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The Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, 1966 - 76 - Coggle Diagram
The Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, 1966 - 76
Mao's reasons for launching the Cultural Revolution
Division within CCP between ideologues and pragamtists
End of GLF -> Mao retired from day-to-day politics -> humiliated
Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping took control of policy -> took a slow-paced, gradualist approach introducing elements of capitalism to revitalise China
Angered Mao -> believed his revolution was being subverted
The quest for permanent revolution
Mao believed final creation of Communist China -> demanded ongoing revolution to prevent people slipping back into old customs
Attacks on the bureaucracy
Mao believed when bureaucrats stopped working to create revolution -> they would become like any other ruling class -> govt. corrupt
Divisions within the CCP between supporters and opponents of Mao's policies
Mao's supporters
Chen Boda -> chief of propaganda
Kang Sheng -> chief of secret police
Jiang Qing
Lin Biao -> head of PLA
Provided vital support in his plan to purge his rivals -> part of the Central Cultural Revolution Group
Mao's opponents
Pragmatists in party -> wanted more rational, pragmatic approach to creating Communism
Liu and Deng
Economic planners -> Chen Yun + Bo Yibo argued experts needed to run economy
Mao used
CR
to attack his enemies
Hai Rui Dismissed from Office -> Mao viewed it as a criticism of his treatment of Peng Dehuai -> Mayor of Beijing, Peng Zhen allowed it to be published -> forced to resign -> made it easier for Mao to attack
Liu and Deng
as they were close with Zhen
The Red Guard and the Red Terror
Mao's hold on young people
Mao knew -> young people did not remmeber worst of Great Famine + did not blame him for it
Young people indoctrinated in schools -> learned of Mao's role in the formation of the PRC and the Korean War
Read the Little Red Book -> followed Cult of Personality
The Little Red Book
Commissioned by Lin Biao in 1964
All PLA soldiers required to read it and follow its teachings
Red Guard followed its ideas and teachings
Quasi-religious text
Mass rallies of 1966
August 1966 -> Mao + Chen Boda invitied millions of students to attend series of mass rallies in Beijing
Mao encouraged students to challenge and rebel against authority - like authority of teachers, govt. officials, his enemies Liu and Deng
The Red Guards' attacks on the 'Four Olds'
Mao encouraged those who idolised him -> join Red Guards
August 1966 -> Four Olds Campaign launched
Attacks on: old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits
Left to interpretation -> Red Guards attacked a vast array of
things they deemed as part of the four olds
Religious buildings destroyed, teachers attacked, classical literature/music attacked
Growth of anarchy + use of terror
RG
got out of hand following Mao's demand to 'Smash the four Olds'
Attacked those in authority
Young people with bourgeois background not allowed to join Red Guard at first - when this was lifted, they were desperate to prove committment to Mao
Many violent due to peer pressure, ideology, or competition with rivals for career advancement
The use of terror
'January storm' of 1967 - Red Guards seiezed power from CCP itself and set up a government modelled on 1871 Paris Commune -> PLA used to close down commune ->
step too far
Mao
denounced
the crackdown as the 'February Adverse Current' -> encourages greater violence
Full-scale civil war looked likely -> Mao realised chaos meant China vulnerable to attack -> PLA used to
restore order
Why did young people join the Red Guards?
