaries. Fowler said, “Everyone in China was affected; everyone knew someone who had died” (Fowler, p. 1329 ). By the winter of 1966, the chaos and violence in China has increased. Most school and universities had closed so that students could participate in the movement. Frankly speaking, they were encouraged to get rid of the old China because they were educated and more accepting of change. Students began to verbally and physically attack authority figures, including teachers, administrators, and Communist Party members, neighbors, friends, relatives, and even their own parents if they try to prevent them from supporting the movement. The Red Guards were the most violent group that formed during the Revolution. The members of the Red Guard ranged from elementary students to university students. Their mission was to enforce communist dogma and alleviate China of the “Four Olds”, which were old culture, old customs, old habits, and old ideas. They were a million or more strong in membership. They destroyed antiques ancient texts, temples, and other facilities that represented what they deemed the old way. According to Thurston, “The Red Guards behaved so badly because first, morality is not a product of nature of man but rather education. Therefore, the young of China behaved badly because they were badly educated. Secondly, China had taken their leader and elevated him to a god. The Chinese exhibited unquestioning faith and obedience.” (Buckley, p. 599 ) They would publicly humiliate anyone who had counter revolutionary views. They slaughtered thousands of people. Once Mao realized that the Red Guards were out of control, he devised a plan to get them out of China. In late 1968, he issued a call for “Down to the Countryside Movement”. This movement was intended to ship the Red Guards out to the rural areas to work on farms and learn peasantry. His goal was to disperse the group to end the violent havoc they had been causing in China. By 1968, thousands had been imprisoned and millions were sent to work on the countryside. The Cultural Revolution had a great impact on the educational system in China. The revolution left the school systems in disarray. In the late 1960s and early 1970s schools and universities gradually began reopening. However, it was in 1973 that examinations for entrance into universities were reinstated. The examinations replaced revolutionary purity-which allowed entrance by any individual who had participated in the revolution. Tsou adds, “Going to work in the countryside and mountain areas” was compulsory for every urban student. Over 16 million urban students were carted off to remote parts of China such the Yunnan Province to be re-educated. They were organized into companies and regiments, and lived on farms, ate in communal cafeterias and performed tasks like digging ditches, cutting bamboo and planting rice. The idea behind the campaign was that manual labor could re-install socialist values” (Tsou, p. 321). The Movement also affected the Art in China. Three generations of art and culture were destroyed during the Movement. As a result, the government wanted to create a new way of looking at China’s culture that could communicate the ideals and goals of the new Country. Artists were compelled to create pieces that revealed the essence of the revolution. Mao said, “Create art for the people” (Buckley, p. 600). During this time, painting with ink replaced traditional oil painting and socialist realist. Ink painting had been one of the most respected and admired forms of art in country for more than a thousand years. Old-style subjects such as sceneries, animals, and plants were replaced by revolutionary heroes, such as workers, soldiers, and peasants. Also, ink senior artists were subject be humiliated in front of everyone and even torture. Houses and artwork of traditionalist were detained and destroyed by rebels. Tsou said, “Few members of the older generation, which included teachers and respected artists escaped persecution and criticisms” (Tsou, p. 325). Fowler added that new, younger artists found this as a great opportunity to display their talents from their own perspectives. They wanted their works to become the new models of great artwork. They hoped that their works would be seen and revered by the multitude in the new country. (Fowler, p. 1330 ). Propaganda and psychology played a large role in the effects of the Cultural Revolution in China. Propaganda is the usage of certain language through the media to implant ideas in the minds of the viewers. This tactic is used to create public trends. By nature, humans have the tendency to trust in authority. Often this trust is exploited. Widespread propaganda techniques were used to encourage activism by China’s youth. One technique that was used by the media in China during this time was the disfiguring and dehumanizing of the opponents. By distorting the proportions of the opponents, the media made the favored candidate look larger by enhancing physical traits to make one look taller and more muscular. Another tactic was just outright intimidation. Fowler adds, “Given free reign, the Red Guards seized public transport and took over the radio and television networks. Anyone showing signs of decadent tendencies-the most obvious examples being the wearing of Western clothes, jewelry or make up- was likely to be manhandled and publicly humiliated” (Fowler, p. 1325). They also used the tactic of bandwagon to entice people to join the movement. The media repeatedly showed depictions of large crowds and colors associated with violence. Buckley says, “The public was falsely reassured by propaganda posters that depicted fruits larger than humans, as well as abundant produce at farms, and bountiful communal