Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian

Cultural Revolution, was a violent sociopolitical purge movement Cultural Revolution
in China from 1966 until 1976. Launched by Mao Zedong,
Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and founder of
the People's Republic of China (PRC), its stated goal was to
preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and
traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Mao
Zedong Thought (known outside China as Maoism) as the dominant
ideology in the PRC. The Revolution marked Mao's return to the
central position of power in China after a period of less radical
leadership to recover from the failures of the Great Leap Forward,
which contributed to the Great Chinese Famine only five years Cultural Revolution propaganda poster.
prior. It depicts Mao Zedong, above a group
of soldiers from the People's Liberation
Launching the movement in May 1966 with the help of the Cultural
Revolution Group, Mao soon called on young people to "bombard Army. The caption reads, "The Chinese
the headquarters", and proclaimed that "to rebel is justified". In People's Liberation Army is the great
order to eliminate his rivals within the CCP and in schools, factories, school of Mao Zedong Thought."
and government institutions, Mao charged that bourgeois elements Duration 16 May 1966 –
had infiltrated the government and society with the aim of restoring 6 October 1976 (10 years
capitalism. He insisted that revisionists be removed through violent
and 143 days)
class struggle, to which China's youth, as well as urban workers,
responded by forming Red Guards and "rebel groups" around the Location People's Republic of China
country. They would begin to hold struggle sessions regularly, and Motive Preserve Chinese
grab power from local governments and CCP branches, eventually communism by purging
establishing the revolutionary committees in 1967. The groups often remnants of capitalist and
split into rival factions, however, becoming involved in 'violent
struggles' (simplified Chinese: 武⽃ ; traditional Chinese:武⾾ ;
traditional elements from
Mainland China's Chinese
pinyin: wǔdòu), to which the People's Liberation Army had to be
sent to restore order. society.
Outcome Economic activity halted,
Having compiled a selection of Mao's sayings into the Little Red historical and cultural
Book, which became a sacred text for Mao's personality cult, Lin
material destroyed.
Biao, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, was written
into the constitution as Mao's successor. Mao declared the Deaths Hundreds of thousands to
Revolution over in 1969, but the Revolution's active phase would millions of civilian, Red
last until at least 1971, when Lin Biao, accused of a botched coup Guards and military deaths
against Mao, fled and died in a plane crash. In 1972, the Gang of (exact number not known)
Four rose to power and the Cultural Revolution continued until
Property Cemetery of Confucius,
Mao's death and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976.
damage Temple of Heaven, Ming
The Cultural Revolution damaged China's economy and traditional Tombs
culture, with an estimated death toll ranging from hundreds of Arrests Jiang Qing, Zhang
thousands to 20 million.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Beginning with the Red Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan,
August of Beijing, massacres took place across mainland China, and Wang Hongwen
including the Guangxi Massacre, in which massive cannibalism also
arrested aftermath.
occurred;[7][8] the Inner Mongolia incident; the Guangdong
Massacre; the Yunnan Massacres; and the Hunan Massacres. Cultural Revolution
Red Guards destroyed historical relics and artifacts, as well as
ransacking cultural and religious sites. The 1975 Banqiao
Chinese ⼤⾰
Dam failure, one of the world's greatest technological Literal meaning "Great Cultural
catastrophes, also occurred during the Cultural Revolution. Revolution"
Meanwhile, tens of millions of people were persecuted: Transcriptions
senior officials, most notably Chinese president Liu Shaoqi,
Standard Mandarin
along with Deng Xiaoping, Peng Dehuai, and He Long,
were purged or exiled; millions were accused of being Hanyu Pinyin Wénhuà dàgémìng
members of the Five Black Categories, suffering public Bopomofo ㄨㄣˊㄏㄨㄚˋ ㄉㄚˋㄍㄜˊㄇ
humiliation, imprisonment, torture, hard labor, seizure of
property, and sometimes execution or harassment into suicide;
ㄧㄥˋ
intellectuals were considered the "Stinking Old Ninth" and Gwoyeu Wenhuah dahgerminq
were widely persecuted—notable scholars and scientists such Romatzyh
as Lao She, Fu Lei, Yao Tongbin, and Zhao Jiuzhang were Wade–Giles Wen2-hua4 ta4-ko2-ming4
killed or committed suicide. Schools and universities were IPA [wə̌ nxwâ tâkɤ̌mîŋ]
closed with the college entrance exams cancelled. Over
10 million urban intellectual youths were sent to the Wu
countryside in the Down to the Countryside Movement. Romanization Ven平ho du keh min
Hakka
In 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the new paramount leader
of China and started the "Boluan Fanzheng" program which Pha̍ k-fa-sṳ Vùn-fa thai-kiet-min
gradually dismantled the Maoist policies associated with the Yue: Cantonese
Cultural Revolution, and brought the country back to order. Yale Màhn-faa daaih-gaak-mihng
Deng then began a new phase of China by initiating the
Romanization
historic Reforms and Opening-Up program. In 1981, the
CCP declared that the Cultural Revolution was "responsible Jyutping Man4-faa3 daai6-gaak3-
for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered ming6
by the Party, the country, and the people since the founding Southern Min
of the People's Republic."[9][10][11]
Hokkien POJ Bûn-hoà tāi-kek-bēng
Eastern Min
Fuzhou BUC Ùng-huá dâi gáik-mêng
Contents
Formal name
Background
Great Leap Forward
Simplified Chinese 产阶级 ⼤⾰
Sino-Soviet split and anti-revisionism Traditional Chinese ⼤⾰
Precursor Literal meaning "Great Proletarian
Early stage: mass movement (1966–68) Cultural Revolution"
May 16 Notification Transcriptions
Early mass rallies (May–June 1966) Standard Mandarin
"Bombard the headquarters" (July 1966) Hanyu Pinyin Wúchǎnjiējí wénhuà dàgémìng
Red August and the Sixteen Points (August Bopomofo ㄨˊㄔㄢˇㄐㄧㄝˉㄐㄧˊ ㄨㄣˊㄏ
1966)
Destruction of the Four Olds
ㄨㄚˋ ㄉㄚˋㄍㄜˊㄇㄧㄥˋ
IPA [ǔʈʂʰàntɕjétɕǐ wə̌ nxwâ tâkɤ̌mîŋ]
Central Work Conference (October 1966)
Radicals seized power (1967) Wu
Political purges and "Down to the Countryside" Romanization Vu平tshae上cia平cih ven平ho
(1968) du keh min
Cleansing the Class Ranks (May–Sept.) Hakka
 Down to the Countryside Movement Pha̍ k-fa-sṳ Vû-sán-kiê-kip vùn-fa thai-kiet-
(December 1968) min
"Mango fever" and Mao's cult of personality Yue: Cantonese
(August 1968)
Jyutping Mou4-caan2 gaai1-kap1 man4-
Lin Biao phase (1969–71) faa3 daai6 gaak3-ming6
Transition of power (April 1969)
Southern Min
PLA gains pre-eminent role (1970)
Hokkien POJ Bû-sán-kai-kip bûn-hòa tōa
Restoration of Presidency (State Chairman)
kek-bēng
Flight of Lin Biao (September 1971)
Death Eastern Min
Fuzhou BUC Ù-sāng-găi-ngék ùng-huá dâi
"Gang of Four" (1972–76)
gáik-mêng
Antagonism towards Zhou and Deng (1972–73)
Deng's rehabilitation and economic
reconstruction (1975)
Death of Zhou Enlai (early 1976)
Tiananmen Incident (Apr. 1976)
Death of Mao and Arrest of the Gang of Four
(Sept. 1976)
Aftermath
Transition period
Deng Xiaoping invalidated the Cultural
Revolution
Humanitarian crisis
Death toll
Massacres and cannibalism
Violent Struggles, Struggle sessions, and purges
Ethnic minorities
Cultural impact and influence
Red Guards riot
Academics and education
Slogans and rhetoric
Arts and literature
Propaganda art
Historical relics
Foreign relations
Public views
Communist Party opinions
Alternative opinions in China
Contemporary China
Contemporary Discussions of Mao Zedong's
Legacy
Outside mainland China
Academic debate
See also
References
 Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
General
Specific topics
Commentaries
Fictional treatments
Memoirs by Chinese participants
Films set in the Cultural Revolution
External links

Background

Great Leap Forward

In 1958, after China's first Five-Year Plan, Mao called for "grassroots socialism" in order to accelerate his plans
for turning China into a modern industrialized state. In this spirit, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward,
established People's Communes in the countryside, and began the mass mobilization of the people into
collectives. Many communities were assigned production of a single commodity—steel. Mao vowed to increase
agricultural production to twice that of 1957 levels.[12]

The Great Leap was an economic failure. Many uneducated farmers

People in the countryside working at
night to produce steel during the
Great Leap Forward
were pulled from farming and harvesting and instead instructed to
produce steel on a massive scale, partially relying on backyard furnaces
to achieve the production targets set by local cadres. The steel produced
was of low quality and mostly useless. The Great Leap reduced harvest
sizes and led to a decline in the production of most goods except
substandard pig iron and steel. Furthermore, local authorities frequently
exaggerated production numbers, hiding and intensifying the problem
for several years.[13][14]:25–30 In the meantime, chaos in the collectives,
bad weather, and exports of food necessary to secure hard currency
resulted in the Great Chinese Famine. Food was in desperate shortage,
and production fell dramatically. The famine caused the deaths of more
than 30 million people, particularly in the more impoverished inland
regions.[15]

The Great Leap's failure reduced Mao's prestige within the Party. Forced to take major responsibility, in 1959,
Mao resigned as the President of China, China's de jure head of state, and was succeeded by Liu Shaoqi, while
Mao remained as Party chairman and Commander-in-chief. In July, senior Party leaders convened at the scenic
Mount Lu to discuss policy. At the conference, Marshal Peng Dehuai, the Minister of Defence, criticized Great
Leap policies in a private letter to Mao, writing that it was plagued by mismanagement and cautioning against
elevating political dogma over the laws of economics.[13]

Despite the moderate tone of Peng's letter, Mao took it as a personal attack against his leadership.[14]:55
Following the Conference, Mao had Peng removed from his posts, and accused him of being a "right-
opportunist". Peng was replaced by Lin Biao, another revolutionary army general who became a more staunch
Mao supporter later in his career. While the Lushan Conference served as a death knell for Peng, Mao's most
vocal critic, it led to a shift of power to moderates led by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, who took effective
control of the economy following 1959.[13]

By the early 1960s, many of the Great Leap's economic policies were reversed by initiatives spearheaded by
Liu, Deng, and Premier Zhou Enlai. This moderate group of pragmatists were unenthusiastic about Mao's
utopian visions. Owing to his loss of esteem within the party, Mao developed a decadent and eccentric
lifestyle.[16] By 1962, while Zhou, Liu and Deng managed affairs of state and the economy, Mao had
effectively withdrawn from economic decision-making, and focused much of his time on further contemplating
his contributions to Marxist–Leninist social theory, including the idea of "continuous revolution".[14]:55

Sino-Soviet split and anti-revisionism

In the early 1950s, the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union (USSR) were the two largest
Communist states in the world. Although initially they had been mutually supportive, disagreements arose after
the death of Joseph Stalin and the rise of Nikita Khrushchev to power in the Soviet Union. In 1956, Khrushchev
denounced Stalin and his policies, and began implementing post-Stalinist economic reforms. Mao and many
other members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) opposed these changes, believing that they would have
negative repercussions for the worldwide Marxist movement, among whom Stalin was still viewed as a
hero.[17]:4–7

Mao believed that Khrushchev did not adhere to Marxism–Leninism, but was instead a revisionist, altering his
policies from basic Marxist–Leninist concepts, something Mao feared would allow capitalists to regain control
of the country. Relations between the two governments soured. The USSR refused to support China's case for
joining the United Nations and reneged on its pledge to supply China with a nuclear weapon.[17]:4–7

Mao went on to publicly denounce revisionism in April 1960. Without pointing fingers at the Soviet Union,
Mao criticized its ideological ally, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. In turn, the USSR criticized
China's ally the Party of Labour of Albania.[17]:7 In 1963, the CCP began to denounce the Soviet Union openly,
publishing nine polemics against its perceived revisionism, with one of them being titled On Khrushchev's
Phoney Communism and Historical Lessons for the World, in which Mao charged that Khrushchev was not
only a revisionist but also increased the danger of capitalist restoration.[17]:7 Khrushchev's downfall from an
internal coup d'état in 1964 also contributed to Mao's fears of his own political vulnerability, mainly because of
his declining prestige among his colleagues after the Great Leap Forward.[17]:7

Precursor

In 1963, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement, which is regarded as the precursor of the Cultural
Revolution.[18] Mao had set the scene for the Cultural Revolution by "cleansing" powerful officials of
questionable loyalty who were based in Beijing. His approach was less than transparent, achieving this purge
through newspaper articles, internal meetings, and by skillfully employing his network of political allies.[18]

In late 1959, historian and Beijing Deputy Mayor Wu Han published a historical drama entitled Hai Rui
Dismissed from Office. In the play, an honest civil servant, Hai Rui, is dismissed by a corrupt emperor. While
Mao initially praised the play, in February 1965, he secretly commissioned his wife Jiang Qing and Shanghai
propagandist Yao Wenyuan to publish an article criticizing it.[17]:15–8 Yao boldly alleged that Hai Rui was really
an allegory attacking Mao; that is, Mao was the corrupt emperor, and Peng Dehuai was the honest civil
servant.[17]:16

