In December 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the newparamount leader of China, replacing Mao's successorHua Guofeng. Deng and his allies introduced theBoluan Fanzheng program and initiatedeconomic reforms, which, together with theNew Enlightenment movement, gradually dismantled the ideology of the Cultural Revolution. In 1981, the Communist Party publicly acknowledged numerous failures of the Cultural Revolution, declaring it "responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the people, the country, and the party since the founding of the People's Republic." Given its broad scope and social impact, memories and perspectives of the Cultural Revolution are varied and complex in contemporary China. It is often referred to as the "ten years of chaos" (十年动乱;shí nián dòngluàn) or "ten years of havoc" (十年浩劫;shí nián hàojié).[3][4]
The terminology of cultural revolution appeared in communist party discourses and newspapers prior to the founding of the People's Republic of China. During this period, the term was used interchangeably with "cultural construction" and referred to eliminating illiteracy in order to widen public participation in civic matters. This usage of "cultural revolution" continued through the 1950s and into the 1960s, and often involved drawing parallels to theMay Fourth Movement or theSoviet cultural revolution of 1928–1931.[5]: 56
On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong declared the People's Republic of China, symbolically bringing the decades-longChinese Civil War to a close. RemainingRepublican forces fled toTaiwan and continued to resist the People's Republic in various ways. Many soldiers of the Chinese Republicans were left in mainland China, and Mao Zedong launched theCampaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries to eliminate these soldiers left behind, as well as elements of Chinese society viewed as potentially dangerous to Mao's new government.
On January 11, 1962, an enlarged Central Committee work conference of the CCP was held in Beijing. With over 7,000 participants, it became known as theSeven Thousand Cadres Conference.[11] Liu Shaoqi, Mao Zedong, and others madeself-criticisms at the conference. Mao said in the conference that, "Any mistakes that the Centre has made ought to be my direct responsibility, and I also have an indirect share in the blame because I am the Chairman of the Central Committee. I don't want other people to shirk their responsibility. There are some other comrades who also bear responsibility, but the person primarily responsible should be me." He continued: "If our country does not establish a socialist economy, what kind of situation shall we be in? We shall become a country like Yugoslavia, which has actually become a bourgeois country." However, "during the whole socialist stage there still exist classes and class struggle, and this class struggle is a protracted, complex, sometimes even violent affair."[12]
After the meeting, Liu informed the others that "The errors of the Great Leap Forward were serious, and this is the first time we've summarized the experience. Every year from now on we need to look back and summarize it again." Regarding the cannibalism during the Great Leap Forward, he also remarked, "This will be memorialized as a decree in which the emperor admits his crimes against the people." After the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, Mao Zedong took a backseat in economic matters.[11][13]: 8 However, at the Xilou Conference, Liu Shaoqi still believed that the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference had not sufficiently reflected on the Great Leap Forward.[14]
In the first half of 1962, China saw the emergence of a system where individual households were responsible for agricultural output. However, Mao Zedong believed this practice contradicted communism and was something he could not tolerate.[14] In July 1962, Mao Zedong expressed dissatisfaction with Liu Shaoqi, stating: "The Three Red Banners have been refuted, land is being divided up, and you did nothing? What will happen after I die?" Liu Shaoqi also argued that "History will record the role you and I played in the starvation of so many people, and the cannibalism will also be memorialized!"[14]
Impact of international tensions and anti-revisionism
In the early 1950s, the PRC and theSoviet Union (USSR) were the world's two largest communist states. Although initially they were mutually supportive, disagreements arose afterNikita Khrushchev took power in the USSR. In 1956, Khrushchevdenounced his predecessor Josef Stalin and his policies, and began implementingeconomic reforms. Mao and many other CCP members opposed these changes, believing that they would damage the worldwide communist movement.[13]: 4–7
Mao believed that Khrushchev was arevisionist, alteringMarxist–Leninist concepts, which Mao claimed would give capitalists control of the USSR. Relations soured. The USSR refused to support China's case for joining theUnited Nations and reneged on its pledge to supply China with a nuclear weapon.[13]: 4–7
Mao denounced revisionism in April 1960. Without pointing at the USSR, Mao criticized its Balkan ally, theLeague of Communists of Yugoslavia. In turn, the USSR criticized China's Balkan ally, theParty of Labour of Albania. In 1963, CCP began to denounce the USSR, publishing nine polemics.[13]: 7
Other Soviet actions increased concerns about potentialfifth columnists. As a result of the tensions following the Sino-Soviet split, Soviet leaders authorized radio broadcasts into China stating that the Soviet Union would assist "genuine communists" who overthrew Mao and his "erroneous course".[15]: 141 Chinese leadership also feared the increasing military conflict between the United States andNorth Vietnam, concerned that China's support would lead the United States to seek out potential Chinese assets.[15]: 141
Mao contended that capitalist tendencies had begun to grow in China.[16]: 151 He viewed the Cultural Revolution as perpetual revolution aimed at opposing "representatives of the bourgeoisie and counterrevolutionary revisionists" who had "sneaked into the party, the government, the army, and cultural circles."[16]: 151–152
The meaning and nature of revolution was a frequent theme in the speeches of central leadership during the Cultural Revolution.[17]: 71 They contended that the Cultural Revolution was an unprecedented event that had to be carried out by the people rather than directed from above and that the best test was revolutionary practice.[17]: 71 Tao Zhu stated:[17]: 71
You can't say you are the true revolutionaries and they are fake. This is mass organizing. Their organizations may also be revolutionary. You may have a revolutionary competition. Good ones will grow, bad ones will collapse ... True or fake revolutionaries will be distinguished in revolutionary practice.
Socialist Education Movement andHai Rui Dismissed from Office
In 1963, Mao launched theSocialist Education Movement.[18] Mao set the scene by "cleansing" powerful Beijing officials of questionable loyalty. His approach was executed via newspaper articles, internal meetings, and by his network of political allies.[18]
In late 1959, historian and deputy mayor of BeijingWu Han published a historical drama entitledHai Rui Dismissed from Office. In the play, an honestcivil servant,Hai Rui, is dismissed by a corrupt emperor. While Mao initially praised the play, in February 1965, he secretly commissionedJiang Qing andYao Wenyuan to publish an article criticizing it. Yao described the play as an allegory attacking Mao; flagging Mao as the emperor, and Peng Dehuai, who had previously questioned Mao during theLushan Conference, as the honest civil servant.[13]: 15–18
Yao's article put Beijing mayorPeng Zhen on the defensive. Peng, Wu Han's direct superior, was the head of theFive Man Group, a committee commissioned by Mao to study the potential for a cultural revolution. Peng Zhen, aware that he would be implicated if Wu indeed wrote an "anti-Mao" play, wished to contain Yao's influence. Yao's article was initially published only in select local newspapers. Peng forbade its publication in the nationally distributedPeople's Daily and other major newspapers under his control, and not pay heed to Yao's petty politics.[13]: 14–19 While the "literary battle" against Peng raged, Mao firedYang Shangkun—director of theparty's General Office, an organ that controlled internal communications—making unsubstantiated charges. He installed loyalistWang Dongxing, head of Mao's security detail. Yang's dismissal likely emboldened Mao's allies to move against their factional rivals.[13]: 14–19
On 12 February 1966, the "Five Man Group" issued a report known as theFebruary Outline. TheOutline as sanctioned by the party center definedHai Rui as a constructiveacademic discussion and aimed to distance Peng Zhen formally from anypolitical implications. However, Jiang Qing and Yao Wenyuan continued their denunciations. Meanwhile, Mao sackedPropaganda Department directorLu Dingyi, a Peng ally.[13]: 20–27
Lu's removal gave Maoists unrestricted access to the press. Mao delivered his final blow to Peng at a high-profile Politburo meeting through loyalistsKang Sheng andChen Boda. They accused Peng of opposing Mao, labeled theFebruary Outline "evidence of Peng Zhen's revisionism", and grouped him with three other disgraced officials as part of the "Peng-Luo-Lu-Yang Anti-Party Clique".[13]: 20–27 On 16 May, the Politburo formalized the decisions by releasing an official document condemning Peng and his "anti-party allies" in the strongest terms, disbanding his "Five Man Group", and replacing it with the Maoist Cultural Revolution Group (CRG).[13]: 27–35
The early phase was characterized by mass movement and political pluralization. Virtually anyone could create a political organization, even without party approval. Known as Red Guards, these organizations originally arose in schools and universities and later in factories and other institutions. After 1968, most of these organizations ceased to exist, although their legacies were a topic of controversy later.[19]
In May 1966, an expanded session of thePolitburo was called in Beijing. The conference was laden with Maoist political rhetoric onclass struggle and filled with meticulously prepared 'indictments' of recently ousted leaders such as Peng Zhen andLuo Ruiqing. One of these documents, distributed on 16 May, was prepared with Mao's personal supervision and was particularly damning:[13]: 39–40
Those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army, and various spheres of culture are a bunch of counter-revolutionary revisionists. Once conditions are ripe, they will seize political power and turn thedictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Some of them we have already seen through; others we have not. Some are still trusted by us and are being trained as our successors, persons like Khrushchev for example, who are still nestling beside us.[13]: 47
Later known as the "16 May Notification", this document summarized Mao's ideological justification for CR.[13]: 40 Initially kept secret, distributed only among high-ranking party members, it was later declassified and published inPeople's Daily on 17 May 1967.[13]: 41 Effectively it implied that enemies of the Communist cause could be found within the Party: class enemies who "wave the red flag to oppose the red flag." The only way to identify these people was through "the telescope and microscope ofMao Zedong Thought."[13]: 46 While the party leadership was relatively united in approving Mao's agenda, many Politburo members were not enthusiastic, or simply confused about the direction.[20]: 13 The charges against party leaders such as Peng disturbed China's intellectual community and theeight non-Communist parties.[13]: 41
"Sweep Away All Cow Demons and Snake Spirits", an editorial published on the front page ofPeople's Daily on 1 June 1966, calling for the proletariat to "completely eradicate" the "Four Olds [...] that have poisoned the people of China for thousands of years, fostered by the exploiting classes".[21]: 50
After the purge of Peng Zhen, the Beijing Party Committee effectively ceased to function, paving the way for disorder in the capital. On 25 May, under the guidance ofCao Yi'ou [zh]—wife of Mao loyalist Kang Sheng—Nie Yuanzi, a philosophy lecturer atPeking University, authored abig-character poster along with other leftists and posted it to a public bulletin. Nie attacked the university's party administration and its leader Lu Ping. Nie insinuated that the university leadership, much like Peng, were trying to contain revolutionary fervor in a "sinister" attempt to oppose the party and advance revisionism.[13]: 56–58
Mao promptly endorsed Nie's poster as "the first Marxist big-character poster in China". Approved by Mao, the poster rippled across educational institutions. Students began to revolt against their school's party establishments. Classes were cancelled in Beijing primary and secondary schools, followed by a decision on 13 June to expand the class suspension nationwide. By early June, throngs of young demonstrators lined the capital's major thoroughfares holding giant portraits of Mao, beating drums, and shouting slogans.[13]: 59–61
When the dismissal of Peng and the municipal party leadership became public in early June, confusion was widespread. The public and foreign missions were kept in the dark on the reason for Peng's ousting. Top Party leadership was caught off guard by the sudden protest wave and struggled with how to respond. After seeking Mao's guidance inHangzhou,Liu Shaoqi andDeng Xiaoping decided to send in 'work teams'—effectively 'ideological guidance' squads of cadres—to the city's schools andPeople's Daily to restore some semblance of order and re-establish party control.[13]: 62–64
The work teams had a poor understanding of student sentiment. Unlike the political movement of the 1950s that squarely targeted intellectuals, the new movement was focused on established party cadres, many of whom were part of the work teams. As a result, the work teams came under increasing suspicion as thwarting revolutionary fervor.[13]: 71 Party leadership subsequently became divided over whether or not work teams should continue. Liu Shaoqi insisted on continuing work-team involvement and suppressing the movement's most radical elements, fearing that the movement would spin out of control.[13]: 75
In 1966, Mao broke withLiu Shaoqi (right), then serving asPresident, over the work-teams issue. Mao's polemicBombard the Headquarters was widely recognized as targeting Liu, the purported "bourgeois" party headquarters
Mao waves to the crowd on the banks of the Yangtze before his swim across, July 1966
In July, Mao, in Wuhan, crossed the Yangtze River, showing his vigor. He then returned from Wuhan to Beijing and criticized party leadership for its handling of the work-teams issue. Mao accused the work teams of undermining the student movement, calling for their full withdrawal on 24 July. Several days later a rally was held at theGreat Hall of the People to announce the decision and reveal the tone of the movement to teachers and students. At the rally, Party leaders encouraged the masses to 'not be afraid' and take charge of the movement, free of Party interference.[13]: 81–84
The work-teams issue marked a decisive defeat for Liu; it also signaled that disagreement over how to handle the CR's unfolding events would irreversibly split Mao from the party leadership. On 1 August, the Eleventh Plenum of the8th Central Committee was convened to advance Mao's radical agenda. At the plenum, Mao showed disdain for Liu, repeatedly interrupting him as he delivered his opening day speech.[13]: 94
On 28 July,Red Guard representatives wrote to Mao, calling for rebellion and upheaval to safeguard the revolution. Mao then responded to the letters by writing his own big-character poster entitledBombard the Headquarters, rallying people to target the "command centre (i.e., Headquarters) of counterrevolution." Mao wrote that despite having undergone a communist revolution, a "bourgeois" elite was still thriving in "positions of authority" in the government and Party.[22]
This statement has been interpreted as a direct indictment of the party establishment under Liu and Deng—the purported "bourgeois headquarters" of China. The personnel changes at the Plenum reflected a radical re-design of the party hierarchy. Liu and Deng kept their seats on the Politburo Standing Committee, but were sidelined from day-to-day party affairs. Lin Biao was elevated to become the CCP's number-two; Liu's rank went from second to eighth and was no longer Mao's heir apparent.[22]
Along with the top leadership losing power the entire national Party bureaucracy was purged. The extensiveOrganization Department, in charge of party personnel, virtually ceased to exist. The top officials in the Propaganda Department were sacked, with many of its functions folded into the CRG.[13]: 96
During the Red August of Beijing, on 8 August 1966, theparty's General Committee passed its "Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," later to be known as the "Sixteen Points". This decision defined the Cultural Revolution as "a great revolution that touches people to their very souls and constitutes a new stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country:"[24][13]: 92–93
Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds and endeavour to stage a comeback. The proletariat must do the exact opposite: it must meet head-on every challenge of the bourgeoisie ... to change the mental outlook of the whole of society. At present, our objective is to struggle against and overthrow those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic "authorities" and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art and all other parts of the superstructure not in correspondence with the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system.
