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The impact of the Cultural Revolution - Coggle Diagram
The impact of the Cultural Revolution
Impact on cities
Eradication of bourgeois and foreign influences + 'capitalist-roaders' conducted in most schools, universities, factories offices and shops
At times -> Beijing + Shanghai almost brought to a standstill due to Red Guard activities and factional fighting
1967
- Food supplies in Shanghai fell to dangerously low levels as city filled with street fighting and strikes, virtually cut off from other parts of China
Workplaces each morning - people stood in formation and bowed three times before Mao's portrait, asking for instructions. Reported back to Mao each evening after work
Negative effect on industrial output -> total output fell by
13%
during
1967
Further fall in
1968
Private lives
of many affected - pressures to conform to Mao Zedong thought + the right appearance + lifestyle intensified.
Pedestrians going about business cold be attacked for wearing wrong clothes, having the wrong hairstyles or even walking dogs.
Houses raided and ransacked by Red Guard
Estimated 1/3 of houses raided in Beijing autumn of 1966
Impact on rural areas
Much of China's countryside largely untouched by the violence
Relatively little Red Guard activity
Rural areas close to the cities -> peasants more likely to get involved in 'revolutionary action'
Nearly 2/3 of all places where rural disorder reported where within 50km of large cities.
Agricultural output declined in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution
Benefit in matters of health
In 1966, emphasis in health policy shifted to countryside
'Barefoot doctors' introduced to provide basic health care in 1968
Chaos of CR meant they were put to work with little or no training
Impact on education and youth
Early stages of CR -> schools and universities -> main battlegrounds in struggle against 'incorrect ideas'
Teachers were the first victims
1966
- many teachers at Beijing University dragged out of their classes, beaten
Summer of 1966 - all universities closed and did not reopen for two years
Middle schools closed between autumn of 1966 to spring of 1967
Impact on cultural and intellectual life
Impact on the Communist Party