Yao's article put Beijing Mayor Peng Zhen[i] on the defensive. Peng, a powerful official and Wu Han's direct
superior, was the head of the "Five Man Group", a committee commissioned by Mao to study the potential for a
cultural revolution. Peng Zhen, aware that he would be implicated if Wu indeed wrote an "anti-Mao" play,
wished to contain Yao's influence. Yao's article was initially only published in
select local newspapers. Peng forbade its publication in the nationally
distributed People's Daily and other major newspapers under his control,
instructing them to write exclusively about "academic discussion," and not pay
heed to Yao's petty politics.[17]:14–9 While the "literary battle" against Peng
raged, Mao fired Yang Shangkun—director of the Party's General Office, an
organ that controlled internal communications—on a series of unsubstantiated
charges, installing in his stead staunch loyalist Wang Dongxing, head of Mao's
security detail. Yang's dismissal likely emboldened Mao's allies to move against
their factional rivals.[17]:14–9

In December, Defence Minister and Mao loyalist Lin Biao accused General
Luo Ruiqing, the chief of staff of the PLA, of being anti-Mao, alleging that Luo
put too much emphasis on military training rather than Maoist "political
discussion." Despite initial skepticism in the Politburo of Luo's guilt, Mao The purge of General Luo
pushed for an 'investigation', after which Luo was denounced, dismissed, and Ruiqing solidified the Army's
forced to deliver a self-criticism. Stress from the events led Luo to attempt loyalty to Mao
suicide.[17]:20–7 Luo's removal secured the military command's loyalty to
Mao.[17]:24

Having ousted Luo and Yang, Mao returned his attention to Peng Zhen. On February 12, 1966, the "Five Man
Group" issued a report known as the February Outline ( ⼆⽉提纲 ). The Outline, sanctioned by the Party
centre, defined Hai Rui as a constructive academic discussion and aimed to distance Peng Zhen formally from
any political implications. However, Jiang Qing and Yao Wenyuan continued their denunciation of Wu Han and
Peng Zhen. Meanwhile, Mao also sacked Propaganda Department director Lu Dingyi, a Peng Zhen
ally.[17]:20–7

Lu's removal gave Maoists unrestricted access to the press. Mao would deliver his final blow to Peng Zhen at a
high-profile Politburo meeting through loyalists Kang Sheng and Chen Boda. They accused Peng Zhen of
opposing Mao, labeled the February Outline "evidence of Peng Zhen's revisionism," and grouped him with
three other disgraced officials as part of the "Peng-Luo-Lu-Yang Anti-Party Clique."[17]:20–7 On May 16, the
Politburo formalized the decisions by releasing an official document condemning Peng Zhen and his "anti-party
allies" in the strongest terms, disbanding his "Five Man Group", and replacing it with the Maoist Cultural
Revolution Group (CRG).[17]:27–35

Early stage: mass movement (1966–68)

May 16 Notification

In May 1966, an "expanded session" of the Politburo was called in Beijing. The conference, rather than being a
joint discussion on policy (as per the usual norms of party operations), was mainly a campaign to mobilize the
Politburo into endorsing Mao's political agenda. The conference was heavily laden with Maoist political rhetoric
on class struggle and filled with meticulously-prepared 'indictments' on the recently ousted leaders such as Peng
Zhen and Luo Ruiqing. One of these documents, released on May 16, was prepared with Mao's personal
supervision and was particularly damning:[17]:39–40

Those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the
army, and various spheres of culture are a bunch of counter-revolutionary revisionists. Once
conditions are ripe, they will seize political power and turn the dictatorship of the proletariat into a
 dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Some of them we have already seen through; others we have not.
Some are still trusted by us and are being trained as our successors, persons like Khrushchev for
example, who are still nestling beside us.[17]:47

This text, which became known as the "May 16 Notification" (Chinese: ⼀

[17]:40
知 ; pinyin: Wǔyīliù Tōngzhī),
summarized Mao's ideological justification for the Cultural Revolution. Effectively it implied that there
were enemies of the Communist cause within the Party itself: class enemies who "wave the red flag to oppose
the red flag."[17]:46 The only way to identify these people was through "the telescope and microscope of Mao
Zedong Thought."[17]:46 While the party leadership was relatively united in approving the general direction of
Mao's agenda, many Politburo members were not especially enthusiastic, or simply confused about the direction
of the movement.[19]:13 The charges against esteemed party leaders like Peng Zhen rang alarm bells in China's
intellectual community and among the eight non-Communist parties.[17]:41

Early mass rallies (May–June 1966)

After the purge of Peng Zhen, the Beijing Party Committee had effectively ceased to function, paving the way
for disorder in the capital. On May 25, under the guidance of Cao Yi'ou—wife of Maoist henchman Kang
Sheng—Nie Yuanzi, a philosophy lecturer at Peking University, authored a big-character poster ( ⼤ 报 ;
dàzìbào) along with other leftists and posted it to a public bulletin. Nie attacked the university's party
administration and its leader Lu Ping.[17]:56–8 Nie insinuated that the university leadership, much like Peng
Zhen, were trying to contain revolutionary fervour in a "sinister" attempt to oppose the party and advance
revisionism.[17]:56–8

Mao promptly endorsed Nie's dazibao as "the first Marxist big-character poster in China." Nie's call-to-arms,
now sealed with Mao's personal stamp of approval, had a lasting ripple effect across all educational institutions
in China. Students everywhere began to revolt against their respective schools' party establishment. Classes were
promptly cancelled in Beijing primary and secondary schools, followed by a decision on June 13 to expand the
class suspension nationwide.[17]:59–61 By early June, throngs of young demonstrators lined the capital's major
thoroughfares holding giant portraits of Mao, beating drums, and shouting slogans against his perceived
enemies.[17]:59–61

When the dismissal of Peng Zhen and the municipal party leadership became public in early June, widespread
confusion ensued. The public and foreign missions were kept in the dark on the reason for Peng Zhen's
ousting.[17]:62–4 Even the top Party leadership was caught off guard by the sudden anti-establishment wave of
protest and struggled with what to do next.[17]:62–4 After seeking Mao's guidance in Hangzhou, Liu Shaoqi and
Deng Xiaoping decided to send in 'work teams' ( ⼯作组 ; Gōngzuò zǔ)—effectively 'ideological-guidance'
squads of cadres—to the city's schools and People's Daily to restore some semblance of order and re-establish
party control.[17]:62–4

The work teams were hastily dispatched and had a poor understanding of student sentiment. Unlike the political
movement of the 1950s that squarely targeted intellectuals, the new movement was focused on established party
cadres, many of whom were part of the work teams. As a result, the work teams came under increasing
suspicion for being yet another group aimed at thwarting revolutionary fervour.[17]:71 The party leadership
subsequently became divided over whether or not work teams should remain in place. Liu Shaoqi insisted on
continuing work-team involvement and suppressing the movement's most radical elements, fearing that the
movement would spin out of control.[17]:75

"Bombard the headquarters" (July 1966)

On July 16, the 72-year-old Chairman Mao took to the Yangtze River in Wuhan, with the press in tow, in what
became an iconic "swim across the Yangtze" to demonstrate his battle-readiness. He subsequently returned to
 Mao-Liu conflict

In 1966, Mao broke with Liu Shaoqi (right), then serving as President of China, over the work-teams issue. Mao's
polemic Bombard the Headquarters was widely recognized as targeting Liu, the purported "bourgeois headquarters"
of the party.

Beijing on a mission to criticize the party leadership for its handling of the work-teams issue. Mao accused the
work teams of undermining the student movement, calling for their full withdrawal on July 24. Several days
later a rally was held at the Great Hall of the People to announce the decision and set the new tone of the
movement to university and high school teachers and students. At the rally, Party leaders told the masses
assembled to 'not be afraid' and bravely take charge of the movement themselves, free of Party
interference.[17]:84

The work-teams issue marked a decisive defeat for President Liu Shaoqi politically; it also signaled that
disagreement over how to handle the unfolding events of the Cultural Revolution would break Mao from the
established party leadership irreversibly. On August 1, the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee
was hastily convened to advance Mao's now decidedly radical agenda. At the plenum, Mao showed outright
disdain for Liu, repeatedly interrupting Liu as he delivered his opening day speech.[17]:94 For several days, Mao
repeatedly insinuated that the Party's leadership had contravened his revolutionary vision. Mao's line of thinking
received a lukewarm reception from the conference attendees. Sensing that the largely obstructive party elite was
unwilling to embrace his revolutionary ideology on a full scale, Mao went on the offensive.

Red Guards in Beijing

From left: (1) Students at Beijing Normal University writing big-character posters denouncing Liu Shaoqi; (2) Big-
characters posted on the campus of Peking University; (3) Red guards at No. 23 Middle School wave the Little Red
Book of the Quotations of Chairman Mao in a classroom revolution rally. All photos from China Pictorial

On July 28, Red Guard representatives wrote to Mao, calling for rebellion and upheaval to safeguard the
revolution. Mao then responded to the letters by writing his own big-character poster entitled Bombard the
Headquarters, rallying people to target the "command centre (i.e., Headquarters) of counterrevolution." Mao
wrote that despite having undergone a Communist revolution, a "bourgeois" elite was still thriving in "positions
of authority" in the government and Communist Party.[12]
Although no names were mentioned, this provocative statement by Mao
has been interpreted as a direct indictment of the party establishment
under Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping—the purported "bourgeois
headquarters" of China. The personnel changes at the Plenum reflected
a radical re-design of the party's hierarchy to suit this new ideological
landscape. Liu and Deng kept their seats on the Politburo Standing
Committee but were in fact sidelined from day-to-day party affairs. Lin
Biao was elevated to become the Party's number-two figure; Liu
Shaoqi's rank went from second to eighth and was no longer Mao's heir
apparent.[12] A struggle session of Wang
Guangmei, the wife of Liu Shaoqi.
Coinciding with the top leadership being thrown out of positions of
power was the thorough undoing of the entire national bureaucracy of
the Communist Party. The extensive Organization Department, in charge of party personnel, virtually ceased to
exist. The Cultural Revolution Group (CRG), Mao's ideological 'Praetorian Guard', was catapulted to
prominence to propagate his ideology and rally popular support. The top officials in the Propaganda Department
were sacked, with many of its functions folding into the CRG.[17]:96

Red August and the Sixteen Points (August 1966)

The Little Red Book (Mao's Quotations) was the mechanism that led the Red
Guards to commit to their objective as the future for China. These quotes directly
from Mao led to other actions by the Red Guards in the views of other Maoist
leaders,[17]:107 and by December 1967, 350-million copies of the book had been
printed.[20]:61–4 One of many quotations in the Little Red Book that the Red
Guards would later follow as a guide, provided by Mao, was:

The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is

yours. You young people, full of vigor and vitality, are in the bloom
of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is
placed on you.… The world belongs to you. China's future belongs
to you.

During the Red August of Beijing, on August 8, 1966, the party's Central
Committee passed its "Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Mao Zedong and Lin Biao
Revolution," later to be known as the "Sixteen Points."[21] This decision defined surrounded by rallying Red
the Cultural Revolution as "a great revolution that touches people to their very Guards in Beijing. Source:
souls and constitutes a deeper and more extensive stage in the development of the China Pictorial
socialist revolution in our country:"[22]

Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture,
customs, and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds, and stage a
comeback. The proletariat must do just the opposite: It must meet head-on every challenge of the
bourgeoisie…to change the outlook of society. Currently, our objective is to struggle against and
crush those people in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the
reactionary bourgeois academic "authorities" and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other
exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art, and all other parts of the
superstructure that do not correspond to the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the
consolidation and development of the socialist system.
The implications of the Sixteen Points were far-reaching. It elevated what was previously a student movement to
a nationwide mass campaign that would galvanize workers, farmers, soldiers and lower-level party functionaries
to rise, challenge authority, and re-shape the "superstructure" of society.

During the Red August of Beijing, on August 18, 1966,

over a million Red Guards from all over the country
gathered in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing for a
personal audience with the Chairman.[17]:106–7 Mao
personally mingled with Red Guards and encouraged their
motivation, donning a Red Guard armband himself.[19]:66
Lin Biao also took centre stage at the August 18 rally, Tiananmen Square on September 15, 1966 the
vociferously denouncing all manner of perceived enemies occasion of Chairman Mao's third of eight mass
in Chinese society that were impeding the "progress of the rallies with Red Guards in 1966.[23] Source: China
revolution."[19]:66 Subsequently, massive slaughter began Pictorial
in Beijing and the red terror quickly spread to other areas
of China.[24][25]

On August 22, 1966, a central directive was issued to stop police intervention in Red Guard activities, and those
in the police force who defied this notice were labeled counter-revolutionaries.[17]:124 Mao's praise for rebellion
encouraged actions of the Red Guards.[17]:515 Central officials lifted restraints on violent behavior in support of
the revolution.[17]:126 Xie Fuzhi, the national police chief, often pardoned Red Guards for their
"crimes."[17]:125 In about two weeks, the violence left some 100 officials of the ruling and middle class dead in
Beijing's western district alone. The number injured exceeded that.[17]:126

The most violent aspects of the campaign included incidents of torture, murder, and public humiliation. Many
people who were indicted as counter-revolutionaries died by suicide. During the Red August 1966, in Beijing
alone 1,772 people were murdered, many of the victims were teachers who were attacked and even killed by
their own students.[26] In Shanghai, there were 704 suicides and 534 deaths related to the Cultural Revolution in
September. In Wuhan, there were 62 suicides and 32 murders during the same period.[17]:124 Peng Dehuai was
brought to Beijing to be publicly ridiculed.