The implications of the Sixteen Points were far-reaching. It elevated what was previously a student movement to a nationwide mass campaign that would galvanize workers, farmers, soldiers and lower-level party functionaries to rise, challenge authority, and re-shape thesuperstructure of society.
Tiananmen Square on 15 September 1966, the occasion of Chairman Mao's third of eight mass rallies with Red Guards in 1966.[25]
On 18 August in Beijing, over a million Red Guards from across the country gathered in and aroundTiananmen Square for an audience with the chairman.[13]: 106–107 Mao mingled with Red Guards and encouraged them, donning a Red Guard armband. Lin also took centre stage, denouncing perceived enemies in society that were impeding the "progress of the revolution".[20]: 66 Subsequently, violence escalated in Beijing and quickly spread.[2][26]: xvi The 18 August rally was filmed and shown to approximately 100 million people in its first month of release.[27]: 53
On 22 August, a central directive was issued to prevent police intervention in Red Guard activities, and those in the police force who defied this notice were labeled counter-revolutionaries. Central officials lifted restraints on violent behavior.Xie Fuzhi, the national police chief, often pardoned Red Guards for their "crimes".[13]: 124–126
The campaign included incidents of torture, murder, and public humiliation. Many people who were indicted as counter-revolutionaries died by suicide. During Red August, 1,772 people were murdered in Beijing; many of the victims were teachers who were attacked or killed by their own students.[2] In September, Shanghai experienced 704 suicides and 534 deaths; in Wuhan, 62 suicides and 32 murders occurred during the same period.[13]: 124 Peng Dehuai was brought to Beijing to be publicly ridiculed.
The remains of theWanli Emperor at the Ming tombs. Red Guards dragged the remains of the Wanli Emperor and Empresses to the front of the tomb, where they were posthumously "denounced" and burned[28]
Between August and November 1966, eight mass rallies were held, drawing in 12 million people, most of whom were Red Guards.[13]: 106 To aid Red Guards in traveling, theGreat Exchange of Revolutionary Experience program, which lasted from September 1966 to early 1967, gave them free food and lodging throughout the country.[29][30][13]: 110–113
At the rallies, Lin called for the destruction of the Four Olds; namely, old customs, culture, habits, and ideas.[20]: 66 [31]: 146 Some changes associated with the Four Olds campaign were mainly benign, such as assigning new names to city streets, places, and even people; millions of babies were born with "revolutionary" names.[32]
Other aspects were more destructive, particularly in the realms of culture and religion. Historical sites throughout the country were destroyed. The damage was particularly pronounced in the capital, Beijing. Red Guards laid siege to theTemple of Confucius inQufu,[13]: 119 and other historically significant tombs and artifacts.[33]
Libraries of historical and foreign texts were destroyed; books were burned. Temples, churches, mosques, monasteries, and cemeteries were closed and sometimes converted to other uses, or looted and destroyed.[34] Marxist propaganda depictedBuddhism as superstition, and religion was looked upon as a means of hostile foreign infiltration, as well as an instrument of the ruling class.[35] Clergy were arrested and sent to camps; manyTibetan Buddhists were forced to participate in the destruction of their monasteries at gunpoint.[35]
This statue of theYongle Emperor was originally carved in stone, and was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. A metal replica is in its place.
The remains of the 8th century Buddhist monkHuineng were attacked during the Cultural Revolution.
A frieze damaged during the Cultural Revolution, originally from a garden house of a rich imperial official in Suzhou.
In September 1966, central Party authorities under Zhou Enlai issued theInstructions on Grasping Revolution, Promoting Production, which directed that "one must grasp revolution on one hand and promote production on the other hand.[37]: 251
In October 1966, Mao convened a Central Work Conference, mostly to enlist party leaders who had not yet adopted the latest ideology. Liu and Deng were prosecuted and begrudgingly offered self-criticism.[13]: 137 After the conference, Liu, once a powerful moderate pundit, was placed under house arrest, then sent to a detention camp, where he was denied medical treatment and died in 1969. Deng was sent away for a period of re-education three times and was eventually sent to work in an engine factory inJiangxi. Rebellion byparty cadres accelerated after the conference.[38]
On 5 October, theCentral Military Commission and the PLA's Department of General Political Tasks directed military academies to dismiss their classes to allow cadets to become more involved in the Cultural Revolution.[31]: 147 In doing so, they were acting on Lin Biao's 23 August 1966 for "three month turmoil" in the PLA.[31]: 147
InMacau, rioting broke out during the12-3 incident.[39]: 84 The event was prompted by the colonial government's delays in approving a new wing for a CCP elementary school inTaipa.[39]: 84 The school board illegally began construction, but the colonial government sent police to stop the workers. Several people were injured in the resultingmelee. On December 3, 1966, two days of rioting occurred in which hundreds were injured and six to eight were killed, leading to a total clampdown by the Portuguese government.[40] The event set in motion Portugal's de facto abdication of control over Macau, putting Macau on the path to eventual absorption by China.[39]: 84–85
By the beginning of 1967, a wide variety of grassroots political organizations had formed. Beyond Red Guard and student rebel groups, these included poor peasant associations, workers' pickets, and Mao Zedong Thought study societies, among others. Communist Party leaders encouraged these groups to "join up", and these groups joined various coalitions and held various cross-group congresses and assemblies.[5]: 60
Mass organizations coalesced into two factions, the radicals who backed Mao's purge of the Communist party, and the conservatives who backed the moderate party establishment. The "support the left" policy was established in January 1967.[41] Mao's policy was to support the rebels in seizing power; it required the PLA to support "the broad masses of the revolutionary leftists in their struggle to seize power."[41]
In March 1967, the policy was adapted into the "Three Supports and Two Militaries" initiative, in which PLA troops were sent to schools and work units across the country to stabilize political tumult and end factional warfare.[42]: 345 The three "Supports" were to "support the left", "support the interior", "support industry". The "two Militaries" referred to "military management" and "military training".[42]: 345 The policy of supporting the left failed to define "leftists" at a time when almost all mass organizations claimed to be "leftist" or "revolutionary".[41] PLA commanders had developed close working relations with the party establishment, leading many military units to repress radicals.[43]
Spurred by the events in Beijing,power seizure groups formed across the country and began expanding into factories and the countryside. In Shanghai, a young factory worker namedWang Hongwen organized a far-reaching revolutionary coalition, one that displaced existing Red Guard groups. On 3 January 1967, with support from CRG heavyweights Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, the group of firebrand activists overthrew the Shanghai municipal government underChen Pixian in what became known as theJanuary Storm, and formed in its place theShanghai People's Commune.[44][23]: 115 Mao then expressed his approval.[38]
Shanghai's was the first provincial level government overthrown.[38] Provincial governments and many parts of the state and party bureaucracy were affected, with power seizures taking place. In the next three weeks, 24 more province-level governments were overthrown.[38]"Revolutionary committees" were subsequently established, in place of local governments and branches of the Communist Party.[45] For example, in Beijing, three separate revolutionary groups declared power seizures on the same day. In Heilongjiang, local party secretaryPan Fusheng seized power from the party organization under his own leadership. Some leaders even wrote to the CRG asking to be overthrown.[13]: 170–72
In Beijing, Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao targeted Vice-PremierTao Zhu. The power-seizure movement was appearing in the military as well. In February, prominent generalsYe Jianying andChen Yi, as well as Vice-PremierTan Zhenlin, vocally asserted their opposition to the more extreme aspects of the movement, with some party elders insinuating that the CRG's real motives were to remove the revolutionary old guard. Mao, initially ambivalent, took to the Politburo floor on 18 February to denounce the opposition directly, endorsing the radicals' activities. This resistance was branded theFebruary Countercurrent[13]: 195–196 —effectively silencing critics within the party.[20]: 207–209
Red Guards marching inGuizhou, 1967. The banner in the center reads: "The People's Liberation Army firmly supports the proletarian revolutionary faction."
