Lecture: Cultural Revolution (Part I)
1966 – early 1970s
By the end of Part I:
1. Understand the reasons Mao launched the C.R. (what
was he trying to do)
2. Identify the moderates
3. Identify who supported Mao
4. Describe who the Red Guards were and their actions
5. Describe two effects on China as a result.
August 18, 1966….
Over 1 million people packed Beijing’s Tiananmen
Square….
Beginning of the Cultural Revolution
Mao enlisted the youth of China as his
instrument for re-imposing his will upon the
nation and reshaping China according to his
vision
Event that consumed China for the next
decade
One historian stated:
It is doubtful whether any other society has
witnessed organized chaos on such a grand
scale. Hardly anywhere in China, even the
remotest regions, remained untouched.
Millions died; many more millions had their lives
permanently damaged.
Mao’s purpose for the C.R.
At its simplest:
1. Preserve Mao’s power for the rest of his life
2. Ensure Mao’s concept of revolution would again be
central to China and last beyond his death
Remember- moderates in control
Zhou Enlai
Liu Shiaoqi
Deng Xiaoping
Mao v. Moderates
Moderates: Interested in results of economic
policies- even if some capitalist ideas
Allowed markets to operate
Allowed limited private ownership/ profit-seeking
Abandoned communal farm policies
Mao: Wanted Communist ideology. Not capitalism
Mao’s beliefs
• Revolution being betrayed from within
• Many leaders infected with neo-capitalism
• Desire for personal power robbed moderates of revolutionary spirit
• If revolution stood still it would stop
MAO WANTED
• Ongoing, permanent revolution
• To lead again to ensure all he had accomplished wouldn’t be lost
• REMEMBER MAO’S QUOTES
The Revolution begins…
In 1966 Mao ordered schools in China shut down to:
• rewrite the curriculum (make it more Communist)
• rid education of “capitalist” and “bourgeois”
influences
• get rid of the “Four Olds” (old ideas, culture,
customs, habits)
Students in Beijing (with Mao's support) began a
campaign of violence against everything old
Chaos on a Grand Scale
Red Guard activities spiraled out of control
• Shaved heads of girls with western hairstyles
• Ripped off western styled clothes
• Smashed shop windows of stores with western goods
• Defaced anything showing “old” ideas
• Burned bookshops and libraries
• Closed museums and art galleries, churches, temples,
theaters
• Forbade hand holding in public
• Renamed places that had “reactionary” or traditional names
• Torturing and killing reactionaries/rightists
All political moderates were purged:
Liu ShiaoqiChina’s
President
Thrown in
jail, beaten,
denied
medicine
and died
alone
Liu’s wife also
imprisoned after
public humiliation
Deng Xiaoping:
His son thrown from window
by Red Guards and
paralyzed
Deng sent to perform
‘corrective labor’
Brought back to power before Mao died. After Mao’s death he
led China for almost 20 years.
Only Zhou Enlai
survived the purges
and was able to
maintain position
and power
throughout the C.R.
Mao had allies….
Lin Biao- Minister of
Defense
(after Peng Duhai
was purged)
So Mao had the
People’s Liberation
Army (PLA)
Understand the difference….
People’s Liberation Army
(PLA): Regular soldiers,
trained by government
Red Guard: Students (later
joined by others) who followed
Mao’s orders during the Cultural
Revolution
PLA Soldiers received Little Red Book
Lin Biao was Mao’s 2d in command
Mao’s wife Jiang Qing
Oversaw the arts. EVERYTHING
had to have a political message
With Mao since before
the Long March
Jiang Qing more radical than Mao!!
• No form of art is neutral or separate from politics
• Led a destructive process that undermined all forms of
tradition
• ‘the more brutal, the more revolutionary’
• Kick-up grass and knock the heads off of flowers- they are
bourgeois forms of beauty
• Allowing maternal love or family affection was ‘too
sentimental’ and not revolutionary
Music Teacher:
• No music sounded any more…Everybody was just doing
self-criticism or accepting criticism from students….So we
had to come every day, sit there and read Mao and do
criticism about our work, our teaching and performance.
Previously we performed a lot of classical or Chinese
traditional music. We thought we had popularized bad
things to the younger generation.
By the early 1970s, an Artistic Wasteland
Piano Teacher: We were working in the fields using our
fingers. I wanted tools but the guards said no- you have to
be educated to do everything with your fingers. That was
painful to a pianist like me- scraping the ground all the time.
I thought I would never play again, never do music again.
As a result of the Cultural Revolution you could say the
cultural trademark of my generation is that we have no
culture
-Poet Yan Yen
Propaganda was everywhere…
Criticize the
old world and
build a new
world with Mao
Zedong
Thought as a
weapon
Mass Psychology & Hysteria
We felt that we were defending China's
revolution and liberating the world. Our
actions made a generation of us feel that
the cultural revolution really was a war; a
war to defend the new China, defend
Chairman Mao.
-Red Guard Student
I believed in Mao with every cell in my
body. You felt you would give Chairman
Mao your everything -- your body, your
mind your fate, your spirit, your soul,
Whatever Chairman Mao wanted you to
do you were ready to do it.
Consider…
Students, trained in the Chinese tradition of obedience to parents
and teachers were suddenly told to insult and abuse them. For
children to denounce their elders had enormous significance in a
society where respect was taught from birth.
They were, of course,
still being obedient,
but this time to a new
master
Common Practice: Struggle Sessions
Struggle Sessions
An assault on the individual's sense of self, aimed at
provoking and stimulating guilt.
Brainwashing is an appropriate term to describe these
terror tactics.
Victims were made to study Mao writings, followed by
periods of intense self-criticism and confession. The
first confession was never accepted; the accused had
to dig deeper and deeper into their memory to recall all
their errors and sins against the party and the people.
“Drag Out the
Counterrevolutionaries and
Expose Them”
By 1967 – 1969: Chaos
Many CCP members throughout the country purged (or worse)
Red Guard Units fighting with each other over who was more
‘revolutionary’
Industrial production brought to a standstill
School and Universities closed
Law & Order had broken
down… economic and
social collapse
End of Part I
• Can you:
1. Understand the reasons Mao launched the C.R. (what
was he trying to do)
2. Identify were the moderates?
3. Identify who supported Mao?
4. Describe who the Red Guards were and their actions.
5. Describe two effects on China as a result.