Chinese Cultural Revolution

People were so obsessed with proving their dedication to Mao that they lost sight of how irrationally they were acting. The author of The Mao Button uses extreme hyperbole to satirize this personality worship. The entire country of China lived with a deep-seated fear that their dedication to the Chairman would be called into question, and they would not be able to prove themselves - and thus would face ridicule, or the even punishment. Indeed, a mere lapel pin was enough by which to judge someone’s patriotism.

The cultural revolution is a strange period in Chinese history laced with intense struggle and anguish. The cultural revolution mobilized the all of society to compete for all opposing factions that they belonged to (Ong, 2016). Mao mobilized the young people of society during a background of political turmoil, which helped Mao to mobilize the students in order to enforce his political legitimacy and ideas (Ong, 2016). Mao’s charismatic authority created his personality cult and most defiantly leant a helping hand in mobilizing the red guard movement (Ong, 2016) (Weber, 1946) (Andreas, 2007). No matter which faction of the red guard they belonged to, they all mobilized against their common enemy; the better off, upper class. (Ong, 2016). Multiple ideologies within the youth led red guard movement explain why the movement gained momentum and became incredibly powerful (Walder, 2009).

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, beginning as a campaign targeted at removing Chairman Mao Zedong's political opponents, was a time when practically every aspect of Chinese society was in pandemonium. From 1966 through 1969, Mao encouraged revolutionary committees, including the red guards, to take power from the Chinese Communist party authorities of the state. The Red Guards, the majority being young adults, rose up against their teachers, parents, and neighbors. Following Mao and his ideas, The Red Guard's main goal was to eliminate all remnants of the old culture in China. They were the 'frontline implementers' who produced havoc, used bloody force, punished supposed 'counter

“As one of the Red Guards in the middle school, I was given power through Mao to torture and humiliate our teachers, headmaster or anyone we didn’t like. I didn’t know it was wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing to continue the revolution, to fight and win the class struggle”- Zhao, Lin Qing. As a teenager Zhao was a Red Guard in Guangzhou during the Cultural Revolution. When asked what her impression was a member of the Red Guards, Zhao answered with two words: “naïve and senseless”. She refused answering anything more about her experience. She said, “The memories are still too painful to recall.”

The launch of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1966 was due to a culmination of political and ideological struggles that had divided the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the end of the Great Leap Forward. As said by Che Guevara, “A revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall”. Che Guevara’s statement is accurate to an extent in relation to the causes of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Although China was vulnerable during the twentieth century and Mao Tse-Tung, Chairman of the CCP, took control of this susceptibility, the Chinese Cultural Revolution was already ‘ripe’, someone just had to provoke it to ‘fall’. The Chinese Cultural Revolution can be considered a power struggle between Mao and his rivals. Mao needed to regain the control that he had lost after the failure of ‘The Great Leap Forward’ and the Chinese Cultural Revolution was a means for him to do so. Mao genuinely believed in an equal society and went about this belief in a very severe manner. Che Guevara’s statement is not entirely accurate as the Chinese Cultural Revolution was just part of a progression that was taking place and although Mao provoked it to fall, China was ultimately ripe for a revolution.

The development was in a general sense about tip top legislative issues, as Mao attempted to reassert control by setting radical young people against the Communist Party pecking order. Be that as it may, it had across the board outcomes at all levels of society. Youngsters combat Mao's apparent adversaries, and each other, as Red Guards, previously being sent to the wide open in the later phases of the Cultural Revolution. Intelligent people, individuals regarded "class foes" and those with binds toward the West or the previous Nationalist government were oppressed. Numerous

Mao Zedong, the leader of China during the third quarter of the 20th century, organized two movements in his country in an attempt to develop China 's economy through the establishment of communism. Through The Great Leap Forward, Mao planned to change the layout of the Chinese economy by forcing collectivism on his country and implementing other ways to speed up production. Since this movement failed, he then implemented The Cultural Revolution. It consisted of the same goals but was carried out through violence and was also an utter failure. These two movements failed because of the lack of organization with which they were performed. This lack of organization manifested itself in a number of different ways. The government did not care about their people, the reforms themselves were not planned out in detail, the government did not think about the spontaneity of young people, they did not consider the effect violence would have on their country, they did not realize the decline in education that would result from the participation of students in the revolution, they did not plan well economically, they did not examine the negative effects of communes, and they did not foresee the large number of deaths that would plague their country. Although designed to rapidly increase China 's economic growth through communism, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution had the opposite effects and significantly diminished China 's economy. The two direct causes of the failure

The begins of Mao’s Cultural Revolution begins with the Hundred Flowers Campaign which took place during 1956-1957, the government embarks on this campaign with the hope that the tension between government and scholars can end, but this approach does not work and backfires. The next event which takes place in the Anti-Rights Campaign (1957-1958), this campaign disciplines those who spoke out during the Hundred flowers Campaign, a significant amount of people lots many jobs due to this and are sent away by government. This leads into the Great Leap Forward (1958-1959), this just happens to be one of Mao’s more intense programs of economic reform, in this program Mao’s main attempt was to modernize China’s economy, the consequence of this resulted in Mao’s having a temporary loss of power. He believed that all he needed to develop was agriculture and industry and believed that both

The Cultural Revolution was based on the belief that school should be simpler, and the more books a person read, the more unintelligent they become. Mao wanted to brainwash Chinese society and create Chinese citizens who would grow up to become uneducated and mindless. According to Jing Chang she wrote that in order to obtain absolute obedience and loyalty, one needed terror. And that's why Mao decided to use young people in their early teens and twenties because they much easier to influence and manipulate. Mao attempted to use young people and influenced them that their democratic system is unfair and succeeded in creating a group of students known as the Red Guards.