Although in early 1967 popular insurgencies were limited outside of the biggest cities, local governments began collapsing all across China.[46]: 21 Revolutionaries dismantled ruling government and party organizations, because power seizures lacked centralized leadership, it was no longer clear who believed in Mao's revolutionary vision and who was exploiting the chaos for their own gain. The formation of rival revolutionary groups and manifestations of long-established local feuds, led toviolent struggles between factions.[citation needed]
Tension grew between mass organizations and the military. In response, Lin Biao issued a directive for the army to aid the radicals. At the same time, the army took control of some provinces and locales that were deemed incapable of handling the power transition.[20]: 219–221
In Wuhan, as in many other cities, two major revolutionary organizations emerged, one supporting and one attacking the conservative establishment.Chen Zaidao, the Army general in charge of the area, forcibly repressed the anti-establishment demonstrators. Mao flew to Wuhan with a large entourage of central officials in an attempt to secure military loyalty in the area. On 20 July 1967, local agitators in response kidnapped Mao's emissaryWang Li, in what became known as theWuhan Incident. Subsequently, Chen was sent to Beijing and tried by Jiang Qing and the rest of the CRG. Chen's resistance was the last major open display of opposition within the PLA.[13]: 214
The Gang of Four'sZhang Chunqiao admitted that the most crucial factor in the Cultural Revolution was not the Red Guards or the CRG or the "rebel worker" organisations, but the PLA. When the PLA local garrison supported Mao's radicals, they were able to take over the local government successfully, but if they were not cooperative, the takeovers were unsuccessful.[13]: 175 Violent clashes occurred in virtually all major cities.[1][2]
In response to the Wuhan Incident, Mao and Jiang began establishing a "workers' armed self-defense force", a "revolutionary armed force of mass character" to counter what he saw as rightism in "75% of the PLA officer corps". Meanwhile, a massive movement to "smash gong-jian-fa", or to smash the Police, the Procuratorate and the Court, was carried out in mainland China.[47] The few remaining going-jian-fa organizations were later placed under military control.[48]
Some locations of armed conflict between rebel factions during the summer of 1967.
InChongqing, factional violence was particularly pronounced.[49]: 178 Violence there was exacerbated because the city had a concentration of munitions factories.[50]: 336 Violence in Chongqing occurred primarily between two different rebel factions during the period 16 May 1967 to 15 October 1968.[17]: 62–63 Among the major instances of combat there was the 25 July Incident in 1967, during which members of one rebel faction attacked four hundred members of other factions using knives, pistols, rifles, submachine guns, and machine guns, killing ten.[17]: 64
Unconventional weapons, includingweapon of mass destruction, were seized during conflicts, but not directly used. Citizens wrote letters to theZhongnanhai residence of government leaders, warning of attacks on facilities that storedpathogenic bacteria,poisonous plant samples, radioactive substances, poison gas, toxicants, and other dangerous substances. InChangchun, rebels working in geological institutes developed and tested adirty bomb, a cruderadiological weapon, testing two "radioactive self-defense bombs" and two "radioactive self-defense mines" on 6 and 11 August.[13]: 218–220
Violence in 1967 disrupted economic activity and touring Red Guards overburdened China's transportation system.[37]: 251–252 By year end, national industrial output had decreased by 13.8% from the previous year.[37]: 252
Nationwide, a total of 18.77 million firearms, 14,828 artillery pieces, 2,719,545 grenades ended up in civilian hands. They were used in the course of violent struggles, which mostly took place from 1967 to 1968. In Chongqing,Xiamen, andChangchun, tanks, armored vehicles and even warships were deployed in combat.[43]
In late 1967, the PLA became the most powerful political force in the country.[37]: 253 In 1967 and 1968, rebel groups supported by the PLA establishedRevolutionary Committees that replaced government and existing Party organizations at the local and provincial levels.[37]: 253
During the Cultural Revolution, Mao emphasized the need to improve medical care in rural China.[51]: 270 The Rural Cooperative Medical System (RCMS) developed in the late 1960s.[51]: 270 In this system, each large production brigade established a medical cooperative station staffed bybarefoot doctors.[51]: 270 The medical cooperative stations provided primary health care.[51]: 270 Barefoot doctors brought healthcare to rural areas where urban-trained doctors would not settle. They promoted basichygiene,preventive healthcare, andfamily planning and treated commonillnesses.[52] Immunizations were provided free of charge.[51]: 9 Public healthcare was highly effective in curbing infectious diseases in rural China.[51]: 9 For treatment of major diseases, rural people traveled to state-owned hospitals.[51]: 270
In May 1968, Mao launched a massive political purge. Many people were sent to the countryside to work in reeducation camps. Generally, the campaign targeted rebels from the CR's earlier, more populist, phase.[42]: 239 On 27 July, the Red Guards' power over the PLA was officially ended, and the establishment sent in units to besiege areas that remained untouched by the Guards. A year later, the Red Guard factions were dismantled entirely; Mao predicted that the chaos might begin running its own agenda and be tempted to turn against revolutionary ideology. Their purpose had been largely fulfilled; Mao and his radical colleagues had largely overturned established power.[citation needed]
Liu was expelled from the CCP at the 12th Plenum of the8th Central Committee in September, and labelled the "headquarters of the bourgeoisie".[53]
As the Red Guard movement had waned over the preceding year, violence by the remaining Red Guards increased on some Beijing campuses. Violence was particularly pronounced atTsinghua University, where a few thousand hardliners of two factions continued to fight. At Mao's initiative, on 27 July 1968, tens of thousands of workers entered the Tsinghua campus shouting slogans in opposition to the violence. Red Guards attacked the workers, who remained peaceful. Ultimately, the workers disarmed the students and occupied the campus.[54]: 205–206
On 28 July, Mao and the Central Group met with the five most important remaining Beijing Red Guard leaders to address the movement's excessive violence and political exhaustion.[54]: 205–206 It was the only time during the Cultural Revolution that Mao met and addressed the student leaders directly. In response to a Red Guard leader's telegram sent prior to the meeting, which claimed that some "Black Hand" had maneuvered the workers against the Red Guards, Mao told the student leaders, "The Black Hand is nobody else but me! ... I asked [the workers] how to solve the armed fighting in the universities, and told them to go there to have a look."[54]: 210
During the meeting, Mao and the Central Group for the Cultural Revolution stated, "[W]e want cultural struggle, we do not want armed struggle" and "The masses do not want civil war."[54]: 217
You have been involved in the Cultural Revolution for two years: struggle-criticism-transformation. Now, first, you're not struggling; second, you're not criticizing; and third, you're not transforming. Or rather, you are struggling, but it's an armed struggle. The people are not happy, the workers are not happy, city residents are not happy, most people in schools are not happy, most of the students even in your schools are not happy. Even within the faction that supports you, there are unhappy people. Is this the way to unify the world?
Mao's cult of personality and "mango fever" (August)
A propaganda oil painting of Mao during the Cultural Revolution (1967)
In the spring of 1968, a massive campaign aimed at enhancing Mao's reputation began. On 4 August, Mao was presented with mangoes by the Pakistani foreign ministerSyed Sharifuddin Pirzada, in an apparent diplomatic gesture.[55] Mao had his aide send the box of mangoes to his propaganda team atTsinghua University on 5 August, who were stationed there to quiet strife among Red Guard factions.[56][55]
Several months of "mango fever" followed as the fruit became a focus of a "boundless loyalty" campaign for Mao. More replica mangoes were created, and the replicas were sent on tour around Beijing and elsewhere. Many revolutionary committees visited the mangoes in Beijing from outlying provinces. Approximately half a million people greeted the replicas when they arrived inChengdu. Badges and wall posters featuring the mangoes and Mao were produced in the millions.[56]
The fruit was shared among all institutions that had been a part of the propaganda team, and large processions were organized in support of the "precious gift", as the mangoes were known.[57]
It has been claimed that Mao used the mangoes to express support for the workers who would go to whatever lengths necessary to end the factional fighting among students, and a "prime example of Mao's strategy of symbolic support."[58] Through early 1969, participants of Mao Zedong Thought study classes in Beijing returned with mass-produced mango facsimiles, gaining media attention in the provinces.[57]
In December 1968, Mao began the Down to the Countryside Movement. During this movement, which lasted for the following decade, young bourgeoisie living in cities were ordered to go to the countryside to experience working life. The term "young intellectuals" was used to refer to recent college graduates. In the late 1970s, these students returned to their home cities. Many students who were previously Red Guard supported the movement and Mao's vision. This movement was thus in part a means of moving Red Guards from the cities to the countryside, where they would cause less social disruption. It also served to spread revolutionary ideology geographically.[59]
The9th National Congress was held in April 1969. It served as a means to "revitalize" the party with fresh thinking—as well as new cadres, after much of the old guard had been destroyed in the struggles of the preceding years.[13]: 285 The party framework established two decades earlier broke down almost entirely: rather than through an election by party members, delegates for this Congress were effectively selected by Revolutionary Committees.[13]: 288 Representation of the military increased by a large margin from the previous Congress, reflected in the election of more PLA members to the new Central Committee—over 28%. Many officers now elevated to senior positions were loyal to PLA Marshal Lin Biao, which would open a new rift between the military and civilian leadership.[13]: 292
We do not only feel boundless joy because we have as our great leader the greatest Marxist–Leninist of our era, Chairman Mao, but also great joy because we have Vice Chairman Lin as Chairman Mao's universally recognized successor.