Destruction of the Four Olds

Between August and November 1966, eight mass rallies were held in which over 12 million people from all
over the country, most of whom were Red Guards, participated.[17]:106 The government bore the expenses of
Red Guards travelling around the country exchanging "revolutionary experiences".[17]:110

At the Red Guard rallies, Lin Biao also called for the destruction of the "Four Olds"; namely, old customs,
culture, habits, and ideas.[19]:66 A revolutionary fever swept the country by storm, with Red Guards acting as its
most prominent warriors. Some changes associated with the "Four Olds" campaign were mainly benign, such as
assigning new names to city streets, places, and even people; millions of babies were born with "revolutionary"-
sounding names during this period.[27] Other aspects of Red Guard activities were more destructive, particularly
in the realms of culture and religion. Various historical sites throughout the country were destroyed. The damage
was particularly pronounced in the capital, Beijing. Red Guards also laid siege to the Temple of Confucius in
Shandong province,[17]:119 and numerous other historically significant tombs and artifacts.[28] Libraries full of
historical and foreign texts were destroyed; books were burned. Temples, churches, mosques, monasteries, and
cemeteries were closed down and sometimes converted to other uses, looted, and destroyed.[29] Marxist
propaganda depicted Buddhism as superstition, and religion was looked upon as a means of hostile foreign
infiltration, as well as an instrument of the ruling class.[30] Clergy were arrested and sent to camps; many
Tibetan Buddhists were forced to participate in the destruction of their monasteries at gunpoint.[30]
Central Work Conference (October 1966)

In October 1966, Mao convened a "Central Work Conference", mostly to

convince those in the party leadership who had not yet adopted revolutionary
ideology. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were prosecuted as part of a
bourgeois reactionary line (zichanjieji fandong luxian) and begrudgingly gave
self-criticisms.[17]:137 After the conference, Liu, once a powerful moderate
pundit of the ruling class, was placed under house arrest in Beijing, then sent
to a detention camp, where he was denied medical treatment and died in 1969.
Deng Xiaoping was sent away for a period of re-education three times and
was eventually sent to work in an engine factory in Jiangxi province.

Radicals seized power (1967)

Mass organisations in China coalesced into two hostile factions, the radicals
who backed Mao's purge of the Communist party, and the conservatives who
backed the moderate party establishment. At his birthday party on 26
December 1966, Mao declared an "All-round civil war" to resolve the
standoff and asked the military forces of PLA to support "the Left," which The remains of Ming Dynasty
was however not clearly defined. As the PLA commanders had developed Wanli Emperor at the Ming
close working relations with the party establishment, many military units tombs. Red Guards dragged
the remains of the Wanli
worked instead to repress Mao's radicals.[33]
Emperor and Empresses to
the front of the tomb, where
Spurred by the events in Beijing, 'power seizure' (duoquan) groups formed all
they were posthumously
over the country and began expanding into factories and the countryside. In
"denounced" and burned.[31]
Shanghai, a young factory worker named Wang Hongwen organized a far-
reaching revolutionary coalition, one that galvanized and displaced existing
Red Guard groups. On January 3, 1967, with support from
CRG heavyweights Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan,
the group of firebrand activists overthrew the Shanghai
municipal government under Chen Pixian in what became
known as the "January Storm," and formed in its place the
Shanghai People's Commune.[34]:[20]:115

The events in Shanghai were praised by Mao, who

encouraged similar activities across China. Provincial
governments and many parts of the state and party
bureaucracy were affected, with power seizures taking
place in a remarkably different fashion. Revolutionary
committees were subsequently established, in place of local
governments and branches of the Communist Party.[35] For The Cemetery of Confucius was attacked by Red
example, in Beijing, three separate revolutionary groups Guards in November 1966.[28][32]
declared power seizures on the same day, while in
Heilongjiang, the local party secretary Pan Fusheng
managed to "seize power" from the party organization under his own leadership. Some leaders even wrote the
CRG asking to be overthrown.[17]:170–2

In Beijing, Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao made a target out of Vice-Premier Tao Zhu. The power-seizure
movement was rearing its head in the military as well. In February, prominent generals Ye Jianying and Chen
Yi, as well as Vice-Premier Tan Zhenlin, vocally asserted their opposition to the more extreme aspects of the
movement, with some party elders insinuating that the CRG's real motives were to remove the revolutionary old
guard. Mao, initially ambivalent, took to the Politburo floor on February 18 to denounce the opposition directly,
giving a full-throated endorsement to the radicals' activities. This short-lived resistance was branded the
"February Countercurrent"[17]:195–6 —effectively silencing critics of the movement within the party in the years
to come.[19]:207–9

While revolutionaries dismantled ruling government and party organizations all over the country, because power
seizures lacked centralized leadership, it was no longer clear who truly believed in Mao's revolutionary vision
and who was opportunistically exploiting the chaos for their own gain. The formation of rival revolutionary
groups, some manifestations of long-established local feuds, led to factional violent struggles across the country.
Tension grew between mass organizations and the military as well. In response, Lin Biao issued a directive for
the army to aid the radicals. At the same time, the army took control of some provinces and locales that were
deemed incapable of sorting out their own power transitions.[19]:219–21

In the central city of Wuhan, like in many other cities, two major revolutionary organizations emerged, one
supporting the conservative establishment and the other opposed to it. The groups fought over the control of the
city. Chen Zaidao, the Army general in charge of the area, forcibly repressed the anti-establishment
demonstrators who were backed by Mao. However, during the commotion, Mao himself flew to Wuhan with a
large entourage of central officials in an attempt to secure military loyalty in the area. On July 20, 1967, local
agitators in response kidnapped Mao's emissary Wang Li in what became known as the Wuhan Incident.
Subsequently, Gen. Chen Zaidao was sent to Beijing and tried by Jiang Qing and the rest of the Cultural
Revolution Group. Chen's resistance was the last major open display of opposition to the movement within the
PLA.[17]:214

The Gang of Four's Zhang Chunqiao, himself, admitted that the most crucial factor in the Cultural Revolution
was not the Red Guards or the Cultural Revolution Group or the "rebel worker" organisations, but the side on
which the PLA stood. When the PLA local garrison supported Mao's radicals, they were able to take over the
local government successfully, but if they were not cooperative, the seizures of power were unsuccessful.[17]:175
Violent clashes occurred in virtually all cities, according to one historian. In response to the Wuhan Incident,
Mao and Jiang Qing began establishing a "workers' armed self-defence force", a "revolutionary armed force of
mass character" to counter what he estimated as rightism in "75% of the PLA officer corps." Chongqing city, a
center of arms manufacturing, was the site of ferocious armed clashes between the two factions, with one
construction site in the city estimated to involve 10,000 combatants with tanks, mobile artillery, anti-aircraft guns
and "virtually every kind of conventional weapon." Ten thousand artillery shells were fired in Chongqing during
August 1967.[17]:214–5 Nationwide, a total of 18.77 million firearms, 14,828 artillery pieces, 2,719,545
grenades ended up in civilian hands and used in the course of violent struggles which mostly took place from
1967 to 1968; in the cities of Chongqing, Xiamen, and Changchun, tanks, armoured vehicles and even warships
were deployed in combat.[33]

Political purges and "Down to the Countryside" (1968)

Cleansing the Class Ranks (May–Sept.)

In May 1968, Mao launched the massive "Cleansing the Class Ranks" political purge in mainland China. Many
were sent to the countryside to work in reeducation camps.

On July 27, 1968, the Red Guards' power over the PLA was officially ended, and the establishment government
sent in units to besiege areas that remained untouched by the Guards. A year later, the Red Guard factions were
dismantled entirely; Mao predicted that the chaos might begin running its own agenda and be tempted to turn
against revolutionary ideology. Their purpose had been largely fulfilled; Mao and his radical colleagues had
largely overturned establishment power.
Liu was expelled from the Communist Party at the 12th
Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee in September
1968, and labelled the "headquarters of the bourgeoisie,"
seemingly alluding to Mao's Bombard the Headquarters
dazibao written two years earlier.[36]

Down to the Countryside Movement (December

1968)

In December 1968, Mao began the "Down to the

Countryside Movement." During this movement, which
Anti-Liu Shaoqi rally
lasted for the next decade, young bourgeoisie living in
cities were ordered to go to the countryside to experience
working life. The term "young intellectuals" was used to
refer to recently graduated college students. In the late 1970s, these students returned to their home cities. Many
students who were previously Red Guard members supported the movement and Mao's vision. This movement
was thus in part a means of moving Red Guards from the cities to the countryside, where they would cause less
social disruption. It also served to spread revolutionary ideology across China geographically.[37]

"Mango fever" and Mao's cult of personality (August 1968)

In the spring of 1968, a massive campaign that aimed at enhancing

Mao's reputation began. A notable example was the "mango
fever." On August 4, 1968, Mao was presented with about 40
mangoes by the Pakistani foreign minister, Syed Sharifuddin
Pirzada, in an apparent diplomatic gesture.[38] Mao had his aide
send the box of mangoes to his Mao Zedong Propaganda Team at
Tsinghua University on August 5, the team stationed there to quiet
strife among Red Guard factions.[39][40] On August 7, an article The propaganda oil painting of Mao during
was published in the People's Daily saying: the Cultural Revolution (1967).

In the afternoon of the fifth, when the great happy

news of Chairman Mao giving mangoes to the Capital
Worker and Peasant Mao Zedong Thought
Propaganda Team reached the Tsinghua University
campus, people immediately gathered around the gift
given by the Great Leader Chairman Mao. They cried
out enthusiastically and sang with wild abandonment.
Tears swelled up in their eyes, and they again and
again sincerely wished that our most beloved Great
Leader lived ten thousand years without bounds ...
They all made phone calls to their own work units to
spread this happy news; and they also organised all
kinds of celebratory activities all night long, and
arrived at [the national leadership compound]
Zhongnanhai despite the rain to report the good news,
and to express their loyalty to the Great Leader
Chairman Mao.[39]
Subsequent articles were also written by government officials propagandizing the reception of the mangoes,[41]
and another poem in the People's Daily said: "Seeing that golden mango/Was as if seeing the great leader
Chairman Mao ... Again and again touching that golden mango/the golden mango was so warm."[42] Few
people at this time in China had ever seen a mango before, and a mango was seen as "a fruit of extreme rarity,
like Mushrooms of Immortality."[42]

"Mangoes, The Precious Gift"
(Cultural Revolution poster, 1968)
Badges and wall posters featuring the mangoes and Mao were produced in the millions.[39]
One of the mangoes was sent to the Beijing Textile Factory,[39] whose
revolutionary committee organised a rally in the mangoes' honour.[41]
Workers read out quotations from Mao and celebrated the gift. Altars
were erected to display the fruit prominently; when the mango peel
began to rot after a few days, the fruit was peeled and boiled in a pot of
water. Workers then filed by and each was given a spoonful of mango
water. The revolutionary committee also made a wax replica of the
mango and displayed this as a centrepiece in the factory. There
followed several months of "mango fever," as the fruit became a focus
of a "boundless loyalty" campaign for Chairman Mao. More replica
mangoes were created, and the replicas were sent on tour around
Beijing and elsewhere in China. Many revolutionary committees visited
the mangoes in Beijing from outlying provinces; approximately half a
million people greeted the replicas when they arrived in Chengdu.

The fruit was shared among all institutions that had been a part of the propaganda team, and large processions
were organised in support of the zhengui lipin ("precious gift"), as the mangoes were known as.[43] One dentist
in a small town, Dr. Han, saw the mango and said it was nothing special and looked just like sweet potato; he
was put on trial for malicious slander, found guilty, paraded publicly throughout the town, and then executed
with one shot to the head.[42][44]

It has been claimed that Mao used the mangoes to express support for the workers who would go to whatever
lengths necessary to end the factional fighting among students, and a "prime example of Mao's strategy of
symbolic support."[41] Even up until early 1969, participants of Mao-Zedong-Thought study classes in Beijing
would return with mass-produced mango facsimiles and still gain media attention in the provinces.[43]

Lin Biao phase (1969–71)

Transition of power (April 1969)

The Ninth Party Congress was held in April 1969 and served as a means to "revitalize" the party with fresh
thinking and new cadres after much of the old guard had been destroyed in the struggles of preceding
years.[17]:285 The institutional framework of the Party established two decades earlier had broken down almost
entirely: delegates for this Congress were effectively selected by Revolutionary Committees rather than through
election by party members.[17]:288 Representation of the military increased by a large margin from the previous
Congress (28% of the delegates were PLA members), and the election of more PLA members to the new
Central Committee reflected this increase.[17]:292 Many military officers elevated to senior positions were loyal
to PLA Marshal Lin Biao, opening a new factional divide between the military and civilian leadership.[17]:292

Lin Biao was officially elevated to become the Party's number-two figure,
with his name written into the Communist Party's Constitution as Mao's We do not only feel boundless
"closest comrade-in-arms" and "universally recognized successor."[17]:291 joy because we have as our great
leader the greatest Marxist-
At the time, no other Communist parties or governments anywhere in the
Leninist of our era, Chairman
world had adopted the practice of enshrining a successor to the current Mao, but also great joy because
leader into their constitutions; this practice was unique to China. Lin we have Vice Chairman Lin as
delivered the keynote address at the Congress: a document drafted by Chairman Mao's universally
hardliner leftists Yao Wenyuan and Zhang Chunqiao under Mao's recognized successor.
guidance.[17]:289 The report was heavily critical of Liu Shaoqi and other
– Premier Zhou Enlai at the
"counter-revolutionaries" and drew extensively from quotations in the
Little Red Book. The Congress solidified the central role of Maoism within Ninth Party Congress[45]
the party psyche, re-introducing Maoism as an official guiding ideology of
the party in the party constitution. Lastly, the Congress elected a new
Politburo with Mao Zedong, Lin Biao, Chen Boda, Zhou Enlai and Kang Sheng as the members of the new
Politburo Standing Committee. Lin, Chen and Kang were all beneficiaries of the Cultural Revolution. Zhou,
who was demoted in rank, voiced his unequivocal support for Lin at the Congress.[17]:290 Mao also restored the
function of some formal party institutions, such as the operations of the party's Politburo, which ceased
functioning between 1966 and 1968 because the Central Cultural Revolution Group held de facto control of the
country.[17]:296

