Katie Zhang
Richardson
WH-II Research Paper
5 June 2015 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. When Mao Zedong was born in 1893, China was in a terrible state. The Opium War, the Open Door Policy, and the unsuccessful Boxer Revolution left China in widespread devastation. As the Qing Dynasty ended in 1912, new leaders prepared to take power (Gay 16). Two leaders that
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The Nationalists who sought power over the Communists massacred around five to six thousand Communists in Shanghai on April 12, 1927. A Civil war had broken out (Wertz). Mao fled the Nationalist purges and escaped into the mountainous region of Jianggangshang. There, Mao organized a rag-tag army composed of bandits and peasants called the Red Army. The Red Army was ill-equipped yet by using guerilla warfare and Mao’s battle slogans, “When the enemy advances, we retreat! When the enemy halts and encamps, we trouble them! When the enemy seeks to avoid a battle, we attack! When the enemy retreats, we pursue,” the Red Army was able to gain territory from the KMT from 1930 to 1934 (Gay 36). However, by the end of 1934, the KMT surrounded the Red Army and they were forced to retreat. For a six thousand miles journey from the Jiangxi Province to the Shaanxi Province, the Red Army marched to save themselves from the KMT. This trek was known as the Long March. Out of the estimated one hundred to two hundred thousand soldiers that marched, only seven to eight thousand survived (Gay 39). When the Red Army arrived at their destination at Shaanxi, Japan had taken advantage of the civil war and had invaded and occupied all of Manchuria, a mineral rich land in northern China (Malaspina 57). As Japanese troops moved south, the Red Army temporarily combined forces with the KMT to fight off Japan. Yet even with combined forces, the
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 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.
China has changed in certain ways and remained the same in others from the early Golden Ages to the late 1900s. China has experienced a series of cultural and political transformations, shaping the lives of many Chinese citizens. Culturally, the country’s art and literature hardly changed for almost eight hundred years. Along with their culture, China remained politically the same from the beginning of the Golden Ages all the way until the 1800s. On the other hand, China’s government and society were restructured after new leaders took over. From a monarch to total communism, China’s society had a multitude of new ideas and policies they had to adapt to.
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 purpose of this investigation is to examine the extent to which the Chinese Cultural Revolution impacted China’s economy from 1966 to 1970. The main body of the investigation will focus on the persecution and violence towards high-level party officials and capitalists by the Red Guards and the “Destroy the Four Olds” campaign. The “Destroy the Four Olds” campaign was significant because it inhibited industrial and agricultural innovation and production of an entire country for a decade as it placed the country’s economy and industry into the hands of inexperienced revolutionaries. Two sources that will be used will be China: A New History and Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present, and they will be evaluated in regards to their purpose, value, and limitations. An analysis of these sources and the evidence will be used to form a conclusion as to how and to what extent the revolution impacted the Chinese economy.
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.
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 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
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
The main reason why the Communists came to power in China was because of the failing policies and actions used by Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalists) of which the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) took advantage. However in addition to that, there were also significant factors such as the poor conditions during the beginning of the twentieth century in the Republic of China and the Japanese War (1937 1945), that led to the insufficiency and weakness of the GMD (Chinese Democratic Party) during the Civil War. Their leader, Chiang Kai-Shek, lost the support of the majority, mainly peasants and intellectuals, to the CCP, which contributed to their success in war. In addition to GMD's actions, Mao
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
Later Japanese intervention of Manchuria saved the Communist Party, forcing the Kuomintang to decide their priorities: Declare war to Japan or put all effort in defeating the CCP. As they prioritized crushing the Communist Party, they were seen as unpatriotic and traitors, enabling Japanese forces to penetrate deep into the country, summiting locals to torture and humiliation, creating hate towards the Chinese government as they were blamed for their miserable living standards. Furthermore, the Nationalists located in Northern areas had to face war on two fronts, weakening final attack on CCP. Being able to survive several extermination campaigns starting in 1928 by the Nationalists, they used the excellent opportunity such as with the warlords to boost their popularity and nationalism by defeating and reconquering Japanese areas by using cautious guerrilla tactics and finally the Hundred Regiments Battle campaign in 1940, saving local peasants, who would get land due to the ambitious Land Reform from Japanese influence and Kuomintang´s incompetence. Without foreign intervention, it would have been more complex to get in power, as the country would have lacked of instability with the warlord era and the Kuomintang would possibly have had defeated the CCP, saving them from a two-front war and people´s discontent of
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).