Cultural Revolution Mao Zedong

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 habits.

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.

When he put himself as the leader of China, he renamed the country, “The people's republic of China”. In 1958, Zedong wanted a more Chinese form of communism, so he launched “The Great Leap Forward”. This was an attempt to improve agricultural and industrial production, which were major parts of the Communism promise. Soon, his idea led to poor harvests, famine and the deaths of millions. Mao Zedong’s leadership position was weakened. In order to reactivate his power, Mao Zedong called for a cultural revolution.” He said, “If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.” -Mao Zedong. (brainyquotes.com). In the cultural revolution, he wanted to purge his country of all its impure elements, and renovate the revolutionary spirit and build support of Communist principles. In the process, he killed one and a half million people. One year after, 1967, cities were on the verge of anarchy, Chairman Mao sent in the army to restore order. Zedong started to feel pressure from other countries to stop treating his citizens badly, so he looked for a way to make himself look better. He decided to meet with the American President Nixon, as China and America are complete opposites, in terms of government, and try build a bridge to establish peace and show how

2.Sun Yat-Sen’s collaboration with CCP and Comintern was aimed at ending the warlords’ dominance sphere. Because of this, Sun’s political stance became more militaristic and leftist tone.

In the year of 1966 the “almighty” Chairman Mao introduced the Cultural Revolution to the people of China. In 1976 Chairman Mao died and so did the revolution because it was all based off what Mao believed was right. Throughout the revolution Mao targeted anything that could prove his beliefs wrong, therefore, certain education, cultures, careers, class status, and habits were banned or changed overall. Chairman Mao was not just trying to reshape China but its society and everything it involved.

The nineteen-sixties were a turbulent time in history, with several social movements taking place; ranging from the Civil Rights Movement to the protests led by university students against the Vietnam War and other social injustices to Second Wave Feminism. These three social movements called for a change of values within the United States; whether that is removing racial discrimination from the United States or changing the way that women are viewed within the country. Each of these movements want to change the culture within the United States for a more “American” and democratic nation. They called for a change within the mindset of Americans during this time. These movements had led to a change to the culture of the United States of America, these changes ranged from political changes to the views Americans had on certain peers within the nation.

Imagine somewhere that was the opposite of what you know now. Picture children not being able to have futures from birth because their ancestors made a small mistake, smoking since you were 8 as one of the few ways to pass time, and constantly being controlled by a corrupt government. This was China under the Cultural Revolution and reign of Mao Zedong. During this era, a person with traditional political or religious views struggled incredibly. Mao Zedong attacked traditional Chinese culture and “launched what became known as the Cultural Revolution 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” (History.com “Cultural Revolution”). Essentially, Mao was about crushing all of the Communist Party’s enemies so that he could have all the power. The propaganda during the Cultural Revolution was very reflective of its ideals. Mao Zedong tried to make people think that he was for the people. For example, the picture below shows the government and the people forcefully throwing out the capitalists. These images make it seem like the government is kicking out the capitalists, not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of the people. The people shown are also average farmers (like Da Chen’s family) using their own tools to get rid of the enemies, with the government using its

China and Oceania are strikingly similar to each other. However, both countries are ruled by two different political ideologies. To this day in China, the government organizes themselves under the Communist party. Communism is, in theory, a classless society in which all wealth and property are owned by the community as a whole, although in reality, there are few variations of this definition as every society is different. Every building and plot of land is owned by the community. The true goal of communism is to have a society without rulers, but Mao Zedong forged his own path and abandoned this principle. When Mao Zedong gained control over China, he first hunted down the remaining nationalists, capitalists, and landlords in a period

The Cultural Revolution had a massive impact on China from 1965 to 1968. The Cultural Revolution is the name given to Mao’s attempt to reassert his beliefs in China. Mao had not been a very self-motivated leader from the late 1950’s on, and feared others in the party might be taking on a leading role that weakened his power within the party and the country. Basically, the Cultural Revolution was a failed attempt by Mao to re-impose his authority on the party and therefore, the country as well. Not only did the Cultural Revolution have a massive impact on China, but many other countries as well. Having a huge tragedy like the CR in history, we have to face and learn from it to avoid an event like this from repeating itself in the future.

After the WWII alliance with the Soviet Union collapsed in mutual distrust, the administration of Harry Truman began a policy of “Containment.” This meant checking on perceived communist aggression anywhere in the world. While seeking to prevent Communist ideology from gaining further adherents in Europe, the United States also responded to challenges elsewhere. In China, Americans worried about the advances of Mao Zedong and his Communist Party. During World War II, the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist forces waged a civil war even as they fought the Japanese. Chiang had been a war-time ally, but his government was hopelessly inefficient and corrupt. American policy makers had little hope of saving his regime

However, the trend of domestic instability continued with the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, in which attempts to remove class differences became catastrophic for the country’s economy, culture, and education. It also led to tremendous political upheaval due to a score of “counter revolutionary” party members and intellectuals being persecuted and tortured by the Red Guards (Wang 29). Mao’s ineffective and often harsh domestic policies left the country in chaos until Deng Xiaoping came into power (Lin 205). China’s turbulent domestic situation also resulted in a 30-year period of isolation, in which there was no foreign economic presence whatsoever (Lin 203).

The Cultural Revolution was a period of loss for China; 1.5 million lives were lost, but even more lost their property, their dignity, and their culture. The instigator of this period of devastation, Mao Zedong, crippled China (“Cultural Revolution”). Mao, the most influential man in Chinese history, was able to obtain power through repressive campaigns and his ruthless Red Guard supporters.

A tyrant and an oppressor, a leader with complete control of a country, a dictator. In order to obtain, maintain, and take advantage of their power, a dictator must relate to a group of citizens, distribute written propaganda, and indoctrinate the next generation.

The ten-year Cultural Revolution, in essence, was a political power struggle inside of the CCP, and as Mao died on September 9 1976, the Gang of Four was arrested soon on October 10. Since Mao’s successor Hua Guofeng was politically weak, Deng Xiaoping came back to power. Though the new leaders tried to help China recover from the revolution and rebuild the economic systems, the influences of the revolution did not vanish quickly. The Party had to deal with the mistakes that Mao made during the revolution, make the resolution on the revolution, and formulated the new road that the country should follow. Other than the political struggles that the Party faced, the society also created troubles. The intellectuals, especially the sent-down youths who illegally came back to cities, were excited and looking forward to a democratic government, and they again started to criticize the government and commented on the politics just like their predecessors did in the Hundred Flowers Campaign. However, this situation did not satisfy Deng, who emphasized that the correct line for China was to insist the absolute principle of the Party (Meisner, 457), and he then decided to consolidate his power. In general, though Cultural Revolution ended, the political struggles that it represented never stopped, and would be continued for years.

Zedong initiated a series of revolutions to change the way China ran, the final being the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution starting in 1966 and ending in 1976 (1). The goal of this investigation is to determine Mao Zedong’s motives as a leader to initiate such a movement that ended up with the loss of culture, struggle between social classes, force of government, and the loss of human life (2). This investigation will describe Mao as a person, China as a country, the Cultural Revolution as a movement, and the results following the movement for Mao Zedong and China, to tell whether or not the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a good thing or bad thing, as well as if it was a success or failure.