Who Is Deng Xiaoping So Successful?

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).

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 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.

During the second half of the twentieth century, many citizens in China fell victim to economic and social hardships as a consequence of the Great Leap Forward. As a result, Mao Zedong was marginalized and new power arose. However, fearing that traditional chinese culture and “ bourgeois ideology” were at risk of recurrence, Mao established the Cultural Revolution as his final attempt at abolishing his concerns. The Cultural Revolution brought about many young, loyal Maoists ready to risk it all in order to establish a new regime that rid chinese society of what Mao believed to be impurities. Among these revolutionaries included Red Guards and some members of the sent-down youth. In the memoirs, Call Me Qingnian but Not Funü: A Maoist Youth in Retrospect and Images, Memories, and Lives of Sent-Down Youth in Yunnan, it is expressed that the Cultural Revolution greatly affected the lives of the revolutionaries, and although both stories entail different circumstances, the Red Guards and sent-down youth experienced both different and similar feelings of optimism as well as concern and apprehension for the future during a critical time in both chinese history and their personal lives.

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

“The Party: The Secret World Of China’s Communist Rulers,” by Richard McGregor is a book which provides detailed insight into the Communist Party of China, revealing many of the secret underpinnings of how the party is run, and explores the question of how they have continued to stay in power for so long. While other strong socialist powers, such as the Soviet Union and Eastern Germany, fell at the end of the 20th century, the CPC was able to stay in control and ultimately come out of that period even stronger. In McGregor’s own words “the party picked itself up off the ground, reconstituted its armor and reinforced its flank. Somehow, it has outlasted, outsmarted, outperformed, or simply outlawed its critics, flummoxing the pundits who have predicted its demise at numerous junctures.” Instead of letting its own ideologies weaken its power, the CPC has continually adapted and transformed its policies and goals in order to maintain their stronghold over the nation. Through his impressive list of Chinese scholars and political contacts, McGregor is able to lay out the fundamental workings inside the Chinese government and the impressive actions they’ve taken to remain such a powerful organization.

Life in China during the 1980s began to progress because of the Economic Reform in Communist China. Leaders of the communist party, Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong did not agree with each other on one major part of Chinese history, which was the Cultural Revolution. Deng disagreed with Mao on Mao’s views about the ideas of a cultural revolution in China, because he believed that it would become a negative effect on the people. Deng Xiaoping was openly critical of Mao Zedong’s ideas but Deng was also one of the leaders of the communist party, so nonetheless, he was arrested and removed from office until the end of the Cultural Revolution. A few years later, in 1976, Mao Zedong had passed away, leaving the country in despair. Deng Xiaoping rose to power and began working non-stop on economic reforms in communist China in the many years to come. Deng Xiaoping was a much more effective leader than Mao Zedong. China began growing economically and Deng provided better lives for people and created hope for his country, but his journey was not short and nor was it simple.

In 1921, the Chinese Communist party arose, bringing about the ideologies of Karl Marx, along with the removal of class exploitation and oppression. Mao’s Ideological crusade, the Cultural Revolution in 1966, was designed to jolt China back toward mass mobilization, and utopian idealism. The Cultural Revolution was, a revolution for the Communist party as it was their goal to eliminate counterrevolutionary ideology and eliminate all right-wing influence. However, Mao’s ideas of riding China of capitalistic influences with violence and retaining power by manipulation was out of tune with the ideas of the CCP because it ultimately led to a breakdown in culture, technology, and human resources through decentralization and manipulation.

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

The “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” or the “Cultural Revolution” had been a failed attempt at making China a stronger country. This revolution had destroyed China’s rich history. The period from 1966 to 1969 had been terrifying years in which the Red Guards used violence to purge China of any anti- communist sources. Mao Zedong had led the violence and turmoil in China after his failed attempt at the Great Leap Forward. He relied on China’s youth to change the traditional customs and ideas. The students carried the Cultural Revolution forward and were encouraged to attack authority. Mao said, “to rebel is justified.”(par. 2, Schell). The stated goals of the Cultural Revolution were to abolish the four olds, “old customs, old

“I don’t care if the cat is black or white, I just want it to kill the mice.” - Deng Xiaoping.