— Premier Zhou Enlai at the 9th Party Congress[13]: 291
Reflecting this, Lin was officially elevated to become the Party's preeminent figure outside of Mao, with his name written into theparty constitution as his "closest comrade-in-arms" and "universally recognized successor".[13]: 291 At the time, no other Communist parties or governments anywhere in the world had adopted the practice of enshrining a successor to the current leader into their constitutions. Lin delivered the keynote address at the Congress: a document drafted by hardliner leftists Yao Wenyuan and Zhang Chunqiao under Mao's guidance.[13]: 289
The report was heavily critical of Liu Shaoqi and other "counter-revolutionaries" and drew extensively from quotations in theLittle Red Book. The Congress solidified the central role of Maoism within the party, re-introducing Maoism as the official guiding ideology in the party constitution. The Congress elected a new Politburo with Mao, Lin, Chen, Zhou Enlai and Kang as the members of the new Politburo Standing Committee.[13]: 290
Lin, Chen, and Kang were all beneficiaries of the Cultural Revolution. Zhou, who was demoted in rank, voiced his unequivocal support for Lin at the Congress.[13]: 290 Mao restored the function of some formal party institutions, such as the operations of the Politburo, which ceased functioning between 1966 and 1968 because the CCRG held de facto control.[13]: 296
In early 1970, the nationwide "One Strike-Three Anti Campaign" was launched by Mao and the Communist Party Central, aiming to consolidate the new organs of power by targeting counterrevolutionary thoughts and actions.[1] A large number of "minor criminals" were executed or forced to commit suicide between 1970 and 1972.[60][61] According to government statistics released after the Cultural Revolution, during the campaign 1.87 million people were persecuted as traitors, spies, and counterrevolutionaries, and over 284,800 were arrested or killed from February to November 1970 alone.[1]
Mao (left) and Lin (right) in 1967, riding in the back of a vehicle during anInternational Workers' Day parade
Mao's efforts at re-organizing party and state institutions generated mixed results. The situation in some of the provinces remained volatile, even as the political situation in Beijing stabilized. Factional struggles, many violent, continued at a local level despite the declaration that the 9th National Congress marked a temporary victory for the CR.[13]: 316 Furthermore, despite Mao's efforts to put on a show of unity at the Congress, the factional divide between Lin's PLA camp and the Jiang-led radical camp was intensifying. Indeed, a personal dislike of Jiang drew many civilian leaders, including Chen, closer to Lin.[62]: 115
Between 1966 and 1968, China was isolated internationally, having declared its enmity towards both the USSR and the US. The friction with the USSR intensified afterborder clashes on theUssuri River in March 1969 as Chinese leaders prepared for all-out war.[13]: 317 In June 1969, the PLA's enforcement of political discipline and suppression of the factions that had emerged during the Cultural Revolution became intertwined with the central Party's efforts to accelerateThird Front. Those who did not return to work would be viewed as engaging in 'schismatic activity' which risked undermining preparations to defend China from potential invasion.[15]: 150–151
In October 1969, the Party attempted to focus more on war preparedness and less on suppressing factions.[15]: 151 That month, senior leaders were evacuated from Beijing. Amid the tension, Lin issued the "Order Number One", which appeared to be an executive order to prepare for war to the PLA's elevenmilitary regions on October 18 without going through Mao. This drew the ire of the chairman, who saw it as evidence that his declared successor was usurping his authority.[13]: 317
The prospect of war elevated the PLA to greater prominence in domestic politics, increasing Lin's stature at Mao's expense.[13]: 321 Some evidence suggests that Mao was pushed to seek closer relations with the US as a means to avoid PLA dominance that would result from a military confrontation with the Soviet Union.[13]: 321 During his later meeting withRichard Nixon in 1972, Mao hinted that Lin had opposed better relations with the U.S.[13]: 322
PRC Chairman (President) Liu Shaoqi on his deathbed in 1969
After Lin was confirmed as Mao's successor, his supporters focused on the restoration of the position of State Chairman,[note 1] which had been abolished by Mao after Liu's purge. They hoped that by allowing Lin to ease into a constitutionally sanctioned role, whether Chairman or vice-chairman, Lin's succession would be institutionalized. The consensus within thePolitburo was that Mao should assume the office with Lin as vice-chairman; but perhaps wary of Lin's ambitions or for other unknown reasons, Mao voiced his explicit opposition.[13]: 327
Factional rivalries intensified at the Second Plenum of the Ninth Congress in Lushan held in late August 1970. Chen, now aligned with the PLA faction loyal to Lin, galvanized support for the restoration of the office of President of China, despite Mao's wishes. Moreover, Chen launched an assault on Zhang, a staunch Maoist who embodied the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, over the evaluation of Mao's legacy.[13]: 328–331
The attacks on Zhang found favour with many Plenum attendees and may have been construed by Mao as an indirect attack on the CR. Mao confronted Chen openly, denouncing him as a "false Marxist",[13]: 332 and removed him from the Politburo Standing Committee. In addition to the purge of Chen, Mao asked Lin's principal generals to write self-criticisms on their political positions as a warning to Lin. Mao also inducted several of his supporters to the Central Military Commission and placed loyalists in leadership roles of theBeijing Military Region.[13]: 332
By 1971, the diverging interests of the civilian and military leaders was apparent. Mao was troubled by the PLA's newfound prominence, and the purge of Chen marked the beginning of a gradual scaling-down of the PLA's political involvement.[13]: 353 According to official sources, sensing the reduction of Lin's power base and his declining health, Lin's supporters plotted to use the military power still at their disposal to oust Mao in a coup.[62]
Lin's sonLin Liguo, along with other high-ranking military conspirators, formed a coup apparatus in Shanghai and dubbed the plan to oust MaoOutline for Project 571 – in the original Mandarin, the phrase sounds similar to the term for 'military uprising'. It is disputed whether Lin Biao was directly involved in this process. While official sources maintain that Lin did plan and execute the coup attempt, scholars such as Jin Qiu portray Lin as passive, cajoled by elements among his family and supporters. Qiu contests that Lin Biao was ever personally involved in drafting theOutline, with evidence suggesting that Lin Liguo was directly responsible for the draft.[62]
Graffiti of Lin Biao's foreword to theLittle Red Book, with his name (lower right) later scratched out
According to the official narrative, on 13 September Lin Biao, his wifeYe Qun, Lin Liguo, and members of his staff attempted to flee to the USSR ostensibly to seek political asylum. En route, Lin's plane crashed in Mongolia, killing all on board. The plane apparently ran out of fuel. A Soviet investigative team was not able to determine the cause of the crash but hypothesized that the pilot was flying low to evade radar and misjudged the plane's altitude.
The account was questioned by those who raised doubts over Lin's choice of the USSR as a destination, the plane's route, the identity of the passengers, and whether or not a coup was actually taking place.[62][63]
On 13 September, the Politburo met in an emergency session to discuss Lin. His death was confirmed in Beijing only on 30 September, which led to the cancellation of theNational Day celebration events the following day. The Central Committee did not release news of Lin's death to the public until two months later. Many Lin supporters sought refuge in Hong Kong. Those who remained on the mainland were purged.[62]
The event caught the party leadership off guard: the concept that Lin could betray Mao de-legitimized a vast body of Cultural Revolution political rhetoric and by extension, Mao's absolute authority. For several months following the incident, the party information apparatus struggled to find a "correct way" to frame the incident for public consumption, but as the details came to light, the majority of the Chinese public felt disillusioned and realised they had been manipulated for political purposes.[62]
Mao became depressed and reclusive after the Lin incident. Sensing a sudden loss of direction, Mao reached out to old comrades whom he had denounced in the past. Meanwhile, in September 1972, Mao transferred a 38-year-old cadre from Shanghai, Wang Hongwen, to Beijing and made him Party vice-chairman. Wang, a former factory worker from a peasant background,[13]: 357 was seemingly getting groomed for succession.[13]: 364
Jiang's position strengthened after Lin's flight. She held tremendous influence with the radical camp. With Mao's health on the decline, Jiang's political ambitions began to emerge. She allied herself with Wang and propaganda specialists Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, forming a political clique later pejoratively dubbed as theGang of Four.[64]
Jiang Qing (left) receiving Red Guards in Beijing withZhou Enlai (center) andKang Sheng, with each holding a copy of theLittle Red Book
By 1973, round after round of political struggles had left many lower-level institutions, including local government, factories, and railways, short of competent staff to carry out basic functions.[13]: 340 China's economy had fallen into disarray, which led to the rehabilitation of purged lower-level officials. The party's core became heavily dominated by Cultural Revolution beneficiaries and radicals, whose focus remained ideological purity over economic productivity. The economy remained mostly Zhou's domain, one of the few remaining moderates. Zhou attempted to restore the economy, but was resented by the Gang of Four, who identified him as their primary political succession threat.[65]
In late 1973, to weaken Zhou's political position and to distance themselves from Lin's apparent betrayal, theCriticize Lin, Criticize Confucius campaign began under Jiang's leadership.[13]: 366 Its stated goals were to purge China ofNew Confucianist thinking and denounce Lin's actions as traitorous and regressive.[13]: 372
Deng Xiaoping returned to the political scene, assuming the post of Vice-Premier in March 1973, in the first of a series of Mao-approved promotions. After Zhou withdrew from active politics in January 1975, Deng was effectively put in charge of the government, party, and military, then adding the additional titles ofPLA General Chief of Staff,Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, and vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission.[13]: 381
Mao wanted to use Deng as a counterweight to the military faction in government to suppress former Lin loyalists. In addition, Mao had also lost confidence in the Gang of Four and saw Deng as the alternative. Leaving the country in grinding poverty would damage the positive legacy of the CR, which Mao worked hard to protect. Deng's return set the scene for a protracted factional struggle between the radical Gang of Four and moderates led by Zhou and Deng.[citation needed]
At the time, Jiang and associates held effective control of mass media and the party'spropaganda network, while Zhou and Deng held control of most government organs. On some decisions, Mao sought to mitigate the Gang's influence, but on others, he acquiesced to their demands. The Gang of Four's political and media control did not prevent Deng from enacting his economic policies. Deng emphatically opposed Party factionalism, and his policies aimed to promote unity to restore economic productivity. Much like the post-Great Leap restructuring led by Liu Shaoqi, Deng streamlined therailway system,steel production, etc. By late 1975, however, Mao saw that Deng's economic restructuring might negate the CR's legacy and launched theCounterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal-of-Verdicts Trend, a campaign to oppose "rehabilitating the case for the rightists", alluding to Deng as the country's foremost "rightist". Mao directed Deng to write self-criticisms in November 1975, a move lauded by the Gang of Four.[13]: 381
On 8 January 1976, Zhou Enlai died of bladder cancer. On 15 January, Deng delivered Zhou's eulogy in a funeral attended by all of China's most senior leaders with the notable absence of Mao, who had grown increasingly critical of Zhou.[66]: 217–218 [67]: 610 After Zhou's death, Mao selected the relatively unknownHua Guofeng instead of a member of the Gang of Four or Deng to become Premier.[68]
The Gang of Four grew apprehensive that spontaneous, large-scale popular support for Zhou could turn the political tide against them. They acted through the media to impose restrictions on public displays of mourning for Zhou. Years of resentment over the CR, the public persecution of Deng—seen as Zhou's ally—and the prohibition against public mourning led to a rise in popular discontent against Mao and the Gang of Four. Official attempts to enforce the mourning restrictions included removing public memorials and tearing down posters commemorating Zhou's achievements. On 25 March 1976, Shanghai'sWen Hui Bao published an article calling Zhou "thecapitalist roader inside the Party [who] wanted to help the unrepentant capitalist roader [Deng] regain his power." These propaganda efforts at smearing Zhou's image, however, only strengthened public attachment to Zhou's memory.[66]: 213–214
On 4 April 1976, on the eve of China's annualQingming Festival, a traditional day of mourning, thousands of people gathered around theMonument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square to commemorate Zhou. They honored Zhou by laying wreaths, banners, poems, placards, and flowers at the foot of the Monument.[67]: 612 The most apparent purpose of this memorial was to eulogize Zhou, but the Gang of Four were also attacked for their actions against the Premier. A small number of slogans left at Tiananmen even attacked Mao and his Cultural Revolution.[66]: 218
Up to two million people may have visited Tiananmen Square on 4 April. All levels of society, from the most impoverished peasants to high-ranking PLA officers and the children of high-ranking cadres, were represented in the activities. Those who participated were motivated by a mixture of anger over Zhou's treatment, revolt against the Cultural Revolution and apprehension for China's future. The event did not appear to have coordinated leadership.[66]: 218–220
The Central Committee, under the leadership of Jiang Qing, labelled the event 'counter-revolutionary' and cleared the square of memorial items shortly after midnight on April 6. Attempts to suppress the mourners led to a riot. Police cars were set on fire, and a crowd of over 100,000 people forced its way into several government buildings surrounding the square. Many of those arrested were later sentenced to prison. Similar incidents occurred in other major cities. Jiang and her allies attacked Deng as the incident's 'mastermind', and issued reports on official media to that effect. Deng was formally stripped of all positions inside and outside the Party on 7 April. This marked Deng's second purge.[67]: 612
Death of Mao Zedong and the Gang of Four's downfall
On 9 September 1976, Mao Zedong died. To Mao's supporters, his death symbolized the loss of China's revolutionary foundation. His death was announced on 9 September.[69] The nation descended into grief and mourning, with people weeping in the streets and public institutions closing for over a week. Hua Guofeng chaired the Funeral Committee and delivered the memorial speech.[70][71]
Shortly before dying, Mao had allegedly written the message "With you in charge, I'm at ease," to Hua. Hua used this message to substantiate his position as successor. Hua had been widely considered to be lacking in political skill and ambitions, and seemingly posed no serious threat to the Gang of Four in the race for succession. However, the Gang's radical ideas also clashed with influential elders and many Party reformers. With army backing and the support of Marshal Ye Jianying, Director of Central OfficeWang Dongxing, Vice PremierLi Xiannian and party elderChen Yun, on 6 October, theCentral Security Bureau's Special Unit 8341 had all members of the Gang of Four arrested in a bloodless coup.[72]
After Mao's death, people characterized as 'beating-smashing-looting elements', who were seen as having disturbed the social order during the CR, were purged or punished. "Beating-smashing-looting elements" had typically been aligned with rebel factions.[42]: 359
Hua Guofeng succeeded Mao as Chairman of the CCP after Mao's death.
