The Causes And Impacts Of The Cultural Revolution

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

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 Cultural Revolution, which affected China from 1965 to 1968, is the name given to Mao's endeavor to proclaim his convictions in China. Mao Zedong was a Chinese Communist progressive and the establishing father of the People's Republic of China. He had a Marxist-Leninist hypothesis, military procedures, and political approaches which were known as the Mao Zedong Thought. Mao was worried about the traits of post 1959 China. He commented that the unrest had supplanted the old respectability with over again one and expected that these individuals taking in a main part would debilitate Mao's energy inside the gathering and nation. Mao trusted that with the begin of the Cultural Revolution, it would disrupt the decision class and get China to a more equivalent condition of being. August 1966 at a meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee was the initiation of the Cultural Revolution development.

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.

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 Mao, wanted to help most was the rural people or the peasants. Mao’s man desire was to create a China which had peasants, workers and educated people all working together for the greater good of China. No class of people was more privileged

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 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.

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

This constituted China's Great Leap Forward, an attempt by Mao and the State to unify the nation under a common goal in order to overthrow Great Britain and other European giants in agricultural production. Entire communities toiled vigorously in order to drastically increase China's production output and demonstrate the nation's growing prowess against the powers of the West. The Great Leap Forward, despite its disastrous failure which cost over 2 million lives, was a clear denouncement of individual freedom, instead raising the status of communities and 'awarding' collective freedom.

Between 1962 to 1976, China underwent one of the most devastating government lead social reforms, the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was a sociopolitical movement lead by Mao Zedong where his influence made many young Chinese students, who would be known as Red Guards, pledge to a social political war against capitalism. Frank Dikötter is the author of his award-winning book called The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976, where he presents The Cultural Revolution in a new light by constructing it from the perspective of the individuals who experienced it. In Dikötter’s analysis of the Revolution, he divides it into four different timeframes: the Early Years (1962-66), the Red Years (1966-68), the Black Years (1968-71),

Cultural Revolution, refers to a political movement that leads by Mao Zedong during May 1966 to October 1976. The original intention for Cultural Revolution is to prevent the restoration of capitalism. Mao want to clean the force who block the development. However, because of the failure leadership, this movement goes to a wrong way and become out of control. This ten years revolution seriously impact Chinese economic and development, it gives Communist Party and its people a big damage: school closed, factories shut down; students recruit for the “Red Guard”, they took to the streets to against democracy; millions of people involved into this revolution. It is a painful memories to Chinese. Today, some people prefer to call this revolution “Civil War”. Its influence until now. It is a war between Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi. Their struggle for power makes Chinese culture remains stagnant and fell far behind the world, and even go backwards.

The Great Leap Forward was a creative yet disastrous interruption in Chinese economic development. It is one of those "moments" in Chinese history that is the epitome of Mao Zedong's willingness to experiment, as well as his political genius in seizing control of the forms of government out of the hands of his intellectual and political adversaries within the Communist Party of China. Given that more conservative leaders, such as Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, were not in agreement with Mao on the policies of the Great Leap Forward. The implementation of these policies resulted in disaster, generating a crisis in Chinese society as well as a massive famine that would in the end be resolved in ways unfavorable to Mao's political, economic,

In 1949 a powerful communist leader by the name of Mao Zedong came to power based on his idea for a, “Great Leap Forward.” This idea was meant to bring China’s economy into the twentieth century. He had assembled a revolutionary government using traditional Chinese ideals of filial piety, harmony, and order. Mao's cult of personality, party purges, and political policies reflect Mao's esteem of these traditional Chinese ideals and history. However, the product of this revolution created a massive national shortage in vital materials and initiated a wide scale famine to China’s people (Gabriel).