Urvi Mittal

History SL

Assess the role played by youth and terror in China during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76)

The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was launched by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman Mao Zedong to stem what he perceived as the country's drift away from socialism, toward the “restoration of capitalism.” The origins of the Cultural Revolution can be traced to the mid–1950s when Mao first became seriously concerned about the path that China's socialist transition had taken in the years since the CCP had come to power in 1949. His anxieties about the bureaucratization of the party, ideological degeneration in society as a whole, and the glaring socioeconomic inequalities that had emerged as China modernized escalated through the early 1960s and propelled him to embark on a crusade to expunge the “revisionism” that he believed was contaminating the party and the nation.

      Mao had also been disturbed by his analysis that the Soviet Union had already abandoned socialism for capitalism which made him insecure and made him want to control the people by terror. Mao was also insecure about his position in the party because of the growing popularity of moderates Lin Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping to whom he had given power to correct the mistakes made by the policies of The Great Leap Forward. The moderates had introduced an element of capitalism in Chinese society. Mao was suspicious of their growing popularity and did not like the policies they had adopted thus he fought to regain some of the authority and prestige he had lost to them.

Mao understood the need for public support and the army to stage a revolution and gain power. In 1965 Mao gained powerful support from Lin Biao the Minister of Defense who abolished all ranks in the PLA and ordered all soldiers to study the Little Red Book which contained all of Mao’s quotations. Thus with this backing Mao was strong enough to launch a new super campaign against capitalists and reactionaries who stood in the way of true Communism. This campaign began in 1966 and was called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Also Mao made a symbolic gesture to China in 1966 by swimming the Yangzi River at Wuhan. The public adulation he received by this spectacular return helped tighten his grip on the government and party. Mao thus ultimately adopted four goals for the Cultural Revolution: to replace his designated successors with leaders more faithful to his current thinking; to rectify the Chinese Communist Party; to provide China's youths with a revolutionary experience; and to achieve some specific policy changes so as to make the educational, health care, and cultural systems less elitist. He initially pursued these goals through a massive mobilization of the country's urban youths. They were organized into groups called the , and Mao ordered the party and the army not to suppress the movement.

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         The Revolution began among school children and students in Beijing. The students in Beijing formed into military groups called 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 meant that the Red Guards had plenty of time for political activities. Their first aim was to get rid of capitalist and bourgeoisie influences in schools and colleges. They began with the Four Olds Campaign against old ideas old culture, old customs and old ...

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