THE GREAT PROLETARIAN
CULTURAL REVOLUTION
HI 168: Lecture 14
Dr. Howard Chiang
OVERVIEW
-
Socialist Education Movement
Third Front
Cultural Revolution: An Overview
Cultural Revolution: Urban Origins
Mao’s Re-Emergence & the Red Guards
January Storm in Shanghai
Wuhan Incident
Cultural Revolution: After the Peak
Fall of Lin Biao; Nixon Visits China;
Gang of Four; 1976 and Hua Guofeng
SOCIALIST EDUCATION MVMT
- Mao & Lin vs. Liu & Deng
- Aim: to restore the impetus of the drive
for collectivization in the rural areas ->
Grassroots corruption in countryside
- December 1962: Four cleanups:
- the administration of collective
accounts, communal granaries, public
property and work points
- Xiafang: down to the countryside
movement
THIRD FRONT
- the strategic redistribution of resources
between 1964 and 1971 to create a selfreliant economy in the interior of China
and away from potential military threats
on China’s borders
- Came from Lin Biao: bunker mentality
- Sichuan provinces
- left many enterprises unviable and
uneconomic and extremely difficult to
convert into private businesses
CULTURAL REVOLUTION
- 1966-1976(80): CCP at war with itself
- Most dramatic clashes in Beijing,
Shanghai, and Wuhan
- Mao died in September 1976:
- ‘decade of disaster’
- ‘decade of turmoil’
- ‘decade of internal chaos’
- Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four
- Red Guards
CULTURAL REVOLUTION
- Initially: Beijing – Liu/Deng vs. SH – Mao
- Jiang Qing (江青), Mao’s last wife
- Chen Boda (陳伯達), Mao’s political
secretary
- Zhang Chunqiao (張春橋), Gang of 4
- Begins with an attack on the play, Hai
Rui Dismissed from Office
- Yao Wenyuan (姚文元), Gang of 4
- Peng Zhen’s 5-Man Group
- Mao’s Cultural Revolution Group
MAO’S REEMERGENCE
- Liu and Deng sent work teams –
supported & opposed by student groups
- July 1966 – Mao swims in Yangzi River
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN1P2DHE26g
- August 1966 – Decision concerning the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
- Original Red Guards – Qinghua Univ.
- August 18, 1966 – Tian’anmen Square
- Attack the ‘four olds’ – old ideas, culture,
customs, and habits
JANUARY STORM IN SHANGHAI
- September 9: a group of Red Guards
from Beijing who were liaising in
Shanghai attempted to occupy the
Shanghai CCP headquarters
- November 9: the creation of a new type
of organization, the Shanghai Workers’
Revolutionary Rebel Headquarters
- The January Storm of 1967
- Shanghai People’s Communes
- Revolutionary Committee – all China
WUHAN INCIDENT
- January 20, 1967
- PLA had a natural predisposition to side
with conservative mass organizations
- The Million Heroes
- PLA vs. revolutionary rebel groups
- Of the 279 members and alternates of
the new party Central Committee, 45 %
were from the PLA, 28 % from
revolutionary party cadres, and 27 %
from revolutionary masses
AFTER THE PEAK
- 400,000-500,000 killed in 1966-69
- The purge rate of provincial & regional
officials was 70-80%; altogether about 3
million people were purged, with most
rehabilitated only in the late 1970
- Fate of Liu Shaoqi – died of pneumonia
- Fate of Deng Xiaoping – exile in Jiangxi
- Demobilize the Red Guards – xiafang
- Schools did not resume until fall 1970
FALL OF LIN BIAO
- 1969 (heir apparent) -> 1971 (dead)
- September 13, 1971: Lin Biao fled China
in a Trident aircraft, which crashed
- Official account:
Lin Biao and his die-hard followers had devised a plan for a coup
d’état in March to be launched on September 8. When their plot
was discovered, Lin Biao, his wife Ye Qun, and his son Lin Liguo
tried to flee the country in the early morning on September 13.
They were all killed when their plane crashed near Ondorhaan in
Mongolia. After the September 13 incident, a nationwide
rectification movement to criticize and denounce Lin Biao was
unfolded and the crimes of the Lin Biao counter-revolutionary
clique were investigated.
NIXON VISITS CHINA
- Oct. 25, 1971: PRC replaced ROC’s
membership in the United Nations
- Richard Nixon arrived in Shanghai on
February 21, 1972
- Official communiqué issued jointly at
the end of visit in February: continued
ties; science, technology, culture, and
sport; bilateral trade; normalization of
diplomatic relations
- Kakuei Tanaka: Sep. 25-30, 1972
Poster for
propaganda
denouncing the
“Gang of Four
THE GANG OF FOUR
- Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao
Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen (rise due
to Mao)
- 1974: Anti-Lin, Anti-Confucius campaign:
really aimed at Zhou Enlai
- Deng Xiaoping recalled from exile in
Jiangxi and brought back to Beijing as
first vice-premier
1976 & RISE OF HUA GUOFENG
- Jan. 8: Zhou Enlai passed away
- Mao replaced Zhou with Hua Guofeng
- The 1976 Tiananmen Square Incident:
- a new breed of demonstration in PRC
undirected by government or authority
- July 6: Zhu De died
- July 28: Tangshan eqarthquake
- September 9: Mao himself died