Under Mao Zedong, China experienced profound social and economic changes. Industry increased, prostitution and opium use was reduced, and many experienced an increase in social standing as land was redistributed to the peasants, prior to collectivization. But many of the policies that were enacted had negative, even disastrous consequences, which were never properly apologized for or rectified. In 1981, 5 years after Mao’s death, the Chinese Communist Party stated that Mao was essentially 70% good and 30% bad. But Mao’s disconnect from the actualities of his policies, paranoia towards his status in the Party and his public image, and lack of foresight in regards to the consequences of his decisions had extreme ramifications on China that not only led to the death of millions, but fundamentally undermined legitimacy of the government. Through the specific policies of the Hundred Flowers campaign, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s lack of understanding of his actions, and his poor treatment of those who criticized him are very apparent. And while not all of Mao’s policies and actions were disastrous, his errors outweighed his merits. In actuality, Mao’s actions were more likely 80% bad and 20% good.

Mao’s Cultural Revolution was an attempt to create a new culture for China. Through education reforms and readjustments, Mao hoped to create a new generation of Chinese people - a generation of mindless Communists. By eliminating intellectuals via the Down to the Countryside movement, Mao hoped to eliminate elements of traditional Chinese culture and create a new form Chinese culture. He knew that dumbing down the masses would give him more power so his regime would be more stable. This dramatic reform affected youth especially as they were targeted by Mao’s propaganda and influence. Drawing from his experiences as an Educated Youth who was sent down to the countryside Down to the Countryside movement, Ah Cheng wrote The King of

In the speech, Mao emphasized three major concepts: 1. Different from any other socialism revolution happened before, Chinese revolution was in form of both capitalism and socialism ideology. The revolution was initiated by elite class, representing capitalism, but promoted and developed by workers and peasants, representing communism. Mao focus discussing about it in the fifth part of speech, by directly indicating “Therefore, the proletariat, the peasantry, the intelligentsia and the other sections of the petty bourgeoisie undoubtedly constitute the basic forces determining China 's fate”. (Page 10, Mao) 2. The Chinese revolution can be broke into two parts, and these two parts must be completed step by step. Mao argued only after China finished the new democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism it could start the socialism revolution. Mao also had a famous quote describing the revolution process: “We should clean up dirt in our living room before welcoming the guest”, in which dirt symbolizes semi-colonial status from Qing dynasty and guest symbolizes the bright future for China. 3. New-democratic China should be rebuilt both politically and economically. Mao brought out his argument in fifth and sixth part of the speech, and demonstrated in the following

Over the course of Mao’s leadership from 1949 until his death in 1976 we can see the significance of his leadership and what made him a good and bad leader. Mao had made some very good decisions to help certain groups but also made some very bad decisions that paid the price, in some cases killing millions. Due to the social and economic changes that then followed by a significant increase in the population and weak leadership that led to rebellions from 1911 that saw the end of 3500years of rule by the Chinese imperial dynasties. The social and economic chaos then led to the formation of two political parties. The CCP, led by Mao Zedong and the GMD led by Chiang Kai Shek. Mao and his party defeated the GMD in 1949 bringing Mao into power. Mao’s main goal was to turn China into a pure communist country. Over the course of Mao’s leadership he did this by making significant social, economic and political changes to the Chinese way of life. However due to his poor leadership and the faults that he made it caused people to oppose him and get in the way of his goal. That is why in 1966 Mao decided to assert his beliefs through a series of decisions, which came to be known as the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was a hard time for many people throughout China as Mao enforced many things upon them to achieve his aim of removing capitalism. Mao used the youth of China to be that

The Communist fervor that gripped mainland China under Mao Zedong’s rule had lasting effects on the economy and culture. In particular, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution devastated rural and peasant populations, leading to fatal consequences for a large portion of the chinese demographic. The Great Leap Forward was an attempt at socializing the chinese economy almost ten years after the People's Republic of China was established in 1949. Property and businesses were stripped from private owners by the government and given to community leaders to run with the help of community members. Unfortunately, revolutionary passion blinded community leaders and the government. The former over reported food production while the latter continued to support a failing economic structure and policy. This lead to the Great Chinese Famine, and a decline in economic productivity and revolutionary zeal. The Great Cultural Revolution was meant to reinvigorate the revolutionary spirit. Launched several years after the failure of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution targeted the youth. A successful propaganda campaign mobilized groups of mostly disadvantaged youth (red guards) and the working class to purge those antithetical to the movement. Millions were killed in the resulting class warfare which targeted capitalists, rightists, and landlords. The effects of these influential events are still explored in modern chinese cinema many years after their occurrence. An

In Mao's era, there was also little room for free speech due to the immense censorship that pervaded the period. Individual thinking and Confucian philosophy were renounced with a youth movement, The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, to criticize everything and to revive the spirit of the revolution. Until his death in 1976, when Deng Xiao Ping took control of the Communist Party, Mao accentuated maintaining the revolutionary ideals of communal 'freedom' and the ultimate sacrifice of the individual for the enhancement of China.