PLA gains pre-eminent role (1970)

Mao's efforts at re-organizing party and state institutions generated mixed

results. Many far-flung provinces remained volatile as the political situation
in Beijing stabilized. Factional struggles, many of which were violent,
continued at the local level despite the declaration that the Ninth Congress
marked a temporary "victory" for the Cultural Revolution.[17]:316
Furthermore, despite Mao's efforts to put on a show of unity at the
Congress, the factional divide between Lin Biao's PLA camp and the Jiang
Qing–led radical camp was intensifying. Indeed, a personal dislike of Jiang
Qing drew many civilian leaders, including prominent theoretician Chen
Boda, closer to Lin Biao.[14]:115

Between 1966 and 1968, China was isolated internationally, having

declared its enmity towards both the Soviet Union and the United States.
The friction with the Soviet Union intensified after border clashes on the
Ussuri River in March 1969 as the Chinese leadership prepared for all-out Marshal Lin Biao was
war. [17]:317 In October, senior leaders were evacuated from constitutionally confirmed as
Beijing. [17]:317 Amidst the tension, Lin Biao issued what appeared to be Mao's successor in 1969.
an executive order to prepare for war to the PLA's eleven Military Regions
on October 18 without passing through Mao. This drew the ire of the
Chairman, who saw it as evidence that his authority was prematurely usurped by his declared successor.[17]:317

The prospect of war elevated the PLA to greater prominence in domestic politics, increasing the stature of Lin
Biao at the expense of Mao.[17]:321 There is some evidence to suggest that Mao was pushed to seek closer
relations with the United States as a means to avoid PLA dominance in domestic affairs that would result from a
military confrontation with the Soviet Union.[17]:321 During his meeting with U.S. President Richard Nixon in
1972, Mao hinted that Lin had opposed seeking better relations with the U.S.[17]:322

Restoration of Presidency (State Chairman)

After Lin was confirmed as Mao's successor, his supporters focused on the restoration of the position of State
Chairman (President),[46] which had been abolished by Mao after the purge of Liu Shaoqi. They hoped that by
allowing Lin to ease into a constitutionally sanctioned role, whether Chairman or Vice-Chairman, Lin's
succession would be institutionalized. The consensus within the CCP Politburo was that Mao should assume the
office with Lin becoming Vice-Chairman; but for unknown reasons, Mao had voiced his explicit opposition to
the recreation of the position and his assuming it.[17]:327

Factional rivalries intensified at the Second Plenum of the Ninth Congress in Lushan held in late August 1970.
Chen Boda, now aligned with the PLA faction loyal to Lin, galvanized support for the restoration of the office
of President of China, despite Mao's wishes to the contrary.[17]:331 Moreover, Chen launched an assault on
Zhang Chunqiao, a staunch Maoist who embodied the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, over the evaluation of
Mao's legacy.[17]:328

The attacks on Zhang found favour with many attendees at the Plenum and may have been construed by Mao as
an indirect attack on the Cultural Revolution itself. Mao confronted Chen openly, denouncing him as a "false
Marxist,"[17]:332 and removed him from the Politburo Standing Committee. In addition to the purge of Chen,
Mao asked Lin's principal generals to write self-criticisms on their political positions as a warning to Lin. Mao
also inducted several of his supporters to the Central Military Commission and placed his loyalists in leadership
roles of the Beijing Military Region.[17]:332

Flight of Lin Biao (September 1971)

By 1971, diverging interests between the civilian and

military wings of the leadership were apparent. Mao was
troubled by the PLA's newfound prominence, and the
purge of Chen Boda marked the beginning of a gradual
scaling-down of the PLA's political involvement.[17]:353
According to official sources, sensing the reduction of
Lin's power base and his declining health, Lin's supporters
plotted to use the military power still at their disposal to
oust Mao in a coup.[14]:

Lin's son, Lin Liguo, and other high-ranking military

Graffiti with Lin Biao's foreword to Mao's Little Red
conspirators formed a coup apparatus in Shanghai and Book, Lin's name (lower right) was later scratched
dubbed the plan to oust Mao by force Outline for Project out, presumably after his death.
571, which sounds similar to "Military Uprising" in
Mandarin. It is disputed whether Lin Biao was involved in
this process. While official sources maintain that Lin planned and executed the alleged coup attempt, scholars
such as Jin Qiu portray Lin as a passive character manipulated by members of his family and his supporters.[14]:
Qiu contests that Lin Biao was never personally involved in drafting the Outline and evidence suggests that Lin
Liguo drafted the coup.[14]:

The Outline allegedly consisted mainly of plans for aerial bombardments through use of the Air Force. It initially
targeted Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, but would later involve Mao himself. If the plan succeeded, Lin
would arrest his political rivals and assume power. Assassination attempts were alleged to have been made
against Mao in Shanghai, from September 8 to September 10, 1971. Perceived risks to Mao's safety were
allegedly relayed to the Chairman. One internal report alleged that Lin had planned to bomb a bridge that Mao
was to cross to reach Beijing; Mao reportedly avoided this bridge after receiving intelligence reports.

Death

In the official narrative, on September 13, 1971, Lin Biao, his wife Ye Qun, Lin Liguo, and members of his staff
attempted to flee to the Soviet Union ostensibly to seek asylum. En route, Lin's plane crashed in Mongolia,
killing all on board. The plane apparently ran out of fuel en route to the Soviet Union. A Soviet team
investigating the incident was not able to determine the cause of the crash but hypothesized that the pilot was
flying low to evade radar and misjudged the plane's altitude.

The official account has been put to question by foreign scholars, who have raised doubts over Lin's choice of
the Soviet Union as a destination, the plane's route, the identity of the passengers, and whether or not a coup
was actually taking place.[14]:[47]

On September 13, the Politburo met in an emergency session to discuss Lin Biao. Only on September 30 was
Lin's death confirmed in Beijing, which led to the cancellation of the National Day celebration events the
following day. The Central Committee kept information under wraps, and news of Lin's death was not released
to the public until two months following the incident.[14]: Many of Lin's supporters sought refuge in Hong
Kong; those who remained on the mainland were purged. The event caught the party leadership off guard: the
concept that Lin could betray Mao de-legitimized a vast body of Cultural Revolution political rhetoric, as Lin
was already enshrined into the Party Constitution as Mao's "closest comrade-in-arms" and "successor." For
several months following the incident, the party information apparatus struggled to find a "correct way" to frame
the incident for public consumption.[14]:

"Gang of Four" (1972–76)

Antagonism towards Zhou and Deng (1972–73)

Mao became depressed and reclusive after the Lin Biao incident. With
Lin gone, Mao had no ready answers for who would succeed him.
Sensing a sudden loss of direction, Mao attempted reaching out to old
comrades whom he had denounced in the past. Meanwhile, in
September 1972, Mao transferred a 38-year-old cadre from Shanghai,
Wang Hongwen, to Beijing and made him Vice-Chairman of the
Party.[17]:357 Wang, a former factory worker from a peasant
background,[17]:357 was seemingly being groomed for
succession. [17]:364 Jiang Qing's position also strengthened after Lin's Jiang Qing (left), who was the wife of
flight. She held tremendous influence with the radical camp. With Mao Zedong and a member of the
Mao's health on the decline, it was clear that Jiang Qing had political Gang of Four, received the Red
ambitions of her own. She allied herself with Wang Hongwen and Guards in Beijing with Premier Zhou
propaganda specialists Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, forming a Enlai (center) and Kang Sheng. They
political clique later pejoratively dubbed as the "Gang of Four". were all holding the Little Red Book
(Quotations from Mao) in their hands.
By 1973, round after round of political struggles had left many lower-
level institutions, including local government, factories, and railways,
short of competent staff needed to carry out basic functions.[17]:340 The country's economy had fallen into
disarray, which necessitated the rehabilitation of purged lower-level officials. However, the party's core became
heavily dominated by Cultural Revolution beneficiaries and leftist radicals, whose focus remained to uphold
ideological purity over economic productivity. The economy remained the domain of Zhou Enlai mostly, one of
the few moderates 'left standing'. Zhou attempted to restore a viable economy but was resented by the Gang of
Four, who identified him as their primary political threat in post-Mao era succession.

In late 1973, to weaken Zhou's political position and to distance themselves from Lin's apparent betrayal, the
"Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius" campaign began under Jiang Qing's leadership.[17]:366 Its stated goals were
to purge China of new Confucianist thinking and denounce Lin Biao's actions as traitorous and
regressive.[17]:372 Reminiscent of the first years of the Cultural Revolution, the battle was carried out through
historical allegory, and although Zhou Enlai's name was never mentioned during this campaign, the Premier's
historical namesake, the Duke of Zhou, was a frequent target.
Deng's rehabilitation and economic reconstruction (1975)

With a fragile economy and Zhou falling ill to cancer, Deng Xiaoping returned to the political scene, taking up
the post of Vice-Premier in March 1973, in the first of a series of promotions approved by Mao. After Zhou
withdrew from active politics in January 1975, Deng was effectively put in charge of the government, party, and
military, earning the additional titles of PLA General Chief of Staff, Vice-Chairman of the Communist Party, and
Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission in a short time span.[17]:381

The speed of Deng's rehabilitation took the radical camp, who saw themselves as Mao's 'rightful' political and
ideological heirs, by surprise. Mao wanted to use Deng as a counterweight to the military faction in government
to suppress any remaining influence of those formerly loyal to Lin Biao. In addition, Mao had also lost
confidence in the ability of the Gang of Four to manage the economy and saw Deng as a competent and
effective leader. Leaving the country in grinding poverty would do no favours to the positive legacy of the
Cultural Revolution, which Mao worked hard to protect. Deng's return set the scene for a protracted factional
struggle between the radical Gang of Four and moderates led by Zhou and Deng.

At the time, Jiang Qing and associates held effective control of mass media and the party's propaganda network,
while Zhou and Deng held control of most government organs. On some decisions, Mao sought to mitigate the
Gang's influence, but on others, he acquiesced to their demands. The Gang of Four's heavy hand in political and
media control did not prevent Deng from reinstating his economic policies. Deng emphatically opposed Party
factionalism, and his policies aimed to promote unity as the first step to restoring economic productivity.[17]:381

Much like the post-Great Leap restructuring led by Liu Shaoqi, Deng streamlined the railway system, steel
production, and other vital areas of the economy. By late 1975, however, Mao saw that Deng's economic
restructuring might negate the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, and launched a campaign to oppose
"rehabilitating the case for the rightists," alluding to Deng as the country's foremost "rightist." Mao directed
Deng to write self-criticisms in November 1975, a move lauded by the Gang of Four.[17]:381

Death of Zhou Enlai (early 1976)

On January 8, 1976, Zhou Enlai died of bladder cancer. On January 15 Deng Xiaoping delivered Zhou's official
eulogy in a funeral attended by all of China's most senior leaders with the notable absence of Mao himself, who
had grown increasingly critical of Zhou.[48]:217–8[49]:610 After Zhou's death, Mao selected neither a member of
the Gang of Four nor Deng to become Premier, instead choosing the relatively unknown Hua Guofeng.[50]

The Gang of Four grew apprehensive that spontaneous, large-scale popular support for Zhou could turn the
political tide against them. They acted through the media to impose a set of restrictions on overt public displays
of mourning for Zhou. Years of resentment over the Cultural Revolution, the public persecution of Deng
Xiaoping (seen as Zhou's ally), and the prohibition against public mourning led to a rise in popular discontent
against Mao and the Gang of Four.[48]:213

Official attempts to enforce the mourning restrictions included removing public memorials and tearing down
posters commemorating Zhou's achievements. On March 25, 1976, Shanghai's Wen Hui Bao published an
article calling Zhou "the capitalist roader inside the Party [who] wanted to help the unrepentant capitalist roader
[Deng] regain his power." These propaganda efforts at smearing Zhou's image, however, only strengthened
public attachment to Zhou's memory.[48]:214

Tiananmen Incident (Apr. 1976)

On April 4, 1976, on the eve of China's annual Qingming Festival, a traditional day of mourning, thousands of
people gathered around the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square to commemorate Zhou
Enlai. The people of Beijing honored Zhou by laying wreaths, banners, poems, placards, and flowers at the foot
of the Monument.[49]:612 The most apparent purpose of this memorial was
to eulogize Zhou, but the Gang of Four were also attacked for their actions
against the Premier. A small number of slogans left at Tiananmen even
attacked Mao himself, and his Cultural Revolution.[48]:218

Up to two million people may have visited Tiananmen Square on April

4.[48]:218 All levels of society, from the most impoverished peasants to
high-ranking PLA officers and the children of high-ranking cadres, were
represented in the activities. Those who participated were motivated by a
mixture of anger over the treatment of Zhou, revolt against the Cultural
Revolution and apprehension for China's future. The event did not appear
to have coordinated leadership but rather seemed to be a reflection of
public sentiment.[48]:219–20

The Central Committee, under the leadership of Jiang Qing, labelled the
event 'counter-revolutionary' and cleared the square of memorial items Jiang Qing
shortly after midnight on April 6. Attempts to suppress the mourners led to
a violent riot. Police cars were set on fire, and a crowd of over 100,000
people forced its way into several government buildings surrounding the square.[49]:612 Many of those arrested
were later sentenced to prison work camps. Similar incidents occurred in other major cities. Jiang Qing and her
allies pinned Deng Xiaoping as the incident's 'mastermind', and issued reports on official media to that effect.
Deng was formally stripped of all positions "inside and outside the Party" on April 7. This marked Deng's
second purge in ten years.[49]:612