farms and dining, yet 40 million civilians died as a result of the great famine that was a direct result of the Cultural Revolution”. (Buckley, p. 589) One of the major goals of the Cultural Revolution was to correct the economic problems that the Great Leap Forward had caused. Nonetheless, it caused even more damage to an already weakened economy. During the Cultural Revolution, China denounced all the basic and universally accepted economic theories of production. Essentially, China halted production. It even ended its birth control program. So, not only was the economy failing, but more children were being born into a society that was unable to feed them. China’s population increased rapidly during the Cultural Revolution. Consequently, the quality of life in China decreased astronomically. The conditions that people faced in China during this time can be compared to that of present day Africa with war, disease, and famine. (Buckley, p. 590 ) The Red Guards caused another great expense that China was unable to pay. The government paid the bills of transporting the Red Guards all of the country side to harass and assault unwilling participants. Scientists and writers were forced to work on farms to be able to survive. There work was no longer needed because China had denounced that old way of thinking. Most intellectuals abandoned their life’s work and were transported to areas that had a high demand for manual labor. Imported goods were also halted during the Cultural Revolution. Many common amenities were now rare in China’s economy. The Revolution’s attempt to stop individual growth stopped economic freedom and growth of an entire country. Tsou adds, “The Economy of china in 1960s was much affected by Chinese Cultural Revolution. Especially a number of students loosed their focus of life and had a shattered career due to being used by the ruling party as Red Guards. The tragedy of the Chinese Cultural Revolution witnessed lots of bloodshed.” (Tsou, p. 329). China’s youth was the most devastated by the Cultural Revolution. First, the Revolution denied them an opportunity to get an education because schools were closed during the revolution. This act left a long lasting physical and psychological damage. The Revolution instilled deep hatred and contempt for education. After all the schools were closed, children who were old enough were sent to the countryside to do manual labor jobs. On their countryside jobs they were faced with mental and physical hardships; sometimes they were beaten and treated like slaves. Often they worked for long periods of time without adequate food and water. Schoenhals said that educated individuals and other people who have views that opposed the Cultural Revolution were sent to the countryside as a form of punishment. In his research, Schoenhals quoted a survivor saying that the conditions her family had to live in while on the countryside were deplorable. They had to plant rice, a degrading job to who father who had been an English teacher at a middle school. They had to learn to work the land from fellow peasants. During their first year there they didn’t even have a house to live in. They stayed in something similar to a barn. Grain was stored their also. They were unable to raise crops that year and had to eat leaves and roots. She described this as living like an animal. ( Schoenhals, p. 563).Many starved to death, while others died from being over worked. All of the children were brainwashed into putting the wellbeing of the government before their own physical and mental wellbeing. So, they felt that sacrificing their lives for the benefit of the Cultural Revolution was noble. The overall all result of this process was a generation of people with physical and psychological damage. For example, “About one fourth of China’s population lived through the Cultural Revolution as children and teenagers. Some of them look back on the period fondly because they didn’t have to go school but ultimately many feel cheated because opportunities were lost. “( Schoenhals, p. 566) These children then raised their children with these same ideals and concepts of the government. Many of today’s trends in China got their start after the Cultural Revolution wiped its culture and heritage from the minds of many Chinese people. Those that endured the ten year period have horrible memories, but a new found appreciation for life. Although there were many negative outcomes of the Cultural Revolution, one concept is seen in a positive light. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, healthcare and doctors were only available in the city areas of China. Consequently, millions of peasants and poor people in villages did not have access to healthcare. They only had access to rudimentary and herbal medial practices. As a direct result of the Cultural Revolution, the term “barefoot doctor” became popular. Millions of educated doctors went to the countryside as part of a movement called “down to the villages”. They had strict guidelines to serve the people of the countryside by focusing on disease prevention. These doctors were unlike any doctors the people of the countryside had seen before. They were barefoot, muddy, and callused hands. They trained healthcare workers to take preventive measures. They gave the villagers vaccinations, demonstrated the proper use of pesticides, showed them new sanitation procedures, and taught new parents how to care for their new borns. In conclusion, the Cultural Revolution was a movement that took place from 1966-1976. It was initiated by Chinese leader, Mao Zedong. The purpose of this movement was to change the traditional way of thinking many Chinese people believed in. Although the goal was never met, the Cultural Revolution