Presented various opportunities to youths
Red Guard allowed to board trains for free without buying a ticket
Some took chance after years of control and repression to travel across the country to experience freedom
Others took chance to torture and intimidate class enemies
Some attended rallies out of peer pressure
Cultural Destruction
Cultural objects related to 'Four Olds' were attacked by hordes of Red Guard, Sculptures, statues + artefacts were defaced and desecrated + libraries with Western books burned
Treasures of Forbidden City only saved when Zhou Enlai sent PLA to protect it from the Red Guards
Attacks on Mao's political opponents
Liu Shaoqi
Head of State -> Liu's pragmatic policies helped rebuild China after GLF -> popular -> Mao potentially jealous
Sent in Party 'Work Teams' to control violence during CR
Subjected to constant struggle meetings + family denounced
9th Party Congress -> denounced as a traitor working for the American CIA
Exiled -> replaced by Lin Biao -> died on 12th November 1968
Deng Xiaoping
Targeted during the CR
Son targeted - jumped out a window trying to escape Red Guards - paralysed from waist down
Mao complained that he did not consult him before making decisions
Returned to power following the CR to help end the chaos
Gang of Four convinced Mao to take away Deng's positions of govt. leadership
Lin Biao + role of PLA
Mao's most subservient follower -> replaced Peng Dehuai after Lushan Conference
Helped create the Little Red Book -> spread cult of personality
Cult of
Lei Feng
-> encouraged obedience to Mao Zedong Thought
Lei Feng was a soldier in the PLA -> object of numerous propaganda campaigns
'Learn from the PLA'
Campaign launched in
1963
-> Army propaganda turned soldier Lei Feng into ideological role model + national hero
Described in Party propaganda: 'one of Chairman Mao's good warriors'
Lei -> deeply loyal to Party and Mao -> Mao declared 'be like Comrade Lei Feng'
Diary published when he died -> showed him to be unselfish in service of revolution -> myth of Lei Feng helped create loyalty to Mao
The purges of class enemies
The purging of the CCP membership
'Bombard the Headquarters' Big Character Poster -> encouraging RG to attack CCP
'Rectification campaign' -> remove members who had been bourgeois + elitest -> replace them with young, revolutionary people ->
devastating impact
70-80% of all Party cadres at regional + provisional level -> 60-70% of organs of central govt. purged
Up to 14,000 cadres executed in Yunan
4/6 regional Party First Secretaries + 23/29 provincial Party Secretaries
removed
Only
9/23
Politburo members survived the purge
2/3 of Central Committee deposed
Many sent to undertake labour in countryside -> indoctrination and back-breaking work in May Seventh Cadres Schools
3M
beaurucrats exiled to countryside
Purging of 'capitalist roaders' and foreigners living in China
'Capitalist roader' -. used to criticise anyone of not being ideologically committed to Communism + those who wanted to take 'capitalist road'
Foreigners in China -> particularly from capitalist or 'imperialist' nations -> attacked
British embassy in Beijing stormed by Red Guard -> attacked staff, set building on fire
French + Soviet embassies attacked -> loadspeakers set up to broadcast Maoist slogans
Families of Western embassy staff denied visas to leave China -> broke all rules of international diplomacy -> citizens of 30 countries attacked or abused
Attacks on foreigners
Dutch charge d'affaires -> imprisoned in embassy by a mob for nearly 6 months
Soviet staff who had left embassy to buy tickets for their families to leave China were trapped in cars by a mob for 16 hours
French trade counsellor confronted outside his embassy -> made to stand in freezing cold whilst being denounced
British journalist, Anthony Grey -> put into solitary confinement for 26 months -> Red Guards broke into his house and killed his cat
Winding down the Cultural Revolution
Restoration of order by the PLA
1968 -> clear to Mao that violence out of control
1967 -> Mao declared the purging of capitalist roaders in PLA to be 'un-strategic'
Worried of the threat of foreign attack -> patricularly USSR whose Islamic provinces bordered Xinjiang
Mao sent PLA to restore order -> they were happy to do this -> feared RG would become too powerful and rival their authority
Wave of terror launched, 'Cleansing of Class Ranks' - up to 1.84M people arrested
'Up to the mountains and down to the villages'
Mao
needed to disband the Red Guards -> needed a means to
18M young guards sent to 'cool off' -> sent to work with peasants to understand the importance of manual labour + how important peasants had been to the revolution
In reality -> helped him to restore order
Young people hated it -> poor conditions + peasants disliked sharing their food and working with people less efficient than them
Barefoot doctors -> benefit -> for many, the first paramedics they had seen
The return to power of Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai
Mao's health failing in early 1970s -> needed successor