Evaluate the impact of Mao's Cultural Revolution on China.
The Cultural Revolution of China can be treated as one of the most significant eras of
Mao Zedong’s rule. Launched in 1966 for the first time, it aimed to reassert the authoritarian
leader’s authority over his nation and people. However, the many significant humanitarian
and economic losses during the period, the Revolution can be treated as a failure nationwide,
even if it established Mao’s cult personality.
Firstly, Cultural Revolution diminished any economic progress made by China after the
Great Leap forward. During the latter period, Mao Zedong aimed to make the daily life of the
Chinese more efficient by making workers spend even more time in factories or field. This
was attempted by incorporating backyard furnaces into people’s backyards, so that everyone
could take part in major industrialization. However, this policy failed completely, resulting in
terrible famines that killed an estimated 30 to 50 million people during 1959-1961. Before the
Cultural Revolution took place, Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shoqui acted by allowing a revival of
private markets and by such means, reviving the Chinese economy. However, despite it being
incredibly useful (production grew from 17 to 27 per cent over the course of only two years),
Mao Zedong expressed his concerns of China moving away from socialism to capitalism.
When the Cultural Revolution began, the leader purged his party of ‘revolution enemies’,
Deng and Liu included, which resulted in terrible economic losses for the whole country to
experience in many decades to come. Therefore, Mao Zedong completely overlooked the
economic impact Cultural Revolution will have on China to maintain his ideological image.
Secondly, the Revolution destroyed China’s cultural legacy and any sort of freedom of
speech left. To convince his nation of the righteousness of his actions, Mao made sure that
any sort of Western influence, whether that would be literature or simply use of poker cards,
would be taken away from the public eye. Intellectuals, although already extremely oppressed
before the Cultural Revolution even began, were even more targeted. Any sort of artistic
works, no matter their branch, were heavily censored, unless it proved to be beneficial in
spreading Mao’s revolution image. This affected education too. By using propaganda, Mao
managed to use the students to make a new sort of army, later known as the Red Guards. The
leader managed to use the younger demographic group of his country to purge schools,
universities, and later, even CPC themselves of his enemies. Therefore, we can state that
throughout extreme censorship of the works of intellectuals or foreign influences, any sort of
cultural developments that China had chance of achieving was stomped over by Mao’s ideas
of an ideal Chinese society.
However, in some sense, the Cultural Revolution was quite useful for Mao. It allowed
the leader to reach his main goals- to completely consolidate his power as the ultimate leader
of China. Although his image had started falling apart after such events as the Great Leap
Forward, the Cultural Revolution did manage to establish Mao as a sort of cult personality,
over glorified throughout the whole nation. This was achieved by several methods, such as
the ones mentioned previously: extensive propaganda and cruel treatment of any time of
opposition to his ideals and regime. He became the ultimate leading power throughout China,
whether that would be by adopting the name of the Great Helmsman or the Great Teacher,
ultimately leading to being perceived as a deity, even. Mao’s action became undoubtful, any
sort of resistance was shut down by his personal Red Guards, whose ideology was shaped by
“Little Red Book”, allegedly written by Mao himself. Therefore, The Cultural Revolution did
manage to consolidate Mao Zedong’s position as the supreme leader of China, despite the
necessary actions taken.
In conclusion, on a more globular scale, the Cultural Revolution was utterly a complete
disaster. Even if it can be argued that it reached the main goal of the leader- taking back the
power he had over China and returning to a socialist road- the losses suffered, both
economical, humanitarian, or cultural, are too great to ignore them and count the period as a
success.