The Cultural Revolution : How Disillusioned People Became Because Of Chinese Propaganda

The autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer written by Li Cunxin, is effective in raising awareness of the injustice the Chinese people experienced during Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and later communist policies in China. When Li’s parents got married in 1946, they were not living in poverty. However, when the Japanese invaded China during WWII and forced all the civilians into communes, Mao then kept these communes and the Li family lost their wealth—they faced injustice and marginalisation. The Chinese population were marginalised by Mao’s use of communist principles and propaganda. They were forced into believing Mao’s views—that the West (Capitalist countries) were filthy and bad, while China was good. Li’s visit to America was an eye-opener.

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).

Also according to document #5: after Mao Zedong’s rise to power he had set up and launched a 5-year plan from the years 1953-1958. His goal was to get rid of China’s dependence on agriculture to become a “world Power”. He had run manipulate campaigns to manipulate the people to doing and agreeing with what he wanted to g=do by doing “flower campaigns” and “supposed” (hypothetical) willingness to peoples different opinions, showing how he is just tricking people in to doing as he say and pretend to care for the people! Also doc 5 states “Given the freedom to express themselves, some Chinese began openly opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership”. Meaning that the people were speaking their mind and often speaking the truth about the ways of the communist party which werent always positive notes. However, later on just after a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and punished anyone who criticized or was accused to have criticized the Communist Party. And the numbers/amount were believed to be as high as 500,000 people. Showing that Mao was evil because he didn’t want people speaking

Bob Fu conveys clearly the inexorable control that Communist leaders in China have over their people. For example, after Fu and his friends participated in the Tiananmen Square protests, Fu was coerced, day in day out, to write a confession of his purported misdeeds against China and her people as a “counterrevolutionary” (79-82, 85, 87).

“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 method applied by Zedong focused on uniting China under one belief in order to implement communist ideas in the country, widely changing the country’s structure. (Doc 7). At his defense trial, Cuban revolution leader Fidel Castro appealed to those struggling in his country. He spoke to those who hoped for a brighter future and who have been betrayed by their country. By addressing their battle, Castro urged them to fight for a better Cuba. His relentless and undying commitment ultimately granted Castro his wish for a revolution. (Doc 8). An additional document consisting of a diary entry from a Chinese citizen during the communist revolution would create a clearer vision as to how convincing Mao Zedong truly was.

Even with her previous experiences at Beijing University and at Big Joy Farm, Wong still held some belief that the Chinese system wasn’t as bad as it was sometimes made out to be. This event proved to her that it was. “The enormity of the massacre hit home…Although it had been years since I was a Maoist, I still had harbored some small hope for China. Now even that was gone” (259). As a reporter Wong was able to view the progression of the protests in leading up to the massacre, and in viewing it understood that the Chinese people were much more independent than they had previously demonstrated over the past 50 years. She had continuously seen the Chinese people following what they were told between learning in school or with physical labor, yet this protest was one of the first large scale displays of the unacceptance of the regime by the people, and the government did not know what to do with it. But because of this, Wong was able to recognize that the people were not reliant on this way of life that they had previously been bound to, but truly could lead for themselves and take control. The massacre awakened Wong both to the reality that the government was not acting to benefit the people, and that the people were more than capable of acting for

Originally, Liang’s “parents were deeply involved in all the excitement of working to transform China into a great Socialist country” (4). Over a serious of unfortunate events, though, he became the child of a “Rightist’s cap” mother and a “Reactionary Capitalist stinking intellectuals” father (9, 51). Impacted by the shattering of his family and horrific bloodshed created by fighting, Liang Heng began to question the Cultural Revolution. He claimed that his “family had scarified so much… but it had given [them] nothing in return” (148). Liang Heng presents his shift in ideology to demonstrate that most Chinese were no longer in support of a Communist nation. His “troubles were common enough and anyone could see there was a discrepancy between the glorious words of the newspapers and [their] painful reality (232). Even Liang Heng’s father, after many years of devotion, found that he could no longer defend the Party’s policies after he experienced the ill-treatment of the peasants in the country

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 Sun of the Revolution by Liang Heng, is intriguing and vivid, and gives us a complex and compelling perspective on Chines culture during a confusing time period. We get the opportunity to learn the story of a young man with a promising future, but an unpleasant childhood. Liang Heng was exposed to every aspect of the Cultural Revolution in China, and shares his experiences with us, since the book is written from Liang perspective, we do not have a biased opinion from an elite member in the Chinese society nor the poor we get an honest opinion from the People’s Republic of China. Liang only had the fortunate opportunity of expressing these events due his relationship with his wife, An American woman whom helps him write the book. When

There is, on the other hand, much evidence to support that the campaign was a genuine attempt at reform. In his ‘Contradictions’ speech, given to leading party workers in early 1957, Mao complained of the oppressive way some party officials were applying policies and hinted that it was time to begin permitting intellectuals to voice their opinions. Furthermore, in 1956, he had been tolerant of Hu Feng, a writer who challenged the idea that all artistic merit should be judged based on Marxist-Leninist values, even as other CCP leaders viciously censured him. These two examples show that Mao, although previously disdainful of intellectuals, may have begun to see their importance, and thus may have been honestly inviting their criticism when the Hundred Flowers Campaign began.

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

Although there are some similarities between the messages given to youth during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and kids today, there are many more differences. One example of this is kids during the Chinese Cultural Revolution was encouraged to disrespect your teachers and elders while kids today are encouraged to respect their teachers and elders. The evidence of this is kids during the Chinese Cultural Revolution was supposed to write da-zi-bao to criticize their educational system. They wrote one criticizing Ji-Li’s aunt and forced her to read it to everyone. It said bad things about her such as ‘The more you try to improve your outward appearance, the filthier your heart is. Your black bourgeois bones are clearly visible to our proletarian

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