Although Hua denounced the Gang of Four in 1976, he continued to invoke Mao's name to justify Mao-era policies. Hua spearheaded what became known as theTwo Whatevers.[73] Like Deng, Hua wanted to reverse the CR's damage; but unlike Deng, who wanted new economic models for China, Hua intended to move the Chinese economic and political system towardsSoviet-style planning.[74][75]
It became increasingly clear to Hua that without Deng, it was difficult to continue daily affairs of state. On 10 October, Deng wrote a letter to Hua asking to be transferred back to state and party affairs; party elders also called for Deng's return. With increasing pressure from all sides, Premier Hua named Deng Vice-Premier in July 1977, and later promoted him to various other positions, effectively elevating Deng to be China's second-most powerful figure. In August, the11th National Congress was held in Beijing, officially naming (in ranking order) Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping,Li Xiannian and Wang Dongxing as new members of the Politburo Standing Committee.[76][non-primary source needed]
Deng Xiaoping first proposed what he calledBoluan Fanzheng in September 1977 in order to correct the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution.[77][78] In May 1978, Deng seized the opportunity to elevate his protégéHu Yaobang to power. Hu published an article in theGuangming Daily, making clever use of Mao's quotations, while lauding Deng's ideas. Following this article, Hua began to shift his tone in support of Deng. On 1 July, Deng publicized Mao's self-criticism report of 1962 regarding the failure of the Great Leap Forward. As his power base expanded, in September Deng began openly attacking Hua Guofeng's "Two Whatevers".[73] The "1978 Truth Criterion Discussion", launched by Deng and Hu and their allies, also triggered a decade-longNew Enlightenment movement in mainland China, promoting democracy,humanism and universal values, while opposing the ideology of Cultural Revolution.[79][80]
On 18 December 1978,Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee was held. Deng called for "a liberation of thoughts" and urged the party to "seek truth from facts" and abandon ideological dogma. The Plenum officially marked the beginning of theeconomic reform era. Hua Guofeng engaged in self-criticism and called his "Two Whatevers" a mistake. At the Plenum, the Party reversed its verdict on the Tiananmen Incident. Former Chinese president Liu Shaoqi was given a belated state funeral.[81] Peng Dehuai, who was persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution was rehabilitated in 1978.
At the Fifth Plenum held in 1980, Peng Zhen,He Long and other leaders who had been purged during the Cultural Revolution were rehabilitated. Hu Yaobang became head of theparty secretariat as itssecretary-general. In September, Hua Guofeng resigned, andZhao Ziyang, another Deng ally, was namedpremier. Hua remained on the Central Military Commission, but formal power was transferred to a new generation of pragmatic reformers, who reversed Cultural Revolution policies to a large extent. Within a few years, Deng and Hu helped rehabilitate over 3 million "unjust, false, erroneous" cases.[82] In particular, the trial of the Gang of Four took place in Beijing from 1980 to 1981, and the court stated that 729,511 people had been persecuted by the Gang, of whom 34,800 were said to have died.[83]
In 1981, the Chinese Communist Party passed a resolution and declared that the Cultural Revolution was "responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People's Republic."[84][85][86]
Fatality estimates vary across different sources, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions, or even tens of millions.[90][91][92][93][94][95] In addition to various regimes of secrecy and obfuscation concerning the Revolution, both top-down as perpetuated by authorities, as well as laterally among the Chinese public in the decades since, the discrepancies are due in large part to the totalistic nature of the Revolution itself: it is a significant challenge for historians to discern whether and in what ways discrete events that took place during the Cultural Revolution should be ascribed to it.[96]
Most deaths occurred after the mass movements ended,[46]: 23 when organized campaigns attempted to consolidate order in workplaces and communities.[46]: 172 AsAndrew G. Walder summarizes, "The cure for factional warfare was far worse than the disease."[46]: 23 Serious man-made disasters such as the1975 Banqiao Dam failure, also caused many deaths.
Examines the period between 1966 and 1971.[99] Walder reviewed the reported deaths in 2,213 annals from everycounty and interpreted the annals' vague language in the most conservative manner. For instance, "some died" and "a couple died" were interpreted as zero death, while "death in the scale of tens/hundreds/thousands" were interpreted as "ten/a hundred/a thousand died". The reported deaths underestimate the actual deaths, especially because some annals actively covered up deaths.[91][98][100] Annal editors were supervised by theCCP Propaganda Department.[91][100] In 2003, Walder and Yang Su coauthored a paper along this approach, but with fewer county annals available at the time.[97][101]
The 1.728 million were counted as "unnatural deaths", among which 9.4% (162,000) were CCP party members and 252,000 were intellectuals. The figures were extracted from建国以来历次政治运动事实; 'Facts on the Successive Political Movements since the Founding of the PRC', a book by the party's History Research Center, which states that "according to CCP internal investigations in 1978 and 1984 ... 21.44 million were investigated, 125 million got implicated in these investigations; [...] 4.2 million were detained (by Red Guards and other non-police), 1.3 million were arrested by police, 1.728 million of unnatural deaths; [...] 135,000 were executed for crimes of counter-revolution; [...] duringviolent struggles 237,000 were killed and 7.03 million became disabled".[103][104] While these internal investigations were never mentioned or published in any other official documents, the scholarly consensus found these figures very reasonable.[98][105]
Rummel included his estimate ofLaogai camp deaths in this figure.[97] He estimated that 5% of the 10 million people in the Laogai camps died each year of the 12-year period, and that this amounts to roughly 6 million.[106]
Several sources have quoted a statement made byMarshalYe Jianying, of "683,000 deaths in the cities, 2.5 million deaths in the countryside, plus 123,700 deaths due toviolent struggles and 115,500 deaths due tostruggle sessions and imprisonment, in addition to 557,000 people missing."[98][103][107] In a 2012 interview with Hong Kong'sOpen Magazine, an unnamed bureaucrat in Beijing claimed that Ye made the statement in a 1982 CCP meeting, while he was the party'sVice Chairman.[98][107] Several sources have also quoted that Marshal Ye estimated the death toll to be 20 million during a CCP working conference in December 1978.[92][93][94][98] Academic Jie Li writes that scholarship has discredited Ye's 20 million estimate.[50]: 340
This figure was obtained by an AFP correspondent in Beijing, citing an unnamed but "usually reliable" source.[108] In 1986,Maurice Meisner referred to this number as a "widely accepted nationwide figure", but also said "The toll may well have been higher. It is unlikely that it was less."[109] Jonathan Leightner asserted that the number is "perhaps one of the best estimates".[110]
These massacres were mainly led and organized by local revolutionary committees, Communist Party branches, militia, and the military.[1][111][112] Most victims were members of theFive Black Categories as well as their children, or members of "rebel groups". Chinese scholars have estimated that at least 300,000 people died in these massacres.[111][113] Collective killings inGuangxi andGuangdong were among the most serious. In Guangxi, the official annals of at least 43 counties have records of massacres, with 15 of them reporting a death toll of over 1,000, while in Guangdong at least 28 county annals record massacres, with 6 of them reporting a death toll of over 1,000.[112]
Official sources in 1980 revealed that, during the Red August, at least 1,772 people were killed by Red Guards, including teachers and principals of many schools, meanwhile 33,695 homes were ransacked and 85,196 families were forced to flee.[2][114][115] TheDaxing Massacre in rural Beijing caused the deaths of 325 people from 27 August to 1 September 1966; those killed ranged from 80 years old to a 38-day old baby, with 22 families being completely wiped out.[1][114][116]
In theGuangxi Massacre,the official record shows an estimated death toll from 100,000 to 150,000 as well ascannibalism primarily between 1967 and 1968 in Guangxi,[119][120] where one of the worst violent struggles of the Revolution took place, before Zhou sent the PLA to intervene.[121]: 545
In 1975, the PLA leda massacre inYunnan around the town of Shadian, targetingHui people, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,600 civilians, including 300 children, and the destruction of 4,400 homes.[1][122][123]
The Cultural Revolution Cemetery inChongqing, where 400–500 people killed in factional clashes are buried, out of a total of at least 1,700 deaths.[124]
Violent struggles were factional conflicts (mostly among Red Guards and "rebel groups") that began in Shanghai and then spread to other areas in 1967. They brought the country to a state of civil war.[1][125] Weapons used included some 18.77 million guns[note 2], 2.72 million grenades, 14,828 cannons, millions of other ammunition and even armored cars and tanks.[1] Notable violent struggles include the battles in Chongqing, inSichuan, and inXuzhou.[1][124][126] Researchers claimed that the nationwide death toll in violent struggles ranged from 300,000 to 500,000.[91][102][1]
The recorded rate of violence rose in 1967, reaching a peak that summer before dropping suddenly.[46]: 143 During 1967, casualties were relatively low as the weapons used were primarily clubs, spears, and rocks until late July.[46]: 143 Although firearms and heavier weapons began to spread during summer, most were neither trained nor committed fighters and therefore casualties remained relatively low.[46]: 143 The peak of collective violence in summer 1967 dropped sharply after August, when Mao became concerned about rebel attacks on local army units and thereafter made clear that his prior calls to "drag out" army commanders was a mistake and he would instead support besieged army commands.[46]: 150
The greatest number of casualties occurred during the process of restoring order in 1968, although the overall number of violent conflicts was lower. Walder stated that while "rising casualties from a smaller number of insurgent conflicts surely reflected the increasing scale and organizational coherence of rebel factions, and their growing access to military weaponry[,]" another important factor was that "[t]he longer that local factional warfare continued without the prospect of an equitable political settlement, the greater the stakes for the participants and the more intense the collective violence as factions fought to avoid the consequence of losing."[46]: 154–155
In addition to violent struggles, millions of Chinese were violently persecuted, especially via struggle sessions. Those identified as spies, "running dogs", "revisionists", or coming from a suspect class (including those related to former landlords or rich peasants) were subject to beating, imprisonment, rape, torture, sustained and systematic harassment and abuse, seizure of property, denial of medical attention, and erasure of social identity.[73] Some people were not able to stand the torture and committed suicide. Researchers claimed that at least 100,000 to 200,000 people committed suicide during the early CR.[91][102]
At the same time, many "unjust, false, and mistaken" cases appeared due to political purges. In addition to those who died in massacres, a large number of people died or became permanently disabled due tolynching or other forms of persecution. From 1968 to 1969, the Cleansing the Class Ranks purge caused the deaths of at least 500,000 people.[1][127] Purges of similar nature such as theOne Strike-Three Anti Campaign and the campaign towards theMay Sixteenth elements were launched in the 1970s.[128][102] For example, a political purge in Yunnan province, theZhao Jianmin spy case, resulted in 17,000 deaths and wrongfully persecuted a total of 1.38 million people.[1]
The Cultural Revolution wrought havoc on minority cultures and ethnicities. Languages and customs ofethnic minorities in China were labeled as part of the Four Olds, texts in ethnic languages were burned, and bilingual education was suppressed.[129][130][131] InInner Mongolia, some 790,000 people were persecuted during the Inner Mongolia incident. Of these, 22,900 were beaten to death, and 120,000 were maimed,[13]: 258 during a witch hunt to find members of the alleged separatist New Inner Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party. InXinjiang, copies of theQur'an and other books of theUyghur people were apparently burned. Muslim imams reportedly were paraded around with paint splashed on their bodies.[132] In theethnic Korean areas of northeast China, clashes took place.[133]
InYunnan Province, the palace of theDai people's king was torched, and a massacre of MuslimHui people at the hands of the PLA in Yunnan, known as theShadian incident, reportedly claimed over 1,600 lives in 1975.[132] After the Cultural Revolution, the government gave reparations for the Shadian Incident, including the erection of a Martyr's Memorial in Shadian.[134]
Concessions to minorities were abolished during the Cultural Revolution as part of the Red Guards' attack on the "Four Olds".People's communes, previously only established in parts of Tibet, were established throughoutTibet Autonomous Region in 1966,[135] removing Tibet's exemption from China's land reform, and reimposed in other minority areas. The effect on Tibet was particularly severe as it came following the repression after the1959 Tibetan uprising.[136][137] The destruction of nearly all of its over 6,000 monasteries, which began before the Cultural Revolution, were often conducted with the complicity of local ethnic Tibetan Red Guards.[138]: 9 Only eight were intact by the end of the 1970s.[139]
Many monks and nuns were killed, and the general population was subjected to physical and psychological torture.[138]: 9 An estimated 600,000 monks and nuns lived in Tibet in 1950, but by 1979, most were dead, imprisoned or had disappeared.[138]: 22 The Tibetan government in exile claimed that many Tibetans died from famines in 1961–1964 and 1968–1973 as a result of forced collectivization,[137][140] however, the number of Tibetan deaths or whether famines, in fact, took place in these periods is disputed.[141][142][143] Despite persecution, some local leaders and minority ethnic practices survived in remote regions.[144]
It was felt that pushing minority groups too hard would compromise China's border defenses. This was especially important as minorities make up a large percentage of the population that live in border regions. In the late 1960s, China experienced a period of strained relations with some of its neighbors, notably with the Soviet Union and India.[145]
Pan Suiming, Emily Honig, and others documented that rape and sexual abuse of sent-down women were common during the Cultural Revolution's height.[146][147] Tania Branigan documented that women raped tended to be from educated urban backgrounds while their rapists were poor peasants or local officials.[148][149]
A 1968 map of Beijing showing streets and landmarks renamed during the Cultural Revolution. Andingmen Inner Street became "Great Leap Forward Road", Taijichang Street became the "Road for Eternal Revolution", Dongjiaominxiang was renamed "Anti-Imperialist Road", Beihai Park was renamed "Worker-Peasant-Soldier Park" and Jingshan Park became "Red Guard Park". Most of the Cultural Revolution-era name changes were later reversed.