Death of Mao and Arrest of the Gang of Four (Sept. 1976)

On September 9, 1976, Mao Zedong died. To Mao's supporters, his death symbolized the loss of the
revolutionary foundation of Communist China. When his death was announced on the afternoon of September
9, in a press release entitled "A Notice from the Central Committee, the NPC, State Council, and the CMC to
the whole Party, the whole Army and to the people of all nationalities throughout the country,"[51] the nation
descended into grief and mourning, with people weeping in the streets and public institutions closing for over a
week. Hua Guofeng chaired the Funeral Committee and delivered the memorial speech.[52][53]

Shortly before dying, Mao had allegedly written the message "With you in charge, I'm at ease," to Hua. Hua
used this message to substantiate his position as successor. Hua had been widely considered to be lacking in
political skill and ambitions, and seemingly posed no serious threat to the Gang of Four in the race for
succession. However, the Gang's radical ideas also clashed with influential elders and a large segment of party
reformers. With army backing and the support of Marshal Ye Jianying, on October 6, the Special Unit 8341 had
all members of the Gang of Four arrested in a bloodless coup.[54]

Aftermath

Transition period

Although Hua Guofeng publicly denounced the Gang of Four in 1976, he continued to invoke Mao's name to
justify Mao-era policies. Hua spearheaded what became known as the Two Whatevers,[55] namely, "Whatever
policy originated from Chairman Mao, we must continue to support," and "Whatever directions were given to us
from Chairman Mao, we must continue to follow." Like Deng, Hua wanted to reverse the damage of the
Cultural Revolution; but unlike Deng, who wanted to propose new economic models for China, Hua intended
to move the Chinese economic and political system towards Soviet-style planning of the early 1950s.[56][57]
It became increasingly clear to Hua that, without Deng Xiaoping, it was difficult to continue daily affairs of
state. On October 10, Deng Xiaoping personally wrote a letter to Hua asking to be transferred back to state and
party affairs; party elders also called for Deng's return. With increasing pressure from all sides, Premier Hua
named Deng Vice-Premier in July 1977, and later promoted him to various other positions, effectively
catapulting Deng to China's second-most powerful figure. In August, the Party's Eleventh Congress was held in
Beijing, officially naming (in ranking order) Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian and Wang
Dongxing as new members of the Politburo Standing Committee.[58]

Deng Xiaoping invalidated the Cultural Revolution

Deng Xiaoping first proposed the idea of "Boluan Fanzheng" in

September 1977 in order to correct the mistakes of Cultural Revolution.
In May 1978, Deng seized the opportunity to elevate his protégé Hu
Yaobang to power. Hu published an article in the Guangming Daily,
making clever use of Mao's quotations while lauding Deng's ideas.
Following this article, Hua began to shift his tone in support of Deng.
On July 1, Deng publicized Mao's self-criticism report of 1962
regarding the failure of the Great Leap Forward. With an expanding
power base, in September 1978, Deng began openly attacking Hua
Guofeng's "Two Whatevers".[55]

On December 18, 1978, the pivotal Third Plenum of the 11th Central
Committee was held. At the congress, Deng called for "a liberation of
thoughts" and urged the party to "seek truth from facts" and abandon
ideological dogma. The Plenum officially marked the beginning of the Deng Xiaoping became the
economic reform era, with Deng becoming the second paramount paramount leader of China in 1978.
leader of China. Hua Guofeng engaged in self-criticism and called his He started "Boluan Fanzheng" that
"Two Whatevers" a mistake. Wang Dongxing, a trusted ally of Mao, brought the country back to order,
was also criticized. At the Plenum, the Party reversed its verdict on the and initiated China's historic Reforms
and Opening up.
Tiananmen Incident. Disgraced former Chinese president Liu Shaoqi
was allowed a belated state funeral.[59] Peng Dehuai, one of China's ten
marshals and the first Minister of National Defense, was persecuted to
death during the Cultural Revolution; he was politically rehabilitated in 1978.

At the Fifth Plenum held in 1980, Peng Zhen, He Long and other leaders who had been purged during the
Cultural Revolution were politically rehabilitated. Hu Yaobang became head of the Party Secretariat as its
Secretary-general. In September, Hua Guofeng resigned and Zhao Ziyang, another Deng's ally, was named
Premier of China. Deng remained the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, but formal power was
transferred to a new generation of pragmatic reformers, who reversed Cultural Revolution policies to a large
extent during the Boluan Fanzheng period. Within a few years from 1978, Deng Xiaoping and Hu Yaobang
helped rehabilitate over 3 million "unjust, false, erroneous" cases in Cultural Revolution.[60] In particular, the
trial of the Gang of Four took place in Beijing from 1980 to 1981, and the court stated that 729,511 people had
been persecuted by the Gang, of whom 34,800 were said to have died.[61]

In 1981, the Chinese Communist Party passed a resolution and declared 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."[9][10][11]

Humanitarian crisis

Death toll
Estimates of the death toll from the Cultural Revolution, including
civilians and Red Guards, vary greatly, ranging from hundreds of
thousands to 20 million.[1][2][3][4][5][6] The exact figure of those who
were persecuted or died during the Cultural Revolution, however, may
never be known, since many deaths went unreported or were actively
covered up by the police or local authorities. The state of Chinese
demographics records was also deplorable at the time, and the PRC has
been hesitant to allow formal research into the period.[65] In addition,
the Banqiao Dam failure, considered by some as the world's greatest A struggle session of Xi Zhongxun,
technological catastrophe in the 20th century, occurred in Zhumadian the father of Xi Jinping (September
region of Henan province in August 1975, resulting in an estimated 1967). Xi Zhongxun was labelled as
death toll between 85,600 to 240,000.[66] an "anti-Party element". However,
since late 2012, Xi Jinping and his
Estimates include those given by the following: allies have attempted to play down

锋 当代中国三 思想解 录
the disaster of the Cultural
According to — , a book Revolution and reversed many
published by the Press of People's Daily in 2011, as well as reforms since the Boluan Fanzheng
some other documentation, Ye Jianying, the Vice Chairman period, sparking concerns of a new
of the Chinese Communist Party and one of China's ten Cultural Revolution.[62][63][64]
marshals, claimed that "20 million people died, 100 million
people were persecuted, and 80 billion RMB was wasted in
the Cultural Revolution" during a working conference of the Central Committee of the Chinese
Communist Party on December 13, 1978.[1][2][67][68][69]
Rudolph J. Rummel (University of Hawaii): 7,731,000 people died in the Cultural Revolution, or
96 people per every 10,000 of the population.[70]
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday: at least 3 million people died in the violence of the Cultural
Revolution.[6][71]:569
Chen Yung-fa (National Taiwan University): at least 1.72 million people died in the Cultural
Revolution.[72][73]
Andrew G. Walder (Stanford University) and Yang Su (University of California, Irvine): some
36 million people were persecuted in rural China alone; 0.75-1.5 million died, and roughly the
same number of people were crippled for life.[74]
Daniel Chirot (University of Washington): at least 1 million people died, but some estimates go
as high as 20 million.[75]
Maurice Meisner (University of Wisconsin–Madison): an estimate of around 400,000 deaths is a
widely accepted minimum figure.[76][17]:262

Massacres and cannibalism

During the Cultural Revolution, massacres took place across mainland China, including:

the Guangxi Massacre, in which massive cannibalism occurred;

the Inner Mongolia incident;
the Guangdong Massacre;
the Yunnan Massacres;
the Hunan Massacres;
the Beijing Massacre (i.e. Red August); and
the Ruijin Massacre.
These massacres were mainly led and organized by local revolutionary
committees, Communist Party branches, militia, and even the military. Most of
the victims in the massacres were members of the Five Black Categories as well
as their children, or members of the "rebel groups ( 反 )". Chinese scholars
have estimated that at least 300,000 people died in these massacres.[77][78]
Collective killings in Guangxi Province and Guangdong Province were among
the most serious. In Guangxi, the official annals of at least 43 counties have
records of massacres, with 15 of them reporting a death toll of over 1,000,
while in Guangdong at least 28 county annals record massacres, with 6 of them
reporting a death toll of over 1,000.[79]

In the Guangxi Massacre, the official record shows an estimated

death toll from 100,000 to 150,000.[80][81] According to Mao: The
Unknown Story, an estimated 100,000 people died in one of the
worst violent struggles in Guangxi between January and April 1968, Quotations of Mao Zedong
before Premier Zhou Enlai sent the PLA to intervene.[71]:545 Zheng on a street wall of Wuxuan
Yi's Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China County, one of the centers
alleged that "systematic killing and cannibalization of individuals in of Guangxi massacre and
the name of political revolution and 'class struggle' " among the cannibalism during the
Zhuang people in Wuxuan County during that period. [82] Zheng Cultural Revolution.
was criticized in China for reliance on unpublished interviews and
for the negative portrayal of a Chinese ethnic minority,[83] although
senior party historians corroborated allegations of cannibalism.[17]:259
In Shadian incident of Yunnan, massacre targeting Hui people led by the PLA in 1975 resulted in
the deaths of more than 1,600 civilians, including 300 children, and destroyed 4,400
homes.[84][85][86]
In Daoxian Massacre of Hunan, from August 13 to October 17, 1967, a total of 7,696 people were
killed, 1,397 people were forced to commit suicide, and 2,146 people were permanently
disabled.[87][88]
In Beijing massacre (Red August), official sources in 1980 have revealed that at least 1,772
people were killed by Red Guards from August to September 1966, including teachers and
principals of many schools; in addition, 33,695 homes were ransacked and 85,196 families were
forced to leave the city.[26][89][90] In particular, the Daxing Massacre caused the deaths of 325
people from August 27 to September 1, 1966; the oldest killed was 80 years old and the
youngest was only 38 days old, while 22 families were wiped out.[86][89][91]

Violent Struggles, Struggle sessions, and purges

Violent Struggles, or Wudou ( 武⽃ ), were factional conflicts (mostly among Red Guards and "rebel groups")
which began in Shanghai and then spread to other areas of China in 1967. It brought the country to the state of
civil war.[86][93] Weapons used in armed conflicts included some 18.77 million guns (some claim 1.877 million),
2.72 million grenades, 14,828 cannons, millions of other ammunitions and even armored cars as well as
tanks.[86] Notable violent struggles include the battles in Chongqing, in Sichuan, and in Xuzhou.[86][92][94]
Researchers have pointed out that the nationwide death toll in violent struggles ranges from 300,000 to
500,000.[67][69][86]

Moreover, millions of people in China were violently persecuted, especially in the struggle sessions. Those
identified as spies, "running dogs," "revisionists," or coming from a suspect class (including those related to
former landlords or rich peasants) were subject to beating, imprisonment, rape, torture, sustained and systematic
harassment and abuse, seizure of property, denial of medical attention, and erasure of social identity. Intellectuals
were also targeted; many survivors and observers suggest that almost anyone with skills over that of the average
person was made the target of political "struggle" in some way. At least hundreds of thousands of people were
murdered, starved, or worked to death. Millions more were forcibly
displaced. Young people from the cities were forcibly moved to the
countryside, where they were forced to abandon all forms of standard
education in place of the propaganda teachings of the CCP.[55] Some
people were not able to stand the torture and, losing hope for the future,
committed suicide. Researchers have pointed out that at least 100,000 to
200,000 people committed suicides during early Cultural
Revolution.[67] One of the most famous cases of attempted suicide due
to political persecution involved Deng Xiaoping's son, Deng Pufang,
who jumped (or was thrown) from a four-story building after being The Cultural Revolution Cemetery in
"interrogated" by Red Guards. Instead of dying, he developed Chongqing, China. At least 1,700
paraplegia. people were killed during the violent

At the same time, a large number of "unjust, false, mistaken cases ( 假 faction clash, with 400 to 500 of

错 )" appeared due to political purges. In addition to those who died

them buried in this cemetery.[92]

in massacres, a large number of people died or permanently disabled

due to lynching or other forms of persecution. From 1968 to 1969, the "Cleansing the Class Ranks", a massive
political purge launched by Mao, caused the deaths of at least 500,000 people.[86][95] Purges of similar nature
such as the "One Strike-Three Anti Campaign" and the "Campaign towards the May Sixteenth elements" were
launched subsequently in the 1970s.[67][69]

In Inner Mongolia incident, official sources in 1980 stated that 346,000 people were wrongly arrested, over
16,000 were persecuted to death or executed, and over 81,000 were permanently disabled.[86][96][97] However,
academics have estimated a death toll between 20,000 and 100,000.[86][96][97][98]

In the Zhao Jianmin Spy Case of Yunnan, more than 1.387 million people were implicated and persecuted,
which accounted for 6% of the total population of Yunnan at the time.[86][99] From 1968–1969, more than
17,000 people died in massacres and 61,000 people were crippled for life; in Kunming (the capital city of
Yunnan) alone, 1,473 people were killed and 9,661 people were permanently disabled.[86][99]

In the Li Chuli case of Hebei, Li, the former deputy director of Organization Department of the Chinese
Communist Party, was purged in 1968 and implicated around 80,000 people, 2,955 of whom were persecuted to
death.[100][101][102]

