Mao became the victim of his own ideas and dreams: he really believed in the unity of the Chinese people and believed that the methods he had used had kept that unity, only to be shocked by the way that his liberalisation campaign went so wrong.
Qb 8 marks. Explain why Mao launched the Cultural Revolution.
Mao again lost a lot of power after the failure of the Great Leap Forward and this time resigned from the Presidency of the People’s Republic of China in 1960. From 1962 to 1966 Mao continually urged the Party to keep in touch with the ordinary people of China and to avoid the “capitalist road,” but his advice was ignored. In 1962, Mao launched a Socialist Education Movement to help get the people back on the right road to Communism. In 1965, Lin Biao, the minister of defence, started supporting Mao and abolished all the ranks within the People’s Liberation Army, therefore making all soldiers equal. Every soldier received a copy of a newly published book, “Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong,” and were ordered to study it. It became known as ‘The Little Red Book’ because of its size and cover. Therefore, although few in the government supported his ideas, Mao had the backing of the four million strong, People’s Liberation Army.
An opportunity came for Mao to regain his power when a new play was seen to make an attack upon him. He used this chance to regain power and announced that he wanted to get rid of all those who were greedy and threatened the Communist state. Mao used his “Great Proletarian Revolution” as a way to get back to power.
In 1966, Mao Zedong supported the radicals in the Communist party, thus beginning what he called the Cultural Revolution. Mao called on people to “bombard the Headquarters”, meaning that even top people were targets. With the backing of the People’s Liberation Army and Lin Biao, Mao was now strong enough to launch a new super-campaign against ‘capitalists’ and any other ‘reactionaries’ who stood in the way of the true Communism.
In 1966, a campaign began, which was known as ‘The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’. This radical movement closed schools, slowed economic production and virtually severed China’s relations with the outside world. It was proletarian because it was a revolution of the workers against party officials, cultural because it meant to alter the values of traditional Chinese society in the Communist sense and great because it was on a mammoth scale.
On August 1st, 1966, China’s central decision-making body passed the bill regarding “Decisions on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” This bill stated that the official position of China’s government was now supportive of the purging of intellectuals and imperialists. Most of these purging acts were to be the work of Mao’s loyal student Red Guards.
Red guards accused many top party members and government officials of failing to follow Communist principles and removed from their positions.
Students and schoolchildren in Beijing, in the summer of 1966, formed into military groups, called the Red Guards. At the same time, schools and colleges were shut down for six months so that the curriculum could be rewritten to make young people more aware of Communist ideas. This gave the Red Guards plenty of time to devote to politics. Their primary aim was to get rid of all ‘capitalist’ and ‘bourgeois’ influences in schools and colleges.
It is obvious from sources that the Red Guards were a force- a very strong, brutal force- behind Mao.
Consequently, there are many different opinions about why Mao launched the Revolution; people believed that he wanted more power, that he believed that “various areas of command had been corrupted or taken over” and he hoped that it would be “a revolution that touched the souls of the people”. The official view of the Communist Party of China since Mao sees the Cultural Revolution as what can happen when one person establishes a cult of personality and manipulates the public in a way to destroy party and state institutions.
Qc 10 marks. ‘The Cultural Revolution was a complete disaster for China.’ Explain how far you agree with this statement.
Mao did succeed in at least one of his aims-changing the lives of the Chinese people, whether it was for good or bad is not an obvious answer, there are many reasons for both. The effects of the Cultural Revolution directly or indirectly touched all of China’s populace. During the Cultural Revolution, most economic activity stopped, with “revolution” being the only objective; it also cost a lot. The start of the Cultural Revolution brought huge numbers of Red Guards to Beijing, with all of their expenses paid for by the government, and the railway system was in turmoil. The Red Guards destroyed countless artefacts, ancient buildings, antiques, paintings and books. By December 1967 there were already 350 million copies of Mao’s Quotations printed.
Elsewhere the 10 years of Cultural Revolution also put the education system and research into a halt. The university entrance exams stopped during this period, only to be restored later by Deng Xiaoping in 1977. Many intellectuals were purged or “sent down” to rural labour camps, their place within society demoted. It seems that everyone with skills over that of the average person was the target of purging in some way, including many innocent people. This led to almost a generation of “know nothings”. Nearly a whole generation of China’s scientists, doctors and other useful intellectuals, were missing or had fled abroad.
Young people missed so much of their education that by 1981, it was estimated that 120 million people under the age of 45, could not read or write.
The Cultural Revolution caused all of China’s embassies abroad to close, practically cutting off China from the rest of the world, isolating the Chinese, so that no help could have got through. This brought about the Chinese diplomats that were in the embassies, fighting with foreign police abroad. People and Red Guards attacked and victimised teachers and intellectuals.
Mao and his little Red Book began a personality cult and millions of youths worshipped him like a god. People ignored China’s traditional arts and ideas and Mao praised doing so, but things like “Long live Chairman Mao” and “the Highest Directive” could only have originated from China’s feudal past. A common saying was “Mum and Dad may give me love, but not as much as Chairman Mao”, encouraging people to denounce their parents and teachers, which was strictly forbidden in old Chinese culture.
Mao became the central operative guide to all things in China, where none dare speak against him, for fear of torture or execution. Lawlessness was at a point where the authority of Red Guards overpowered that of the army, local police authorities, and above everything in the Law. Ironically, Mao wanted the “destruction of the Four Olds”- old ways of idea, living, traditions He encouraged the youths so much that some went too far with their violence and millions died/committed suicide. Mao had to finally call in the army to stop the Revolution.
The Cultural Revolution, however, had some good things within: it caused people to unite, especially youths. The “destruction of the Four Olds” would modernise China, catching up to the West and Mao considered it the only way to achieve ‘true communism’. It is possible that anti-Communists could have risen against the government and threatened China, but by purging China of them this wasn’t achieved. The Chinese Communist Party had to be reformed. This was advantageous to the whole of China and the Chinese people, because now all the hidden anti-communists had been removed and it could become a true Communist Party.
After looking at and considering all these reasons for and against the statement “The Cultural Revolution was a complete disaster for China”, I would say that I disagreed with this statement. Some good came out of the Revolution so it can’t have been a “complete disaster”, but then millions were killed or tortured and even more ended up illiterate. How was that good for China?