The revolution aimed to destroy the Four Olds and establish the corresponding Four News, which ranged from changing of names and cutting of hair to ransacking homes, vandalizing cultural treasures, and desecrating temples.[23]: 61–64
The revolution aimed to eliminatecow demons and snake spirits - the class enemies who promoted bourgeois ideas, as well as those from an exploitative family background or who belonged to one of the Five Black Categories. Large numbers of people perceived to be "monsters and demons" regardless of guilt or innocence were publicly denounced, humiliated, and beaten. In their revolutionary fervor, students, especially the Red Guards, denounced their teachers, and children denounced their parents.[23]: 59–61 Many died from ill-treatment or committed suicide. In 1968, youths were mobilized to go to the countryside in theDown to the Countryside Movement so they may learn from the peasantry, and the departure of millions from the cities helped end the most violent phase of the Cultural Revolution.[150]: 176
Yao Tongbin, one of China's foremostmissile scientists, was beaten to death by a mob in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution (1968). This causedZhou Enlai to order special protection for key technical experts.[151]
Academics andintellectuals were regarded as the "Stinking Old Ninth" and were widely persecuted. Many were sent to rural labor camps such as theMay Seventh Cadre School. The prosecution of the Gang of Four revealed that 142,000 cadres and teachers in the education circles were persecuted. Academics, scientists, and educators who died includedXiong Qinglai,Jian Bozan, Wu Han,Rao Yutai,Wu Dingliang,Yao Tongbin andZhao Jiuzhang.[152] As of 1968, among the 171 senior members who worked at the headquarters ofChinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, 131 were persecuted. Among the members of the academy, 229 died.[153] As of September 1971, more than 4,000 staff members of China's nuclear center inQinghai had been persecuted, while more than 310 were disabled, over 40 committed suicide, and 5 wereexecuted.[154][155]
Despite the hardships, some significant achievements came in science and technology: scientists tested the first missile, created China's firsthydrogen bomb and launched China's first satellite in the "Two Bombs, One Satellite" program.[156][157]
Many health personnel were deployed to the countryside asbarefoot doctors. Some farmers were given informal medical training, and health-care centers were established in rural communities. This process led to a marked improvement in health and life expectancy.[158]
In the early months of Cultural Revolution, schools and universities were closed. Secondary school classes of 1966, 1967, and 1968 were unable to graduate on time later and became known as the "Old Three Cohort (老三届)".[42]: 362 Colleges and universities were closed until 1970, and most universities did not reopen until 1972.[159]: 164 University entrance exams were cancelled after 1966 (until the beginning ofBoluan Fanzheng period in 1977), replaced by a system whereby students were recommended by factories, villages and military units. Traditional values were abandoned.[23]: 195
On the other hand, industrial Universities were established in factories to supply technical and engineering programs for industrial workers, inspired by Mao's July 1968 remarks advocatingvocational education.[42]: 362 Factories around the country therefore established their own educational programs for technicians and engineers, and by 1976, there were 15,000 such 21 July Universities.[160]: 92 Gao Mobo observes that in many underprivileged areas, political campaigns brought improvements in education and public health.[49]: 119–120
In the initial stage of theDown to the Countryside Movement, most of the youth who took part volunteered. Later on, the government forced them to move. Between 1968 and 1979, 17 million urban youth left for the countryside. Living in the rural areas deprived them of higher education.[150]: 10 This generation is sometimes referred to as the "lost generation".[161] In the post-Mao period, many of those forcibly moved attacked the policy as a violation of their human rights.[162]: 36 Formal literacy measurements did not resume until the 1980s.[163] Some counties inZhanjiang had literacy rates as low as 59% 20 years after the revolution. This was amplified by the elimination of qualified teachers—many districts were forced to rely on students to teach.[163]
Primary and middle schools gradually reopened during the Cultural Revolution. Schooling years were reduced and education standards fell, but the proportion of Chinese children who completed primary education increased from less than half to almost all, and the fraction who completed junior middle school rose from 15% to over two-thirds. Educational opportunities for rural children expanded, while education of the urban elite were restricted by anti-elitist policies.[159]: 166–167 Radical policies provided many in rural communities with middle school education for the first time.[159]: 163 Rural infrastructure developed during this period, facilitated by the political changes that empowered ordinary rural people.[164]: 177
A Red Guard holding up theSelected Works of Mao Zedong, with "revolution is no crime, to rebel is justified" written on a flag next to him, 1967
Huang claimed that the Cultural Revolution had massive effects on Chinese society because of the extensive use of political slogans.[165] He claimed that slogans played a central role in rallying Party leadership and citizens. For example, the slogan "to rebel is justified" (造反有理;zàofǎn yǒulǐ) affected many views.[165]
The remnants of a banner containing slogans from the Cultural Revolution inAnhui, 2006
Huang asserted that slogans were ubiquitous in people's lives, printed onto everyday items such as bus tickets, cigarette packets, and mirror tables.[162]: 14 Workers were supposed to "grasp revolution and promote production".[165][page needed]
Political slogans had three sources: Mao, Party media such asPeople's Daily, and the Red Guards.[165] Mao often offered vague, yet powerful directives that divided the Red Guards.[166] These directives could be interpreted to suit personal interests, in turn aiding factions' goals in claiming loyalty to Mao.[165][page needed]
Dittmer and Ruoxi claim that theChinese language had historically been defined by subtlety, delicacy, moderation, and honesty, as well as the cultivation of a "refined and elegant literary style".[167] This changed during the CR. These slogans were an effective method of "thought reform", mobilizing millions in a concerted attack upon the subjective world, "while at the same time reforming their objective world."[165][page needed][167]: 12
Dittmer and Chen argued that the emphasis on politics made language into effective propaganda, but "also transformed it into a jargon of stereotypes—pompous, repetitive, and boring".[167]: 12 To distance itself from the era, Deng's government cut back on political slogans. During a eulogy for Deng's death, CCP general secretaryJiang Zemin called the Cultural Revolution a "grave mistake".[168]
In 1966,Jiang Qing advanced theTheory of the Dictatorship of the Black Line. Those perceived to be bourgeois, anti-socialist or anti-Mao (black line) should be cast aside, and called for the creation of new literature and arts.[44]: 352–353 Disseminators of the "old culture" would be eradicated. The majority of writers and artists were seen as "black line figures" and "reactionary literati", and were persecuted, and subjected to "criticism and denunciation" where they could be humiliated and ravaged, and be imprisoned or sent to hard labour.[169]: 213–214 For instance,Mei Zhi and her husband were sent to a tea farm inLushan County, Sichuan. She did not resume writing until the 1980s.[170]
In 1970, the CCP came to view theMinistry of Culture as so disruptive that it decided to dissolve the Ministry and establish a Culture Group within theState Council in an effort to rein in cultural politics.[160]: 160 The principles for cultural production laid out by Mao in the 1942Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Art and Literature became dogmatized.[171] The literary situation eased after 1972, as more were allowed to write, and many provincial literary periodicals resumed publication, but the majority of writers still could not work.[169]: 219–20 Documents released in 1980 regarding the prosecution of the Gang of Four show that more than 2,600 people in the field of arts and literature were persecuted by the Ministry of Culture.[152] Many died: the names of 200 writers and artists who were persecuted to death were commemorated in 1979. These include writers such asLao She,Fu Lei,Deng Tuo,Baren,Li Guangtian,Yang Shuo andZhao Shuli.[169]: 213–14
Depictions ofiron girls became a frequent subject of art during the Cultural Revolution, often shown in spaces and activities traditionally associated with male authority as part of an effort to develop thenew socialist woman.[172]: 100
Jiang took control of the stage and introducedrevolutionary operas under her direct supervision. Traditional operas were banned as they were considered feudalistic and bourgeois, but revolutionary opera, which modifiedPeking opera in both content and form, was promoted.[23]: 115 Six operas and two ballets were produced in the first three years, most notably the operaThe Legend of the Red Lantern. These operas were the only approved opera form. Other opera troupes were required to adopt or change their repertoire.[150]: 176 Loyalty dances became common and were performed throughout the country by both professional cultural workers and ordinary people.[42]: 362 The model operas were broadcast on the radio, made into films, blared from public loudspeakers, taught to students in schools and workers in factories, and became ubiquitous as a form of popular entertainment and were the only theatrical entertainment for millions.[44]: 352–53 [23]: 115 Most model dramas featured women as their leads and promoted Chinese state feminism.[173] Their narratives begin with them oppressed bymisogyny, class position, and imperialism before liberating themselves through the discovery of internal strength and the CCP.[173]
"Quotation songs", in which Mao's quotations were set to music, were particularly popular during the early years of the Cultural Revolution.[176]: 34 Composer Li Jiefu first published quotation songs inPeople's Daily in September 1966 and they were promoted thereafter as a means for studyingQuotations from Chairman Mao Zedong.[177]: 47 Records of quotation songs were played over loudspeakers, their primary means of distribution,[176]: 35 as the use of transistor radios lagged until 1976.[176]: 32–33 Rusticated youths with an interest in broadcast technology frequently operated rural radio stations after 1968.[176]: 42 At the 9th National Congress of the Communist Party, Jiang Qing condemned quotation songs, which she had come to view as comparable to yellow music.[177]: 43
Aesthetic principles emphasized during the Cultural Revolution included the "tall, big, complete," "red, bright, shining," and "the three prominences".[178]: 187–188 According to the principle of the "three prominences," the good are more prominent than the bad, the very good are more prominent than the good, and the one outstanding figure is more prominent than the very good.[179]: 4 Other stylistic principles of the Cultural Revolution included "tall, large, and full".[172]: 96
Among the most significant visual works of the Cultural Revolution was Liu Chunhua's 1967 oil painting,Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan.[180]: 132 Another influential painting was Pan Jiajun's 1972I Am a Petrel, which depicts a young woman soldier repairing a telegraph cables during a storm.[181]: 94–95 Praised as a new classic of depicting a revolutionary heroine, it inspired the creation of similar works and was itself widely distributed as a poster.[181]: 95
