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 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.

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

Liu Shiaoqi

Zhou Enlai

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

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

The Revolution begins…

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

Chaos on a Grand Scale

Liu Shiaoqi- China’s President

All political moderates were purged:

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

Criticize the old world and build a new world with Mao Zedong Thought as a weapon

Propaganda was everywhere…

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

Mass Psychology & Hysteria

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

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.  

Struggle Sessions

“Drag Out the Counter-revolutionaries 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.