The Cultural Revolution (full name: Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) Page 9
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a mass mobilisation campaign launched by Mao Zedong in May 1966. Mao announced that there was a need to promote 'true' Communist ideology in the country by purging (getting rid of) any capitalist and traditional elements in Chinese society. The campaign attacked both “bourgeois” (middle-class) culture and traditional Chinese culture and promoted a new anti-elitist people’s culture. (“Proletarian” refers to the ordinary, working people.)
Mao used the Cultural Revolution as a way to re-assert his power over the Chinese Communist Party. Mao was chairman of the CCP and was honoured as China’s ‘Great Helmsman’ (a helmsman is the person who steers a ship), but he had been sidelined after the disastrous Great Leap Forward and no longer held complete political control over China’s communist government. With the help of his supporters, especially his wife Jiang Qing and his Minister of Defence, Lin Biao, Mao was able to destroy his enemies by unleashing the Chinese masses on the CCP and urging them to purify its ranks.
In 1966 Mao claimed that there were people in the Communist government who were “taking the capitalist road”. To eliminate his rivals within the Communist Party Mao insisted that these “capitalist-roaders” needed to be removed through violent class struggle. Mao appealed to the youth (who had grown up under Communist party rule and had been indoctrinated to believe in communism) to lead the attack on so-called ‘class enemies’, ‘capitalist roaders’ and ‘revisionists’ (people accused revising/challeging the principles of true communism).
China's youth responded to Mao's appeal, in schools and universities across the country militant students set up student militias called the Red Guard (a militia is a military group set up by civilians). The Red Guards wore a military style olive green uniform with red armbands. Mao and his supporters (like his wife Jiang Qing and Defence Minister, Lin Biao ) used speeches and propaganda to urge the young Red Guards to attack anyone in authority e.g. teachers, parents, intellectuals, scientists, civil servants and doctors. Millions of people were subjected to public humiliation, imprisonment and torture, and many were executed. At least a million people died as a result of the Cultural Revolution (from torture/ill-treatment, execution and suicide).
The Red Guards were told to “clear away the evil habits of the old society” by destroying the ‘Four Olds’: old ideas, old customs, old culture and old traditions. Anything to do with Imperial China was attacked and often destroyed. Historical relics, art, sculpture and antiques were destroyed. Historical landmarks, temples and palaces were ransacked and vandalised. The campaign also targeted anything Western and Western music (like Mozart) as well as Western plays and books were destroyed and banned.
Right: This propaganda poster from 1967 shows a Red Guard smashing symbols of old culture and customs such as a Buddha and classical Chinese texts. Symbols of Western culture like a crucifix and an LP record are also being destroyed. The caption is: “Scatter the old world, build a new world.”
In August 1966 Mao announced that the communist government of China had become a “bourgeois dictatorship” and he called on the Red Guard to “Bombard the Headquarters”. A mass purge of the CCP leadership was unleashed: from senior government officials, to local CCP leaders and officials in the countryside, nobody was safe from being denounced and arrested by the Red Guard. In Beijing, Red Guards surrounded the government compound and arrested Mao’s political rivals, President Liu Shaoqi (pronounced “Leo Shau-Chee”) and Deng Xiaoping (CCP General Secretary). Liu died in prison in 1969 but Deng survived being purged during the Cultural Revolution and he became leader of China after the death of Mao in 1976*. (*Deng ruled China from 1978 to 1989.) Page 10 From August to November 1966 an estimated 13 million Red Guards travelled to the capital, Beijing, to attend massive rallies in Tiananmen Square where Mao would appear before his supporters. The final rally saw an estimated 2.5 million Red Guards in attendance. The Red Guards were fanatically loyal to Mao Zedong and this was encouraged by the promotion of a cult of personality around Mao. Posters, pictures and statues of Mao were put up everywhere and the people were indoctrinated to worship Mao as a god-like figure. More than a billion copies of a book containing the “Thoughts of Mao Zedong” were printed so that all citizens could study Mao’s ideas. This pocket-sized collection of quotations from Mao had a red cover and was nicknamed the “Little Red Book” in the West. It soon became a political bible and its reading and recital became a daily ritual. People would carry the little red book everywhere and studied it religiously; they could get into trouble for showing disrespect for the book or for misquoting it.
Left: A photograph of Red Guards reading Mao's Little Red Book in 1966.
The Cultural Revolution brought enormous turmoil to China. After the initial explosion of student Red Guard activity, workers also formed Red Guard divisions and China was plunged into political unrest as rival factions of the Red Guard battled it out in cities across the country. In late 1967 Mao got Lin Biao to send in army troops to restore order. Amid the chaos, the Chinese economy plummeted, with industrial production for 1968 dropping 12 % below that of 1966.
Meanwhile, China's education system was severely disrupted. In the early months of the Cultural Revolution, all schools and universities were closed. Primary and middle schools later gradually reopened, but colleges and universities were closed until 1970, and most universities did not reopen until 1972.
By late 1968 Mao realised his Cultural Revolution had spiralled out of control. In a bid to stop the violence and rein in the Red Guards, Mao decided to send millions of urban youth down to the countryside for “re-education”. In 1968, the Communist Party began the “Down to the Countryside Movement” in which urban, high school students were sent to live and work with the peasants in the rural areas. Between 1968 and 1979, 17 million urban teenagers were sent to the countryside where they did manual labour and were deprived of the opportunity of higher education. Mao officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, but it only really came to an end when he died on 9 September 1976 at the age of 82. A month after Mao’s death his widow, Jiang Qing, and three other communist leaders who wanted to carry on the Cultural Revolution, (they were nicknamed “Gang of Four”), were arrested. The members of the “Gang of Four” were tried publically and were imprisoned after being found guilty of masterminding the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. By blaming the Cultural Revolution on the “Gang of Four”, the Communist Party avoided discrediting Mao who remained a powerful force even after his death. (Mao’s body was embalmed and is still on public display in the mausoleum in Tiananmen Square.) When Deng Xiaoping became leader of China in 1978 he gradually began to dismantle the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution. In 1981, the Chinese Communist Party officially admitted that the Cultural Revolution was "responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People's Republic."