did change many aspects of Chinese life. China’s borders were closed to imports from other countries. As a result, China’s industrial performance was far behind other parts of the world. Also, the closing of schools and colleges had a long lasting negative affect on the people. Without proper education, many were forced to work manual jobs. Even college educated people worked manual jobs because the country had lost value in education. Finally, and most importantly, so many lives were lost. The Red Guards took so many lives so senselessly. Any person who was believed to have views that were against what the Red Guards supported was in potential danger. At any moment they could be attacked and killed. No one was safe; the Red Guards would even kill the parents, friends, or relatives of their own or other members of the Red Guards if they did not support the movement. Works Cited Buckley, Patricia. Cultural Revolution. A visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization . The Journal of Asian Studies 46 (1992): 575-600 Fowler, Erin Malia. An exploration of the life experiences of the survivors of China’s Cultural Revolution … US: ProQuest Information & Learning. 69(2-B), 2008. p. 1323-1330. Schoenhals, Michael. Unofficial and Official Histories of the Cultural Revolution—A Review Article , The Journal of Asian Studies 48 (1989): 563-570. Tsou, Tang. The Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Reforms . Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. 1986. p. 312-333. Stuck with your Research Paper? Get in touch with one of our experts for instant help! 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Essay plans covering all of the content in Key Topic 3, ‘The Cultural Revolution and its aftermath 1966-76’ (Edexcel History A-Level) Revise all essay plan content to know all you need for the exams! Tes paid licence How can I reuse this? Get this resource as part of a bundle and save up to 17% A bundle is a package of resources grouped together to teach a particular topic, or a series of lessons, in one place. MAO'S CHINA ESSAY PLANS **FULL, DETAILED ESSAY PLANS FOR ALL OF MAO'S CHINA** This bundle covers every key topic within Mao's China with 71 (!) essay plans on all the content: 1. Establishing Communist Rule 2. Agriculture and Industry 3. Cultural Revolution 4. Social and Cultural Changes Revise this and know all the content you need for exams! Your rating is required to reflect your happiness. It's good to leave some feedback. Something went wrong, please try again later. This resource hasn't been reviewed yet To ensure quality for our reviews, only customers who have purchased this resource can review it Report this resource to let us know if it violates our terms and conditions. Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch. Not quite what you were looking for? Search by keyword to find the right resource: 368 COMMENTS Chinese Revolution essay questions This collection of Chinese Revolution essay questions has been written and compiled by Alpha History authors, for use by teachers and students. They can also be used for short-answer questions and other research or revision tasks. ... Referring to three specific events, explain how the Cultural Revolution forced ordinary people into compliance ... Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution was launched in China in 1966 by Communist leader Mao Zedong in order to reassert his authority over the Chinese government. Believing that current Communist leaders were ... Cultural Revolution Cultural Revolution, upheaval launched by Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong during his last decade in power (1966-76) to renew the spirit of the Chinese Revolution.Fearing that China would develop along the lines of the Soviet model and concerned about his own place in history, Mao threw China's cities into turmoil in a monumental effort to reverse the historic processes underway. The Cultural Revolution begins The context for the Cultural Revolution was Mao Zedong's loss of power after the disaster of the Great Leap Forward.Mao surrendered the national presidency to Liu Shaoqi (April 1959), though he remained chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Still greatly respected, Mao continued to exert considerable influence over the party and government policy, though he was not the dominant ... "Mao's Last Revolution": China's Cultural Transformation The convention for marking the end of the Cultural Revolution is less ambiguous; most link it to Mao's death in September of 1976, or to the subsequent arrest and trial of the Gang of Four, a group of political allies that included Mao's wife, Jiang Qing.. By the Communist Party's own official verdict in 1981, known as the "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party ... A New History of the Cultural Revolution, Reviewed Memoirs of the Cultural Revolution, ... An Essay on Western Masochism" (2006), and "An Imaginary Racism: Islamophobia and Guilt" (2017). ... The great question of China's Maoist experiment ... The Chinese Cultural Revolution The army pushed all the youth paramilitary groups to the rural areas, subduing the movement. 4 Out of these groups, there emerged a radical group that envisioned a new thought of the revolution. They called themselves Shengwulian and were based in Hunan Province. 5 They were opposed to both the ideologies of Mao and the other leaders of the party. 