Ethnic minorities

The Cultural Revolution wreaked much havoc on minority

cultures and ethnicities in China. In Inner Mongolia, some
790,000 people were persecuted during the Inner
Mongolia incident. Of these, 22,900 were beaten to death,
and 120,000 were maimed,[17]:258 during a witch hunt to
find members of the alleged separatist New Inner
Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party. In Xinjiang,
copies of the Qur'an and other books of the Uyghur people
were apparently burned. Muslim imams reportedly were
paraded around with paint splashed on their bodies. In the
ethnic Korean areas of northeast China, language schools The Tibetan Panchen Lama during a struggle
were destroyed. In Yunnan Province, the palace of the Dai session.
people's king was torched, and a massacre of Muslim Hui
people at the hands of the PLA in Yunnan, known as the
Shadian incident, reportedly claimed over 1,600 lives in 1975.[103]
After the Cultural Revolution was over, the government gave
reparations for the Shadian Incident, including the erection of a Martyr's
Memorial in Shadian.[104]

Concessions given to minorities were abolished during the Cultural

Revolution as part of the Red Guards' attack on the "Four Olds".
People's communes, previously only established in parts of Tibet, were
established throughout Tibetan Autonomous Region in 1966,[105]
removing Tibet's exemption from China's period of land reform, and
reimposed in other minority areas. The effect on Tibet had been
particularly severe as it came following the repression after the 1959
Tibetan uprising.[106][107] The destruction of nearly all of its over 6,000
Struggle session of Sampho
monasteries, which began before the Cultural Revolution, were often
Tsewang Rigzin and his wife during
conducted with the complicity of local ethnic Tibetan Red the Cultural Revolution.
Guards.[108]:9 Only eight were left intact by the end of the 1970s.[109]

Many monks and nuns were killed, and the general population were
subjected to physical and psychological torture.[108]:9 There were an estimated 600,000 monks and nuns in
Tibet in 1950, and by 1979, most of them were dead, imprisoned or had disappeared.[108]:22 The Tibetan
government in exile claimed that many Tibetans also died from famines in 1961–1964 and 1968–1973 as a
result of forced collectivization,[107][110][111] however the number of Tibetan deaths or whether famines, in fact,
took place in these periods is disputed.[112][113][114] Despite official persecution, some local leaders and
minority ethnic practices survived in remote regions.[115]

The overall failure of the Red Guards' and radical assimilationists' goals was mostly due to two factors. It was
felt that pushing minority groups too hard would compromise China's border defences. This was especially
important as minorities make up a large percentage of the population that live along China's borders. In the late
1960s, China experienced a period of strained relations with some of its neighbours, notably with the Soviet
Union and India.[116] Many of the Cultural Revolution's goals in minority areas were simply too unreasonable
to be implemented. The return to pluralism, and therefore the end of the worst of the effects of the Cultural
Revolution on ethnic minorities in China, coincides closely with Lin Biao's removal from power.[117]

Cultural impact and influence

Red Guards riot

The effects of the Cultural Revolution directly or indirectly touched essentially all of China's population. During
the Cultural Revolution, much economic activity was halted, with "revolution", regardless of interpretation,
being the primary objective of the country. Mao Zedong Thought became the central operative guide to all
things in China. The authority of the Red Guards surpassed that of the PLA, local police authorities, and the law
in general. Chinese traditional arts and ideas were ignored and publicly attacked, with praise for Mao being
practiced in their place. People were encouraged to criticize cultural institutions and to question their parents and
teachers, which had been strictly forbidden in traditional Chinese culture.

The start of the Cultural Revolution brought huge numbers of Red Guards to Beijing, with all expenses paid by
the government, and the railway system was in turmoil. The revolution aimed to destroy the "Four Olds" (i.e.,
old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas) and establish the corresponding "Four News", which could
range from changing of names and cutting of hair to the ransacking of homes, vandalizing cultural treasures, and
desecrating temples.[20]:61–4 In a few years, countless ancient buildings, artifacts, antiques, books, and paintings
were destroyed by Red Guards. The status of traditional Chinese
culture and institutions within China was also severely damaged as a
result of the Cultural Revolution, and the practice of many traditional
customs weakened.

The revolution also aimed to "sweep away" all "cow demons and snake
spirits", that is, all the class enemies who promoted bourgeois ideas
within the party, the government, the army, among the intellectuals, as A 1968 map of Beijing showing
well as those from an exploitative family background or who belonged streets and landmarks renamed
to one of the Five Black Categories. Large numbers of people during the Cultural Revolution.
perceived to be "monsters and demons" regardless of guilt or innocence Andingmen Inner Street became
were publicly denounced, humiliated, and beaten. In their revolutionary "Great Leap Forward Road",
fervor, students especially the Red Guards denounced their teachers, Taijichang Street became the "Road
and children denounced their parents.[20]:59–61 Many died through for Eternal Revolution",
their ill-treatment or committed suicide. In 1968, youths were mobilized Dongjiaominxiang was renamed
to go to the countryside in the Down to the Countryside Movement so "Anti-Imperialist Road", Beihai Park
they may learn from the peasantry, and the departure of millions from was renamed "Worker-Peasant-
the cities helped end the most violent phase of the Cultural Soldier Park" and Jingshan Park
became "Red Guard Park." Most of
Revolution.[118]:176
the Cultural Revolution-era name
changes were later reversed.
Academics and education

Academics and intellectuals were regarded as the "Stinking Old Ninth"

and were widely persecuted.[119] Many were sent to rural labor camps
such as the May Seventh Cadre School. According to the official
documents in the prosecution of the Gang of Four, 142,000 cadres and
teachers in the education circles were persecuted and noted academics,
scientists, and educators who died included Xiong Qinglai, Jian Bozan,
Wu Han, Rao Yutai, Wu Dingliang, Yao Tongbin and Zhao
Jiuzhang.[120] As of 1968, among the 171 senior members who worked
at the headquarters of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, 131
were persecuted, and among all the members of the academy in China,
229 were persecuted to death.[121] As of September 1971, more than
4,000 staff members of China's nuclear center in Qinghai were
persecuted; more than 310 of them were permanently disabled, over 40
people committed suicide, and five were executed.[122][123]
Nevertheless, during the Cultural Revolution, Chinese scientists still
managed to successfully test the first missile, create the first hydrogen
bomb and launch the first satellite in the Two Bombs, One Satellite Yao Tongbin, one of China's foremost
program.[124] missile scientists, was beaten to
death in Beijing during the Cultural
The Cultural Revolution brought China's education system to a virtual Revolution (1968).
halt for a long time. In the early months of the Cultural Revolution,
schools and universities were closed. Primary and middle schools later
gradually reopened, but all colleges and universities were closed until 1970, and most universities did not reopen
until 1972.[125]:164 The university entrance exams were cancelled after 1966, to be replaced later by a system
whereby students were recommended by factories, villages and military units, and entrance exams were not
restored until 1977 under Deng Xiaoping. Values taught in traditional education were abandoned.[20]:195
During the Cultural Revolution, basic education was emphasized and rapidly expanded. While the years of
schooling were reduced and education standard fell, the proportion of Chinese children who had completed
primary education increased from less than half before the Cultural Revolution to almost all after the Cultural
Revolution, and those who completed junior middle school rose from 15% to over two-third. The educational
opportunities for rural children expanded considerably, while those of the children of the urban elite became
restricted by the anti-elitist policies.[125]:166–7

In 1968, the Communist Party instituted the Down to the Countryside Movement, in which "Educated Youths"
(zhishi qingnian or simply zhiqing) in urban areas were sent to live and work in agrarian areas to be re-educated
by the peasantry and to better understand the role of manual agrarian labor in Chinese society. In the initial
stages, most of the youth who took part volunteered, although later on, the government resorted to forcing many
of them to move. Between 1968 and 1979, 17 millions of China's urban youths left for the countryside, and
being in the rural areas also deprived them the opportunity of higher education.[118]:10 The entire generation of
tormented and inadequately educated individuals is often referred to as the 'lost generation' in both China and the
West.[20]:[126][127] In the post-Mao period, many of those forcibly moved attacked the policy as a violation of
their human rights."[128]:36

However, the impact of the Cultural Revolution on accessible education varied among regions, and formal
measurements of literacy did not resume until the 1980s.[129] Some counties in Zhanjiang had illiteracy rates as
high as 41% some 20 years after the revolution. The leaders of China at the time denied that there were any
illiteracy problems from the start. This effect was amplified by the elimination of qualified teachers—many
districts were forced to rely on selected students to educate the next generation.[129] Though the effect of the
Cultural Revolution was disastrous for millions in China, there were positive outcomes for some sections of the
population, such as those in rural areas. For example, the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution and the hostility
to the intellectual elite is widely accepted to have damaged the quality of education in China, especially at the
upper end of the education system. However, the radical policies also provided many in rural communities with
middle school education for the first time, which is thought to have facilitated the rural economic development in
the 70s and 80s.[125]:163 Similarly, many health personnel were deployed to the countryside as barefoot doctors
during the Cultural Revolution. Some farmers were given informal medical training, and health-care centers
were established in rural communities. This process led to a marked improvement in the health and the life
expectancy of the general population.[130]

Slogans and rhetoric

According to Shaorong Huang, the fact that the Cultural Revolution

had such massive effects on Chinese society is the result of extensive
use of political slogans.[131] In Huang's view, rhetoric played a central
role in rallying both the Party leadership and people at large during the
Cultural Revolution. For example, the slogan "to rebel is justified" (
反 理 ; zàofǎn yǒulǐ) became a unitary theme.[131]

Huang asserts that political slogans were ubiquitous in every aspect of

people's lives, being printed onto everyday items such as bus tickets,
cigarette packets, and mirror tables.[128]:14 Workers were supposed to
"grasp revolution and promote productions", while peasants were
supposed to raise more pigs because "more pigs means more manure,
and more manure means more grain." Even a casual remark by Mao,
"Sweet potato tastes good; I like it" became a slogan everywhere in the
countryside.[131]
Remnants of a banner containing
Political slogans of the time had three sources: Mao, official Party slogans from the Cultural Revolution
media such as People's Daily, and the Red Guards.[131] Mao often in Anhui.
offered vague, yet powerful directives that led to the factionalization of
the Red Guards.[132] These directives could be interpreted to suit
personal interests, in turn aiding factions' goals in being most loyal to Mao Zedong. Red Guard slogans were of
the most violent nature, such as "Strike the enemy down on the floor and step on him with a foot", "Long live
the red terror!" and "Those who are against Chairman Mao will have their dog skulls smashed into pieces."[131]

Sinologists Lowell Dittmer and Chen Ruoxi point out that the Chinese language had historically been defined
by subtlety, delicacy, moderation, and honesty, as well as the "cultivation of a refined and elegant literary
style."[133] This changed during the Cultural Revolution. Since Mao wanted an army of bellicose people in his
crusade, rhetoric at the time was reduced to militant and violent vocabulary.[131] These slogans were a powerful
and effective method of "thought reform," mobilizing millions in a concerted attack upon the subjective world,
"while at the same time reforming their objective world."[131][133]:12

Dittmer and Chen argue that the emphasis on politics made language a very effective form of propaganda, but
"also transformed it into a jargon of stereotypes—pompous, repetitive, and boring."[133]:12 To distance itself
from the era, Deng Xiaoping's government cut back heavily on the use of political slogans. The practice of
sloganeering saw a mild resurgence in the late 1990s under Jiang Zemin.

Arts and literature

Before the Cultural Revolution, in the years 1958–1966,

theatre became part of the struggles in the political arena as
plays were used to criticize or support particular members
of the party leadership. An opera by Wu Han, Hai Rui
Dismissed from Office, was interpreted as a veiled criticism
of Mao. It elicited an attack by Yao Wenyuan on the opera,
and the attack is often considered the opening shot of the
Cultural Revolution.[134] It led to the persecution and
death of its writer Wu Han, as well as others involved in
theater, such as Tian Han, Sun Weishi, and Zhou
Xinfang.[135][136] The ballet The Red Detachment of Women, one of
the Model Dramas promoted during the Cultural
During the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing took control of Revolution.
the stage and introduced the revolutionary model operas
under her direct supervision. Traditional operas were
banned as they were considered feudalistic and bourgeois, but revolutionary opera, which is based on Peking
opera but modified in both content and form, was promoted.[20]:115 Starting in 1967, eight Model Dramas (six
operas and two ballets) were produced in the first three years, and the most notable of the operas was The
Legend of the Red Lantern. These operas were the only approved opera form and other opera troupes were
required to adopt or change their repertoire.[118]:176 The model operas were also broadcast on the radio, made
into films, blared from public loudspeakers, taught to students in schools and workers in factories, and became
ubiquitous as a form of popular entertainment and the only theatrical entertainment for millions in
China.[34]:352–3[20]:115

In 1966, Jiang Qing put forward the Theory of the Dictatorship of the Black Line in Literature and Arts where
those perceived to be bourgeois, anti-socialist or anti-Mao "black line" should be cast aside, and called for the
creation of new literature and arts.[34]:352–3 Writers, artists and intellectuals who were the recipients and
disseminators of the "old culture" would be comprehensively eradicated. The majority of writers and artists were
seen as "black line figures" and "reactionary literati", and therefore persecuted, many were subjected to
"criticism and denunciation" where they may be publicly humiliated and ravaged, and may also be imprisoned
or sent to be reformed through hard labour.[137]:213–4 For instance, Mei Zhi and her husband were sent to a tea
farm in Lushan County, Sichuan, and she did not resume writing until the 1980s.[138]
Documents released in 1980 regarding the prosecution of the Gang of Four show more than 2,600 people in the
field of arts and literature were revealed to have been persecuted by the Ministry of Culture and units under it
alone.[120] Many died as a result of their ordeal and humiliation—the names of 200 well-known writers and
artists who were persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution were commemorated in 1979, these include
writers such as Lao She, Fu Lei, Deng Tuo, Baren, Li Guangtian, Yang Shuo and Zhao Shuli.[137]:213–4

During the Cultural Revolution, only a few writers who gained permission or requalification under the new
system, such as Hao Ran and some writers of worker or farmer background, can have had their work published
or reprinted. The permissible subject matter of proletarian and socialist literature would be strictly defined, and
all the literary periodicals in the country ceased publication by 1968. The situation eased after 1972, more
writers were allowed to write, and many provincial literary periodicals resumed publication, but the majority of
writers still could not work.[137]:219–20

The effect is similar in the film industry. A booklet titled "Four Hundred Films to be Criticized" was distributed,
and film directors and actors/actresses were criticized with some tortured and imprisoned.[34]:401–2 These
included many of Jiang Qing's rivals and former friends in the film industry, and those who died in the period
included Cai Chusheng, Zheng Junli, Shangguan Yunzhu, Wang Ying, and Xu Lai.[139] No feature films were
produced in mainland China for seven years apart from the few approved "Model dramas" and highly
ideological films,[140] a notable example of the handful of films made and permitted to be shown in this period is
Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy.[141][142]

After the communist takeover in China, much of the popular music from Shanghai was condemned as Yellow
Music and banned, and during the Cultural Revolution, composers of such popular music such as Li Jinhui were
persecuted.[143] Revolution-themed songs instead were promoted, and songs such as "Ode to the Motherland",
"Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman", "The East Is Red" and "Without the Communist Party, There
Would Be No New China" were either written or became extremely popular during this period. "The East Is
Red", especially, became popular; it de facto supplanted "March of the Volunteers" as the national anthem of
China, though the latter was restored to its previous place after the Cultural Revolution ended.

