This idea of a power struggle was emphasized by Mao’s attempts to consolidate the notion of continual revolution. Subsequent to The Great Leap Forward Mao judged that he was losing power in the CCP and that a power struggle was looming. He believed to maintain his authority a permanent revolution was necessary. He was convinced that revolution was not a single event, but a continuing and developing process, that once stopped would allow China to become a self-justifying bureaucracy – destroying all the achievements made by the PRC since 1949. The main safeguard against this was to instil in the Chinese people the proper ideological outlook, to ensure that the proletarian nature of his regime did not change after his rule. To instil this ideology he planned to circumvent the party bureaucracy and appeal directly to the Chinese youth. He launched the Red Guard movement; a movement where mass civilians, mostly students and other young people were mobilized in 1966 to assist in The Cultural Revolution. The victims of the Red Guard movement were explicitly defined as landlords, rich peasants, reactionaries, bad elements and rightists. These victims were attacked brutally and through military force. John Fairbank discusses the motives behind the Red Guard movement where he claims “In any case his [Mao] personal motive was to regain control of the CCP by bringing his own like-minded followers into power.” Thus, the youth were utilized as a way of ensuring continual revolution and upholding of Communist ideologies, which essentially facilitated Mao in recovering power lost in The Great Leap Forward.
Secondly, the Cultural Revolution was contained within an atmosphere of paranoia, particularly within the CCP. Mao believed that CCP and government officials were already being persuaded by capitalism and a desire for personal power that robbed them of their revolutionary purpose. Consequently, as had happened during the Stalinist purges in the USSR in the 1930’s revolutionaries were suspect to expulsion. The preeminent example of this was the ‘cleansing the class ranks’ campaign, which was launched by the Central Cultural Revolution Group in 1968. Committees were established in all the major regions of China and given the take of ‘eradicating once and for all any signs of capitalism’. As a result, mass killings occurred in a display much more brutal than anything perpetuated by the Red Guards. The purge rate among party officials was somewhere around 60 percent, and an estimated 400,000 people died as a result of maltreatment. The charges were predominantly aimed at the offending intellectuals, and it should be noted that perhaps the charges would probably have not been so severe had the movement not have become intertwined in the power struggle. Thus the purging of CCP members highlight the struggle for control over the future of the Chinese Revolution, as Mao feared that there were members in the party that jeopardized the direction of this revolution as they were influenced by the evils of capitalism.
Thirdly, the extent of this control over the direction of China’s Revolution is epitomized in Mao’s suppression and removal of his rivals. Over the course of the revolution Mao became exceedingly concerned over the uprising of ‘rightists’ that were counter-revolutionary to his desires for China’s future. Thus, as seen in the aforementioned party purges Mao also implemented this policy to control members that challenged his objectives. For example, Communist members such as Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi were accused of attempting to persuade the party to follow policies that ran counter to Mao’s wishes. Deng focused more on capitalist paradigms for development, which was centred on economic industrialisation and agricultural reform. Mao grew apprehensive that the right-wing politics of Deng and Liu could lead to restoration of capitalism and end the Chinese Revolution achievements for workers and peasants. As a result of the opposing viewpoints Deng and Liu were both formally dismissed from their position in the CCP on the grounds that they had assumed ‘a bourgeois reactionary line’. The two men were denounced by the Chinese public and along with their families were treated brutally. Therefore, when Deng and Liu made challenges as to the future of the Chinese Revolution, Mao immediately suppressed their authority in order to maintain his own political authority.
Conclusively, the Cultural Revolution was a struggle for control over the future of the Chinese revolution, as substantiated by Mao’s relentless attempts to maintain power. When members of the CCP and government officials generated minor challenges. Mao was swift to respond with party purges and immediate suppression. Moreover, Mao himself secured the future of China by indoctrinating the youth on his ideological beliefs as evident in the Red Guard Movement. Therefore, the actions of Mao throughout the course of The Cultural Revolution highlight the endeavours made for the control of China’s future.