A Red Guard art movement developed, reaching its peak in 1967.[180]: 128 Red Guards from fine arts academies organized large art exhibitions, often in cooperation with rebel groups in work units or the army, which included many amateur art works.[180]: 132 The most significant Red Guard art exhibition wasLong Live the Triumph of Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Line which opened 1 October 1967 in Beijing and featured more than 1,600 art works in a variety of media produced by artists and amateurs from around the country.[180]: 132 Following the exhibition, traveling teams toured art works from the exhibition through rural China and into remote areas.[180]: 132 The Red Guard art movement favored forms of art deemed public or anti-elitist, such as black and white woodcuts (or brush and marker illustrations in the style of a woodcut), satirical cartoons, paper cut outs, and forms offolk art.[180]: 132–133 Among the most popular motifs in Red Guard art was the image of a worker, peasant, and soldier conducting criticism or Red Guards doing so.[180]: 173 Red Guard groups in fine arts academies also published journals, pamphlets, and manifestos through which they criticized the old art institutions.[180]: 131
Traditional themes were sidelined and artists such asFeng Zikai,Shi Lu, andPan Tianshou were persecuted.[150]: 97 Many of the artists were assigned to manual labour, and artists were expected to depict subjects that glorified the Cultural Revolution related to their labour.[182]: 351–52 In 1971, in part to alleviate their suffering, several leading artists were recalled from manual labour or freed from captivity under a Zhou initiative to decorate hotels and railway stations defaced by Red Guard slogans. Zhou said that the artworks were meant for foreigners, therefore were "outer" art and not under the obligations and restrictions placed on "inner" art meant for Chinese citizens. He claimed that landscape paintings should not be considered one of the "Four Olds". However, Zhou was weakened by cancer, and in 1974, the Jiang faction seized these and other paintings and mounted exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities denouncing the artworks asBlack Paintings.[182]: 368–376
Propaganda in posters was used as a mass communication device and often served as the people's leading source of information. They were produced in large numbers and widely disseminated to propagate ideological positions.[179]: 4–5 The two main posters genres were the big-character poster ordazibao and commercial propaganda poster.[183]: 7–12
Thedazibao presented slogans, poems, commentary and graphics often posted on walls in public spaces, factories and communes. Mao wrote his owndazibao at Beijing University on 5 August 1966, calling on the people to "Bombard the Headquarters".[183]: 5
Xuanchuanhua, or propaganda paintings, were artworks produced by the government and sold cheaply in stores to be displayed in homes or workplaces. The artists for these posters might be amateurs or uncredited professionals, and the posters were largely in aSocialist Realist visual style with specific conventions—for example, images of Mao were to be depicted as "red, smooth, and luminescent".[183]: 7–12 [182]: 360
After decreasing in prominence throughout the 1980s, Cultural Revolution posters became prominent in public life again in the 1990s in connection withred tourism, as collectibles, in commercial advertising, and in contemporary art.[184]: 9 In contemporary China, they continue to be reproduced in large amounts and sold commercially.[181]: 87 Historic posters are have been the subject of exhibitions and auctions, including in the United States and Europe.[181]: 92
Before the Cultural Revolution, relatively few cultural productions reflected the lives of peasants and workers; during it, the struggles of workers, peasants, and revolutionary soldiers became frequent artistic subjects, often created by peasants and workers themselves.[185] Among the most prominent examples of this style included the peasant paintings of Huxian.[180]: 133 In the early 1970s, worker, peasant, and soldier-created art was promoted as the paradigm of socialist art.[180]: 133 The spread of peasant paintings in rural China, for example, became one of thenewborn things celebrated in a socialist society.[185]
Literature adapted the aesthetic themes from the model works, such as the "three prominences".[186]: 179 Applied in the literary context, the principle of the three prominences was that texts should demonstrate the struggle between revolutionary and reactionary forces in a stark anddichotomous manner.[186]: 179
During the Cultural Revolution, the long-form novel was an emphasized form of literature.[186]: 179 Among the major genres were novels about the experiences of sent-down youth.[186]: 179 These included novels written by sent-down youths themselves, such asZhang Kangkang's 1975 novelDividing Line and Zhang Changgong's 1973 novelYouth.[186]: 179
Among the amateur writers who became prominent during the Cultural Revolution wasDuan Ruixia for the 1973 short story,Not Just One of the Audience.[186]: 187
Writing about the romantic relationships of revolutionary martyrs became one of the taboo topics during the Cultural Revolution.[178]: 186–187
TheFour Hundred Films to be Criticized booklet was distributed, and film directors and actors/actresses were criticized with some tortured and imprisoned.[44]: 401–02 These included many of Jiang Qing's rivals and former friends. Those who died in the period includedCai Chusheng,Zheng Junli,Shangguan Yunzhu,Wang Ying, andXu Lai.[187] No feature films were produced in mainland China for seven years apart from a few approved "Model dramas" and highly ideological films.[188] A notable example isTaking Tiger Mountain by Strategy.[189][190] China rejected Hollywood films and most foreign films.[27]: 213 Albanian films andNorth Korean films developed mass audiences in China.[27]: 213 In 1972, Chinese officials invitedMichelangelo Antonioni to China to film the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. Antonioni made the documentaryChung Kuo, Cina. When it was released in 1974, CCP leadership in China interpreted the film asreactionary and anti-Chinese. Viewing art through the principles of theYan'an Talks, particularly the concept that there is no such thing as art-for-art's-sake, party leadership construed Antonioni's aesthetic choices as politically motivated and banned the film.[191]: 13–14
Mobile film units broughtChinese cinema to the countryside and were crucial to the standardization and popularization of culture during this period, particularly including revolutionary model operas.[176]: 30 During the Cultural Revolution's early years, mobile film teams traveled to rural areas with news reels of Mao meeting with Red Guards and Tiananmen Square parades, which became known as "red treasure films".[192]: 110 The release of the filmed versions of the revolutionary model operas resulted in a re-organization and expansion of China's film exhibition network.[27]: 73 From 1965 to 1976, the number of film projection units in China quadrupled, total film audiences nearly tripled, and the national film attendance rate doubled.[27]: 133 The Cultural Revolution Group drastically reduced ticket prices which, in its view, would allow film to better serve the needs of workers and of socialism.[27]: 133
Buddhist statues defaced during the Cultural Revolution
China's historical sites, artifacts and archives suffered devastating damage, as they were thought to be at the root of "old ways of thinking". Artifacts were seized, museums and private homes ransacked, and any item found that was thought to represent bourgeois orfeudal ideas was destroyed. Few records relate how much was destroyed—Western observers suggest that much of China's thousands of years of history was in effect destroyed, or, later, smuggled abroad for sale. Chinese historians compare the suppression toQin Shi Huang'sgreat Confucian purge.Religious persecution intensified during this period, as religion was viewed in opposition to Marxist–Leninist and Maoist thinking.[44]: 73
The destruction of historical relics was never formally sanctioned by the Party, whose official policy was instead to protect such items. On 14 May 1967, the Central Committee issuedSeveral suggestions for the protection of cultural relics and books during the Cultural Revolution.[162]: 21 Despite this, enormous damage was inflicted on China's cultural heritage. For example, a survey in 1972 in Beijing of 18 cultural heritage sites, including theTemple of Heaven andMing Tombs, showed extensive damage. Of the 80 cultural heritage sites in Beijing under municipal protection, 30 were destroyed, and of the 6,843 cultural sites under protection by Beijing government decision in 1958, 4,922 were damaged or destroyed.[193] Numerous valuable old books, paintings, and other cultural relics were burnt.[194]: 98
Laterarchaeological excavation and preservation after the destructive period were protected, and several significant discoveries, such as theTerracotta Army and theMawangdui, occurred after the peak of the Revolution.[162]: 21 Nevertheless, the most prominent medium of academic research in archaeology, the journalKaogu, did not publish.[195] After the most violent phase, the attack on traditional culture continued in 1973 with theAnti-Lin Biao, Anti-Confucius Campaign as part of the struggle against moderate Party elements.
During the early period of the Cultural Revolution,freedom of the press in China was at its peak.[196] While the number of newspapers declined in this period, the number of independent publications by mass political organizations grew.[197] According toChina's National Bureau of Statistics, the number of newspapers dropped from 343 in 1965, to 49 in 1966, and then to a 20th-century low of 43 in 1967.[197] At the same time, the number of publications by mass organizations such asRed Guards grew to an estimated number as high as 10,000.[197]
Independent political groups could publishbroadsheets and handbills, as well as leaders' speeches and meeting transcripts which would normally have been considered highly classified.[46]: 24 From 1966 to 1969, at least 5,000 new broadsheets by independent political groups were published.[5]: 60 Several Red Guard organizations also operated independent printing presses to publish newspapers, articles, speeches, andbig-character posters.[196] For example, the largest student organization in Shanghai, the Red Revolutionaries, established a newspaper that had a print run of 800,000 copies by the end of 1966.[46]: 58–59
The functions of China's embassies abroad were disrupted during the early part of the Cultural Revolution. In a 22 March 1969 meeting on theSino-Soviet border clashes, Mao stated that inforeign relations, China was "now isolated" and "we need to relax a little".[198]: 287 Later that year, China began to restore its embassies to normal functioning.[198]: 287
Chinaexported communist revolutions as well as communist ideologies to multiple countries inSoutheast Asia, supporting parties inIndonesia,Malaysia,Vietnam,Laos,Myanmar and theKhmer Rouge in Cambodia.[202] It is estimated that at least 90% of the Khmer Rouge's foreign aid came from China. In 1975 alone at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid and US$20 million came from China.[203] China's economic malaise impacted China's ability to assistNorth Vietnam in itswar againstSouth Vietnam by the 1970s, which cooled relations between the once allied nations.[204]
To this day, public discussion of the Cultural Revolution is still limited within mainland China. The Chinese government continues to prohibit news organizations from mentioning details, and online discussions and books about the topic are subject to official scrutiny. Textbooks abide by the "official view" of the events. Many government documents from the 1960s onward remain classified.[210] Despite inroads by prominent sinologists, independent scholarly research is discouraged.[210]
Mao Zedong's legacy remains in some dispute. During the anniversary of his birth, many people viewed Mao as a godlike figure and referred to him as "the people's great savior". Contemporary discussions in the CCP-owned tabloidGlobal Times continue to glorify Mao. Rather than focus on consequences, state media newspapers claim that revolutions typically have a brutal side and are unable to be viewed from the "humanitarian perspective".[211] Critics of Mao Zedong look at the actions that occurred under his leadership from the point of view that "he was better at conquering power than at ruling the country and developing a socialist economy". Mao went to extreme measures on his path to power, costing millions of lives then and during his rule.[212]
^Lu, Xing (2004).Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Impact on Chinese Thought. p. 2.Known to the Chinese as the ten years of chaos [...]