Propaganda art

Some of the most enduring images of the Cultural Revolution come

from poster arts. Propaganda art in posters was used as a campaigning
tool and mass communication device and often served as the leading
source of information for the people. They were produced in large
number and widely disseminated, and were used by the government
and Red Guards to educate the public the ideological value as defined
by the party state.[144] There were many types of posters, the two main
genres being the big-character poster ( ⼤ 报 ; dazibao) and
"commercial" propaganda poster ( 传 ; xuanchuanhua).[145]:7–12
Posters from the Cultural Revolution
period
The dazibao may be slogans, poems, commentary and graphics often
freely created and posted on walls in public spaces, factories and
communes. They were vital to Mao's struggle in the Cultural Revolution, and Mao himself wrote his own
dazibao at Beijing University on August 5, 1966, calling on the people to "Bombard the Headquarters."[145]:5

The xuanchuanhua were artworks produced by the government and sold cheaply in store to be displayed in
homes or workplaces. The artists for these posters might be amateurs or uncredited professionals, and the posters
were largely in a Socialist Realist visual style with certain conventions—for example, images of Mao were to be
depicted as "red, smooth, and luminescent".[145]:7–12[146]:360
Traditional themes in art were sidelined the Cultural Revolution, and artists such as Feng Zikai, Shi Lu, and Pan
Tianshou were persecuted.[118]:97 Many of the artists have been assigned to manual labour, and artists were
expected to depict subjects that glorified the Cultural Revolution related to their labour.[146]:351–2 > In 1971, in
part to alleviate their suffering, several leading artists were recalled from manual labour or free from captivity
under the initiative of Zhou Enlai to decorate hotels and railway stations defaced by Red Guards slogans. Zhou
said that the artworks were for meant for foreigners, therefore were "outer" art not be under the obligations and
restrictions placed on "inner" art meant for Chinese citizens. To him, landscape paintings should also not be
considered one of the "Four Olds". However, Zhou was weakened by cancer, and in 1974, the Jiang Qing
faction seized these and other paintings and mounted exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities
denouncing the artworks as "Black Paintings".[146]:368–76

Historical relics

China's historical sites, artifacts and archives suffered

devastating damage, as they were thought to be at the root
of "old ways of thinking." Artifacts were seized, museums
and private homes ransacked, and any item found that was
thought to represent bourgeois or feudal ideas was
destroyed. There are few records of exactly how much was
destroyed—Western observers suggest that much of
China's thousands of years of history was in effect
destroyed, or, later, smuggled abroad for sale, during the
short ten years of the Cultural Revolution. Chinese
historians compare the cultural suppression during the
Cultural Revolution to Qin Shihuang's great Confucian
purge. Religious persecution intensified during this period, Buddhist statues defaced during the Cultural
as a result of religion being viewed in opposition to Revolution.
Marxist–Leninist and Maoist thinking.[34]:73

Although being undertaken by some of the Revolution's enthusiastic followers, the destruction of historical relics
was never formally sanctioned by the Communist Party, whose official policy was instead to protect such items.
On May 14, 1967, the CCP central committee issued a document entitled Several suggestions for the protection
of cultural relics and books during the Cultural Revolution.[128]:21 Nevertheless, enormous damage was
inflicted on China's cultural heritage. For example, a survey in 1972 in Beijing of 18 key spots of cultural
heritage, including the Temple of Heaven and Ming Tombs, showed extensive damage. Of the 80 cultural
heritage sites in Beijing under municipal protection, 30 were destroyed, and of the 6,843 cultural sites under
protection by Beijing government decision in 1958, 4,922 were damaged or destroyed.[147] Numerous valuable
old books, paintings, and other cultural relics were also burnt to ashes.[148]:98

Later archaeological excavation and preservation after the destructive period in the 1960s, however, were
protected, and several significant discoveries, such as the Terracotta Army and the Mawangdui, occurred after
the peak of the Revolution.[128]:21 Nevertheless, the most prominent symbol of academic research in
archaeology, the journal Kaogu, did not publish during the Cultural Revolution.[149] After the most violent
phase of the 1960s ended, the attack on traditional culture continued in 1973 with the Anti-Lin Biao, Anti-
Confucius Campaign as part of the struggle against the moderate elements in the party.

Foreign relations

During the Cultural Revolution, the Communist China exported the "Communist Revolution" as well as the
Communist ideology to multiple countries in Southeast Asia, supporting the communist parties in Indonesia,
Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and in particular, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia which was responsible for
the Cambodian genocide.[150][151] It is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid to the Khmer Rouge came
from China, with 1975 alone seeing at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid and
US$20 million gift from China.[152]

Among the over 40 countries which had established diplomatic or half-diplomatic relations with China at the
time, around 30 countries went into diplomatic disputes with China—some countries even terminated their
diplomatic relations with China, including Central Africa, Ghana and Indonesia.[151]

With the help of Chinese embassies and consulates overseas, the Communist China launched
various propaganda campaigns for Chairman Mao, such as sending the Little Red Book and the
Chairman Mao badge to local citizens.[151]
Many of Chinese ambassadors and consuls were called back to China to engage in the Cultural
Revolution. Senior officials such as Chen Yi, the 2nd Foreign Minister of the People's Republic
of China, were persecuted.[153][154]
Several foreign guests were "mandated" to stand in front of the statue of Mao Zedong, holding
the Little Red Book and "reporting" to Mao as other Chinese citizens did.[155]

Public views

Communist Party opinions

To make sense of the mass chaos caused by Mao's leadership in the

Cultural Revolution while preserving the Party's authority and legitimacy,
Mao's successors needed to lend the event a "proper" historical judgment.
On June 27, 1981, the Central Committee adopted the "Resolution on
Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the
People's Republic of China," an official assessment of major historical
events since 1949.[156]

The Resolution frankly noted Mao's leadership role in the movement,

stating that "chief responsibility for the grave 'Left' error of the 'Cultural
Revolution,' an error comprehensive in magnitude and protracted in
duration, does indeed lie with Comrade Mao Zedong." It diluted blame on
Mao himself by asserting that the movement was "manipulated by the
counterrevolutionary groups of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing," who caused its
worst excesses. The Resolution affirmed that the Cultural Revolution The central section of this wall
"brought serious disaster and turmoil to the Communist Party and the shows the faint remnant marks of
Chinese people."[156] a propaganda slogan that was
added during the Cultural
The official view aimed to separate Mao's actions during the Cultural Revolution, but has since been
Revolution from his "heroic" revolutionary activities during the Chinese removed. The slogan read
Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War. It also separated Mao's "Boundless faith that in Chairman
personal mistakes from the correctness of the theory that he created, going Mao."
as far as to rationalize that the Cultural Revolution contravened the spirit of
Mao Zedong Thought, which remains an official guiding ideology of the
Party. Deng Xiaoping famously summed this up with the phrase "Mao was 70% good, 30% bad."[157] After the
Cultural Revolution, Deng affirmed that Maoist ideology was responsible for the revolutionary success of the
Communist Party, but abandoned it in practice to favour "Socialism with Chinese characteristics", a very
different model of state-directed market economics.
In Mainland China, the official view of the party now serves as the dominant framework for Chinese
historiography of the period; alternative views (see below) are discouraged. Following the Cultural Revolution,
a new genre of literature known as "Scar literature" (Shanghen Wenxue) emerged, being encouraged by the
post-Mao government. Written mainly by educated youth such as Liu Xinhua, Zhang Xianliang, and Liu
Xinwu, scar literature depicted the Revolution from a negative viewpoint, using their own perspectives and
experiences as a basis.[128]:32

After the suppression of the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989, both liberals and conservatives within the Party
accused each other of excesses that they claimed were reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. Li Peng, who
promoted the use of military force, cited that the student movement had taken inspiration from the grassroots
populism of the Cultural Revolution and that if it is left unchecked, would eventually lead to a similar degree of
mass chaos.[158] Zhao Ziyang, who was sympathetic to the protestors, later accused his political opponents of
illegally removing him from office by using "Cultural Revolution-style" tactics, including "reversing black and
white, exaggerating personal offenses, taking quotes out of context, issuing slander and lies... inundating the
newspapers with critical articles making me out to be an enemy, and casual disregard for my personal
freedoms."[159]

Alternative opinions in China

Although the Chinese Communist Party officially condemns the Cultural Revolution, there are many Chinese
people who hold more positive views of it, particularly amongst the working class, who benefited most from its
policies.[128]: Since Deng's ascendancy to power, the government has arrested and imprisoned figures who have
taken a strongly pro-Cultural Revolution stance. For instance, in 1985, a young shoe-factory worker put up a
poster on a factory wall in Xianyang, Shaanxi, which declared that "The Cultural Revolution was Good" and
led to achievements such as "the building of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, the creation of hybrid rice crops
and the rise of people's consciousness." The factory worker was eventually sentenced to ten years in prison,
where he died soon after "without any apparent cause."[128]:46–7

One of the student leaders of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Shen Tong, author of Almost a
Revolution, has a positive view of some aspects of the Cultural Revolution. According to Shen, the trigger for
the famous Tiananmen hunger-strikes of 1989 was a big-character poster (dazibao), a form of public political
discussion that gained prominence during the Cultural Revolution. Shen remarked that the congregation of
students from across the country to Beijing on trains and the hospitality they received from residents was
reminiscent of the experiences of Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution.[12]

Since the advent of the Internet, people inside and outside China have argued online that the Cultural Revolution
had many beneficial qualities for China that have been denied by both the post-Mao Chinese Communist Party
and Western media. Some hold that the Cultural Revolution 'cleansed' China from superstitions, religious
dogma, and outdated traditions in a 'modernist transformation' that later made Deng's economic reforms possible.
These sentiments increased following the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 when a
segment of the population began to associate anti-Maoist viewpoints with the United States.[128]:117

Contemporary Maoists have also become more organized in the internet era, partially as a response to criticisms
of Mao from academics and scholars. One Maoist website managed to collect thousands of signatures
demanding punishment for those who publicly criticize Mao. Along with the call for legal action, this movement
demands the establishment of agencies similar to Cultural Revolution-era "neighborhood committees", in which
"citizens" would report anti-Maoists to local public security bureaus. Maoist rhetoric and mass mobilization
methods were resurgent in the interior city of Chongqing during the political career of Bo Xilai.[160]

Contemporary China
Public discussion of the Cultural Revolution is still limited in China. The Chinese government continues to
prohibit news organizations from mentioning details of the Cultural Revolution, and online discussions and
books about the topic are subject to official scrutiny. Textbooks on the subject continue to abide by the "official
view" (see above) of the events. Many government documents from the 1960s onward remain classified and are
not open to formal inspection by private academics.[161] At the National Museum of China in Beijing, the
Cultural Revolution is barely mentioned in its historical exhibits.[162] Despite inroads made by numerous
prominent sinologists, independent scholarly research of the Cultural Revolution is discouraged by the Chinese
government.[161] There are concerns that as witnesses age and die, the opportunity to research the event
thoroughly within China may be lost.[163]

In 2018, it was reported that one practice typical of the Cultural Revolution, Fengqiao, or public criticism of
supposed counter-revolutionaries by a whole village, was experiencing an unexpected revival: but it is unclear
whether this was an isolated incident or a sign of a renewed interest for cultural styles typical of the
Revolution.[164]

Contemporary Discussions of Mao Zedong's Legacy

Mao Zedong’s public image is one that is widely disputed among the nation of China. Despite his gruesome
actions, during the anniversary of his birth, many people within China are left viewing Mao as a godlike figure
and refer to him as “the people’s great savior.” Supporters of Mao Zedong hold him to the highest regard, that of
a deity. Additionally, contemporary discussions in modern newspapers like the Global Times continue to make
attempts to preserve Mao’s public image. Rather than focus on the horrific consequences of his leadership,
newspapers make excuses by describing that revolutions typically have a brutal side and are unable to be viewed
from the “humanitarian perspective.” Supporters of Mao would agree on the opinion that the ends justify the
means. [165]

Adversaries of Mao Zedong look at the actions that occurred under his leadership from a different point of view.
An interesting way to look at Mao’s public image is that “he was better at conquering power than at ruling the
country and developing a socialist economy.” It is clearly evident that Mao went to extreme measures to conquer
power. However, despite successes in gaining power, it is obvious that Mao’s actions had disastrous effects.
Adversaries of Zedong recognize that his actions were ill-conceived. In terms of his public image, they are also
content with depicting him as innately evil. The benefits of Mao Zedong’s rule do not exceed the countless lives
lost within the nation. Millions of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc. of individuals were lost due to Mao’s
arrogance. It is clear that depending on who is asked, Mao Zedong’s public image varies greatly.[166]

Outside mainland China

In Hong Kong, a pro-Communist anti-colonial strike inspired by the Cultural Revolution was launched in 1967.
Its excesses damaged the credibility of these activists for more than a generation in the eyes of Hong Kong
residents.[167] In Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek initiated the Chinese Cultural Renaissance to counter what he
regarded as the destruction of traditional Chinese values by the Communists on the mainland. In Albania,
Communist leader and Chinese ally Enver Hoxha began a "Cultural and Ideological Revolution" organized
along the same lines as the Cultural Revolution.[168]

In the world at large, Mao Zedong emerged as a symbol of the anti-establishment, grassroots populism, and self-
determination. His revolutionary philosophies found adherents in the Shining Path of Peru, the Naxalite
insurgency in India, various political movements in Nepal, the U.S.-based Black Panther Party,[169] and the
1960s counterculture movement in general. In 2007 Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang remarked that
the Cultural Revolution represented the 'dangers of democracy', remarking "People can go to the extreme like
what we saw during the Cultural Revolution [...], when people take everything into their own hands, then you
cannot govern the place."[170] The remarks caused controversy in Hong Kong and were later retracted with an
accompanying apology.[170]

Academic debate

Scholars and academics continue to debate why events unfolded the way they did, Mao's role, how the Cultural
Revolution began, and what it was. These debates have changed over the decades as researchers explored new
sources.