7 questions about China's Cultural Revolution answered 7 questions about China's Cultural Revolution answered Jason Ou. Updated. May 14, 2016, 10:47 AM. Published. May 13, 2016, 03:20 PM. ... The Cultural Revolution (May 1966 - October 1976) was a ... Introduction to the Cultural Revolution The "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," usually known simply as the Cultural Revolution (or the Great Cultural Revolution), was a "complex social upheaval that began as a struggle between Mao Zedong and other top party leaders for dominance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and went on to affect all of China with its call for "continuing revolution." 1 This social upheaval ... PDF The Cultural Revolution: Memories and Legacies 50 Years On Email: [email protected]. † Fudan University: [email protected]. ‡ 1 "Resolution on certain questions in the history of our Party since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Adopted by the sixth plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party " of China on 27 June 1981. PDF CULTURAL REVOLUTION AND REVOLUTIONARY CULTURE include parts of essays published in Modern China 3 (2013), 39, no. ... That is wh y at that par ticular time the event in question had global resonance, and why we should still concern ourselves with ... Cultural Revolution inevitably as "thorough negation"—that is, just what it was not, or rather, what it should not have been. ... PDF Cultural Revolution and Its Legacies in International Perspective Abstract. This article explores the rhetoric and reality of the Cultural Revolution as an international phenomenon, examining (through published and oral histories) the ways in which it was perceived and interpreted beyond China. It focuses in particular on the diverse impact of Maoist ideas and practice on the coun-terculture movement of ... Cultural Revolution in China Essay Writing Service. The Cultural Revolution or as it is known as the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" (Clark, 2008) was a socio political event that began in the People's Republic of China in 1966 and ran for ten years until 1976. The Revolution was set into motion by Mao Zedong, the leader of China and the head of the Communist ... Fifty Years Later, How Is the Cultural Revolution Still ... Fifty years ago this May 16, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a chaotic, terrifying, and often deadly decade-long campaign to "purify" C.C.P. ideology and reassert his political dominance. Despite its profound and traumatic impact on Chinese society, the legacy of the Cultural Revolution is seldom formally addressed in public ... AP World History: Modern Sample Long Essay Question Step 1: Analyze the Prompt. On the actual exam, you will read three questions and determine which you can answer most confidently. For this sample question, note that you will be evaluating how changes in the spread of ideas impacted societies. The words "changes," "impacted," and "the extent" indicate that this prompt is testing ... Cultural Revolution in China: [Essay Example], 359 words Cultural Revolution in China. The Cultural Revolution was a very important event in Chinese history. The Cultural Revolution started on October 1st, 1949. It started when Mao Zedong declared China to be formally known as the People's Republic of China or PRC. This announcement ended the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party and the ... Cultural Revolution Essays (Examples) Chinese Cultural Revolution, which began in the early 1960's and endured until the death of Mao Tse-tung, drastically altered the cultural arena of China from an agrarian system to one of modernity and acceptance by Western nations. Yet the Cultural Revolution was in effect based on communist principles which affected its ability to transcend ... Essay questions Essay Questions Some questions involve history that is not mentioned in the lectures or discussed in the seminar, but are pertinent to modern Chinese history. This should not prevent you from exploring the history further, should you wish. ... What was 'cultural' about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)? "The New Qing History ... Cultural Revolution Essay Essay on cultural revolution. The Cultural Revolution was the greatest educational incident chronicled in the last hundred years and it took place from 1966 to 1976. Mao Zedong was the leader of the Cultural Revolution and he wanted to bring about the Cultural Revolution by setting goals to form a more affective bureaucracy. China Revision Model Essays: Cultural Revolution - a success for Mao? how_accurate_is_it_to_say_that_the_cultural_revolution_was_a_success_for_mao.docx: File Size: 13 kb: File Type: docx: ... additional_essay_questions_may_2017.docx: File Size: 16 kb: File Type: docx: Download File. A2 Source Questions: Cultural Revolution, Research Paper Example The beginnings of the Cultural Revolution also known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, dates back to the early 1960s. This movement took place after the Great Leap Forward, a period of active government where more than 20 million people died. During this time Vice-Chairman Li Shaoqi and Premier Zhou Enlai wanted to assume a less ... MAO'S CHINA ESSAY PLANS: TOPIC 3 (A Level History) Age range: 16+. Resource type: Assessment and revision. File previews. docx, 50.37 KB. docx, 20.88 KB. Mao's China 1949-76 FULL, DETAILED essay plans!! Essay plans covering all of the content in Key Topic 3, 'The Cultural Revolution and its aftermath 1966-76'. (Edexcel History A-Level) Revise all essay plan content to know all you need ... PDF Global History and Geography Ii (Grade 10) Enduring Issues Essay) on this exam after each question has been rated the required number of times as specified in the rating guides, regardless of the final exam score. Schools are ... Cultural Revolution. In three decades China made itself self-suffi cient in nearly all resources and technologies. assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review speech thesis