^abcThornton, Patricia M. (2019). "Cultural Revolution". In Sorace, Christian; Franceschini, Ivan; Loubere, Nicholas (eds.).Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi. Acton, Australia:Australian National University Press.ISBN978-1-76046-249-9.
^Kte'pi, Bill (2011),"Chinese Famine (1907)",Encyclopedia of Disaster Relief, Thousand Oaks: Sage, pp. 70–71,doi:10.4135/9781412994064,ISBN978-1412971010,archived from the original on 1 December 2020, retrieved25 December 2021,The Chinese Famine of 1907 is the second-worst famine in recorded history, with an estimated death toll of around 25 million people; this exceeds the lowest estimates for the death toll of the later Great Chinese Famine, meaning that the 1907 famine could actually be the worst in history.
^abcdeYang, Guobin (2013). "Mao Quotations in Factional Battles and Their Afterlives: Episodes from Chongqing". In Cook, Alexander C. (ed.).Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-1-107-05722-7.
^毛泽东八次接见红卫兵始末(上) [Mao Zedong’s Eight Receptions With the Red Guards (Part 1)].新闻午报 (in Chinese). 19 April 2006. Archived fromthe original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved2 March 2019.
^Wemheuer, Felix (2019).A Social History of Maoist China. Cambridge, United Kingdom:Cambridge University Press. p. 199.ISBN978-1-107-56550-0.Red Guards from Beijing played a key role in spreading the Cultural Revolution to other cities, traveling across the country to exchange revolutionary experiences in a process known as "the big link-up" (da chuanlian).
^abcdefgXu, Youwei; Wang, Y. Yvon (2022).Everyday Lives in China's Cold War Military Industrial Complex: Voices from the Shanghai Small Third Front, 1964–1988.Palgrave MacMillan.ISBN978-3030996871.
^abLi, Jie (2016). "Museums and Memorials of the Mao Era: A Survey and Notes for Future Curators". In Li, Jie; Zhang, Enhua (eds.).Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution. Harvard Contemporary China Series. Cambridge, Massachusetts:Harvard University Asia Center.ISBN978-0-674-73718-1.
^Yan, Fei (5 February 2024). "'Turning One's Back on the Party and the People': Suicides during the Chinese Cultural Revolution".The China Journal.91:67–88.doi:10.1086/729112.ISSN1324-9347.
^abcdTeiwes, Frederick; Sun, Warren (2004). "The First Tiananmen Incident Revisited: Elite Politics and Crisis Management at the End of the Maoist Era".Pacific Affairs.77 (2):211–235.JSTOR40022499.
^Ferdinand, Pete (8 July 2016) [1986]. McCauley, Martin M.; Carter, Stephen (eds.). "China".Leadership and Succession in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China. New York: Routledge:194–204.doi:10.4324/9781315494890.ISBN9781315494890.
^Legvold, Robert; Andrew, Christopher; Mitrokhin, Vasili (2006). "The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World".Foreign Affairs.85 (1): 158.ISSN0015-7120.JSTOR20031879.
^abcdefgSong, Yongyi (11 October 2011).文革中到底"非正常死亡"了多少人？– 读苏扬的《文革中中国农村的集体屠杀》 [How many really died in the Cultural Revolution? – After reading Su Yang'sCollective Killings in Rural China during the Cultural Revolution].China News Digest (in Chinese).Archived from the original on 24 June 2022.
^abLing, Zhijun; Ma, Licheng (30 January 2011)."四人帮"被粉碎后的怪事："文革"之风仍在继续吹 [The strange thing after the collapse of the Gang of Four: the wind of Cultural Revolution continued to blow].People's Daily (in Chinese). Archived fromthe original on 22 June 2020.粉碎"四人帮"之后，叶剑英在一次讲话中沉痛地说："文化大革命"死了2000万人，整了1亿人，浪费了8000亿人民币。
^abcdefghJin, Zhong (7 October 2012).最新版文革死亡人數 [The latest version of the Cultural Revolution death toll].Open Magazine (in Chinese). Hong Kong.Archived from the original on 29 June 2022.
^abWalder, Andrew G. (2014). "Rebellion and Repression in China, 1966–1971".Social Science History.38 (3–4):513–39.doi:10.1017/ssh.2015.23.S2CID143087356.
^abSong, Yongyi (3 April 2017).广西文革绝密档案中的大屠杀和性暴力 [Massacres and sexual violence recorded in the classified documents of the Cultural Revolution in Guangxi].China News Digest.Archived from the original on 22 June 2022.
兩百萬人含恨而終─文革死亡人數統計.Open Magazine (in Chinese). Hong Kong. August 1999.
A different version appears in:Ding, Shu (15 March 2004).文革死亡人数的一家之言 [Home report on the Cultural Revolution's death toll].China News Digest (in Chinese).
^"Title unknown".Zhengming Magazine. Hong Kong. October 1996.中共一九七八年和一九八四年的内部调查 ...「两千一百四十四万余人受到审查、冲击；一亿两千五百余万人受到牵连、影响」...「四百二十余万人曾被关押、隔离审查；一百三十余万人曾被公安机关拘留、逮捕；一百七十二万八千余人非正常死亡 ...「十三万五千余人被以现行反革命罪判为死刑；在武斗中有二十三万七千余人死亡，七十三万余人伤残」
^Chen, Yung-fa (1998).中國共產革命七十年 (下) (in Chinese).Taipei: Linking. p. 817.文化大革命的非正常死亡人數只有大躍進的十分之一不到, 從農民觀點來看, 其錯誤之嚴重, 遠遠不如大躍進 ... 二千六百萬人慘死
^abDai, Kaiyuan (18 April 2016).文革的本质：– 场大清洗 [The nature of the Cultural Revolution: a great purge].China News Digest (in Chinese).Archived from the original on 8 April 2022.Note 12
^abAgence France Presse, Beijing, 3February 1979; compiled intoFBIS-Chi 79.25 (5 February 1979), p. E2.[title missing]
^Meisner, Maurice (1986).Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic (2nd ed.). Free Press. pp. 371–372, 394.Li's estimate for Guangdong is roughly consistent with a widely accepted nationwide figure of 400,000 Cultural Revolution deaths, a number first reported in 1979 by the Agence France Presse correspondent in Peking based on estimates of unofficial but "usually reliable" Chinese sources. The toll may well have been higher. It is unlikely that it was less.
^Qingxia, Dai; Yan, Dong (March 2001). "The Historical Evolution of Bilingual Education for China's Ethnic Minorities".Chinese Education & Society.34 (2):7–53.doi:10.2753/CED1061-193234027.ISSN1061-1932.Ethnic languages were repudiated as one of the "four olds" and large numbers of books and documents pertaining to ethnic languages were burned.
^Wu, Jiaping (May 2014). "The Rise of Ethnicity under China's Market Reforms".International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.38 (3):967–984.doi:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2012.01179.x.ISSN0309-1317.Campaigns of 'class eradication' became more radical during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and had a disastrous effect on ethnic culture. Ethnic traditions were seen as part of the 'four olds' (old ideas, customs, culture and habits; in Chinese, sijiu) that had to be destroyed.
^Chunli, Xia (2007). "From Discourse Politics to Rule of Law: A Constructivist Framework for Understanding Regional Ethnic Autonomy in China".International Journal on Minority and Group Rights.14 (4):399–424.doi:10.1163/138548707X247392.ISSN1385-4879.JSTOR24675396.Traditional minority designs and colourful lace were marked as "four olds" (sijiu) and burnt.
^abFung, Edmund S. K. (January 2001). "Anti-Drug Crusades in Twentieth-Century China: Nationalism, History, and State Building. Zhou Yongming".The China Journal.45: 162.ISSN1324-9347.JSTOR3182405.
^Lovell, Julia (2019).Maoism: A Global History. Knopf Doubleday. pp. 114–115.ISBN978-0-525-65605-0.Events took a horrific turn in the frontier town of Yanbian, where freight trains trundled from China into the DPRK, draped with the corpses of Koreans killed in the pitched battles of the Cultural Revolution, and daubed with threatening graffiti: 'This will be your fate also, you tiny revisionists!'
^Khalid, Zainab (4 January 2011)."Rise of the Veil: Islamic Modernity and the Hui Woman"(PDF).SIT Digital Collections. Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. SIT Graduate Institute. pp. 8, 11. Paper 1074.Archived from the original on 9 August 2014. Retrieved25 July 2014.
^Schwartz, Ronald."Religious Persecution in Tibet"(PDF).www.tibet.ca. Memorial University of Newfoundland.Archived(PDF) from the original on 23 September 2013. Retrieved5 December 2018.
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^Branigan, Tania (2023).Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution. W. W. Norton. p. 166.ISBN978-1-324-05195-4.But the city girls, naive and far from their families, were easy prey for peasants and especially cadres. Though fright and shame deterred many from reporting abuses, thousands of cases were recorded in a single year. The problem was pronounced enough that the centre kept threatening punishment for rapes. Often the victims took the blame, since they had worse class backgrounds than officials.
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Yuan Gao, with Judith Polumbaum,Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987). An autobiography that includes experiences during the Cultural Revolution
Fox Butterfield.China: Alive in the Bitter Sea (New York: Crown, 1990).ISBN0812918657 An oral history of some Chinese people's experience during the Cultural Revolution
Anit Chan,Children of Mao: Personality Development and Political Activism in the Red Guard Generation. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985).
Lingchei Letty Chen,The Great Leap Backward: Forgetting and Representing the Mao Years (New York: Cambria Press, 2020). Scholarly studies on memory writings and documentaries of the Mao years, victimhood narratives, perpetrator studies, ethics of bearing witness to atrocities
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Ross Terrill,The White-Boned Demon: A Biography of Madame Mao Zedong (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984).ISBN0804729220
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Ken Ling,The Revenge of Heaven: Journal of a Young Chinese, English text prepared by Miriam London and Ta-Ling Lee. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1972).
Liu Ping,My Chinese Dream: From Red Guard to CEO (San Francisco: China Books, 2012).ISBN978-0835100403
Ma Bo,Blood Red Sunset: A Memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, translated by Howard Goldblatt. (New York: Viking, 1995).
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