In the 1960s, while many scholars dismissed Mao's initiatives as ideological and destructive, others sympathized
with his concern for equality, opposition to bureaucratism and corruption, and individual selfishness. They saw
Maoism as a populist insistence on mass participation, mass criticism and the right to rebel, and a determination
to wipe out a new ruling class. By the 1980s, however, Harvard University sociologist Andrew Walder wrote
that the “public opinion in the field had changed markedly”. Most in the field now “seem convinced that that the
Cultural Revolution was a human disaster, even a historical crime, something on the order of Hitler’s holocaust
and Stalin’s great terror.” Walder argued that the failures of the Cultural Revolution did not come from poor
implementation, bureaucratic sabotage, disloyalty, or lingering class antagonisms. If things turned out differently
from what Mao expected, Walder concluded, this was “probably due to the fact that Mao did not know what he
wanted, or that he did know what he was doing, or both.... the outcomes are what one should have expected,
given the Maoist doctrine and aims.” [171]:155–66

Nevertheless, the debate continues because the movement contains many contradictions: led by an all-powerful
omnipresent leader, it was mainly driven by a series of grassroots popular uprisings against the Communist
establishment. Virtually all English-language books published since the 1980s paint a negative picture of the
movement. Historian Anne F. Thurston wrote that it "led to loss of culture, and of spiritual values; loss of hope
and ideals; loss of time, truth and of life".[172] Barnouin and Yu summarized the Cultural Revolution as "a
political movement that produced unprecedented social divisions, mass mobilization, hysteria, upheavals,
arbitrary cruelty, torture, killings, and even civil war", calling Mao "one of the most tyrannical despots of the
twentieth century".[148]:217 Some scholars challenge the mainstream portrayals of the Cultural Revolution and
offer to understand it in a more positive light. Mobo Gao, writing in The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the
Cultural Revolution, argues that the movement benefited millions of Chinese citizens, particularly agricultural
and industrial workers,[128]:1 and sees it as egalitarian and genuinely populist, citing continued Maoist nostalgia
in China today as remnants of its positive legacy.[128]:3 Some draw a distinction between intention and
performance.[171]:159 While Mao's leadership was pivotal at the beginning of the movement, Jin Qiu contends
that as events progressed, it deviated significantly from Mao's utopian vision.[14]:2–3 In this sense, the Cultural
Revolution was actually a much more decentralized and varied movement that gradually lost cohesion,
spawning many 'local revolutions' which differed in their nature and goals.[14]:2–3

Academic interest has also focused on the movement's relationship with Mao's personality. Mao envisioned
himself as a wartime guerrilla leader, which made him wary of the bureaucratic nature of peacetime governance.
With the Cultural Revolution Mao was simply "returning to form", once again taking on the role of a guerrilla
leader fighting against an institutionalized party bureaucracy. Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals,
paint the movement as neither a bona fide war over ideological purity nor a mere power struggle to remove
Mao's political rivals.[17]:2–3 While Mao's personal motivations were undoubtedly pivotal to the Cultural
Revolution, they reasoned that other complex factors contributed to the way events unfolded. These include
China's relationship with the global Communist movement, geopolitical concerns, the ideological rift between
China and the Soviet Union, Khrushchev's ouster, and the failures of the Great Leap Forward.[17]:2–3 They
conclude that the movement was, at least in part, a legacy project to cement Mao's place in history, aimed to
boost his prestige while he was alive and preserve the invulnerability of his ideas after his death.[17]:2–3
The mass hysteria surrounding the Cultural Revolution was also unprecedented. Historian Phillip Short contends
that the Cultural Revolution contained elements that were akin to a form of religious worship.[173] Mao's
godlike status during the period yielded him ultimate definitional power over Communist doctrine, yet the
esoteric and often contradictory nature of his writings led to endless wars over its interpretation, with both
conservatives and liberals drawing on Mao's teachings to achieve their divergent goals.

In Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday attribute all the destruction of the Cultural
Revolution to Mao personally, with more sympathetic portrayals of his allies and opponents.[71]:

See also
Chinese Cultural Renaissance
Mass killings under communist regimes
List of massacres in China
July Theses, a mini–Cultural Revolution in Romania

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Notes
i. No relation to Peng Dehuai.

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4938-0.

Further reading

General
Michael Schoenhals, ed., China's Cultural Revolution, 1966–1969: Not a Dinner Party (Armonk,
N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. An East Gate Reader). xix, 400 p. ISBN 1-56324-736-4.
Richard Curt Kraus. The Cultural Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press, Very Short Introductions Series, 2012. xiv, 138 p. ISBN 9780199740550.
MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University
Press, 2006. ISBN 0-674-02332-3
Jiaqi Yan; Gao Gao (1996). Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution (1st ed.).
University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0824816957.
Morning Sun, "Bibliography," Morningsun.org (http://www.morningsun.org/library) Books and
articles of General Readings and Selected Personal Narratives on the Cultural Revolution.
Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution, an autobiography that includes experiences
during the Cultural Revolution
Red Scarf Girl, a memoir of experiences during the Cultural Revolution
A Year In Upper Felicity, book chronicling a year in a rural Chinese village during the Cultural
Revolution

Specific topics
Andreas, Joel (2009). Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of
China's New Class. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Chan, Anita. 1985. Children of Mao: Personality Development and Political Activism in the Red
Guard Generation. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Chen, Lingchei Letty (2020). "The Great Leap Backward: Forgetting and Representing the Mao
Years". New York: Cambria Press. Scholarly studies on memory writings and documentaries of
the Mao years, victimhood narratives, perpetrator studies, ethics of bearing witness to atrocities.
Leese, Daniel (2011). Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in the Cultural Revolution. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Li, Jie and Enhua Zhang, eds. Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist
Revolution (Harvard University Asia Center, 2016) 409 p.; Scholarly studies on cultural legacies
and continuities from the Maoist era in art, architecture, literature, performance, film, etc.
Fox Butterfield, China: Alive in the Bitter Sea, (1982, revised 2000), ISBN 0-553-34219-3, an oral
history of some Chinese people's experience during the Cultural Revolution.
Chang, Jung; Halliday, Jon (2005). Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Knopf.
ISBN 0679422714.
 Xing Lu (2004). Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Impact on Chinese Thought,
Culture, and Communication. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1570035432.
Ross Terrill, The White-Boned Demon: A Biography of Madame Mao Zedong Stanford University
Press, 1984 ISBN 0-8047-2922-0; rpr. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992 ISBN 0-671-74484-4.
Wu, Yiching (2014). The Cultural Revolution at the Margins: Chinese Socialism in Crisis.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Commentaries
Ryckmans, Pierre. 1977. The Chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution.
ISBN 0-85031-208-6
(revised ed.) 1981. ISBN 0-85031-435-6.
—— 1978. Chinese Shadows. ISBN 0-670-21918-5; ISBN 0-14-004787-5.
—— 1979. Broken Images: Essays on Chinese Culture and Politics. ISBN 0-8052-8069-3
—— 1986. The Burning Forest: Essays on Chinese Culture and Politics. ISBN 0-03-005063-4;
ISBN 0-586-08630-7; ISBN 0-8050-0350-9; ISBN 0-8050-0242-1.
Liu, Guokai. 1987. A Brief Analysis of the Cultural Revolution. edited by Anita Chan. Armonk,
N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.

Fictional treatments
Sijie, Dai. 2001. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, translated by I. Rilke. New York:
Knopf / Random House. 197 p. ISBN 0-375-41309-X
Gao, Xingjian. 2002. One Man's Bible: A Novel, translated by M. Lee. New York: HarperCollins.
450 p.
Gu, Hua. 1983. A Small Town Called Hibiscus, translated by G. Yang. Beijing: Chinese
Literature / China Publications Centre. 260 p.
Reprinted: San Francisco: China Books.
Yu, Hua. 2003. To Live: A Novel, translated by M. Berry. New York: Anchor Books. 250 p.
Compestine, Ying Chang. 2007. Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party : A Novel. (http://www.worldcat.
org/title/revolution-is-not-a-dinner-party-a-novel/oclc/77333486/viewport) New York: Holt.
ISBN 0805082077. Young adult novel.
Cixin, Liu. 2014. The Three-Body Problem, translated by K. Liu. New York: Tor Books.
ISBN 0765377063.

Memoirs by Chinese participants

Liu Ping, My Chinese Dream – From Red Guard to CEO (San Francisco, June 2012). 556 p.
ISBN 9780835100403
Nien Cheng, Life and Death in Shanghai (Grove, May 1987). 547 p. ISBN 0-394-55548-1
Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991). 524
p. LCCN 91-20696 (https://lccn.loc.gov/91020696)
Heng Liang Judith Shapiro, Son of the Revolution (New York: Knopf : Distributed by Random
House, 1983).
Yuan Gao, with Judith Polumbaum, Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1987).
Jiang Yang Chu translated and annotated by Djang Chu, Six Chapters of Life in a Cadre School:
Memoirs from China's Cultural Revolution [Translation of Ganxiao Liu Ji] (Boulder: Westview
 Press, 1986).
Ma Bo, Blood Red Sunset: A Memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York: Viking,
1995). Translated by Howard Goldblatt.
Guanlong Cao, The Attic: Memoir of a Chinese Landlord's Son (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1996).
Ji-li Jiang, Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution (New York: HarperCollins, 1997).
Anchee Min, Red Azalea (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994). ISBN 1-4000-9698-7.
Rae Yang, Spider Eaters: A Memoir (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
Weili Ye, Xiaodong Ma, Growing up in the People's Republic: Conversations between Two
Daughters of China's Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
Lijia Zhang, "Socialism Is Great": A Worker's Memoir of the New China (New York: Atlas & Co,
Distributed by Norton, 2007).
Emily Wu, Feather in the Storm (Pantheon, 2006). ISBN 978-0-375-42428-1.
Xinran Xue, The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices (Chatto & Windus, 2002). Translated by
Esther Tyldesley. ISBN 0-7011-7345-9
Ting-Xing Ye, Leaf In A Bitter Wind (England, Bantam Books, 2000)
Zhang Xianliang, Grass Soup, ISBN 0-7493-9774-8
Dongping Han, The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Life and Change in a Chinese Village,
ISBN 978-1583671801
Ken Ling, The Revenge of Heaven. Journal of a young Chinese. English text prepared by Miriam
London and Ta-Ling Lee. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York 1972

Films set in the Cultural Revolution

Xie Jin, Hibiscus Town (1984)
Zhang Yimou, Red Sorghum (1987)
Chen Kaige, Farewell My Concubine (1992)
Zhang Yimou, Story of Qiu Ju (1992)
Tian Zhuangzhuang Blue Kite (1993)
Zhang Yimou, To Live (1993)
Jiang Wen, In the Heat of the Sun (1994)

External links
Encyclopædia Britannica. The Cultural Revolution (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-902816
4/Cultural-Revolution)
History of The Cultural Revolution (https://web.archive.org/web/20070429003300/http://library.thi
nkquest.org/26469/cultural-revolution/history.html)
Chinese propaganda posters gallery (Cultural Revolution, Mao, and others) (http://www.sinohits.
net/posters/index.htm)
Hua Guofeng's speech to the 11th Party Congress, 1977 (http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/64
168/64563/65449/4526439.html)
Morning Sun – A Film and Website about Cultural Revolution (https://web.archive.org/web/2014
0517221258/http://morningsun.org/) and the photographs (https://web.archive.org/web/20170518
113244/http://morningsun.org/images/index.html) of the subject available from the film's site.
Memorial for Victims of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (http://www.chinese-memorial.org/)
"William Hinton on the Cultural Revolution" (http://www.monthlyreview.org/0305pugh.htm) by
Dave Pugh
 "Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966" (http://www.cnd.org/CR/english/artic
les/violence.htm) by Youqin Wang
A Tale of Red Guards and Cannibals (https://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/06/world/a-tale-of-red-g
uards-and-cannibals.html) by Nicholas D. Kristof. The New York Times, January 6, 1993.

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