cultural revolution Chinese was a political-ideological campaign carried out by Mao Tse-Tung, leader of the Chinese Communist Party (PCCh), from 1966. This campaign was aimed at opponents of Mao and carried out for 10 years, spreading violence and resulting in the death of millions of people, according to a survey by historians.
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Historical context
The Cultural Revolution was initiated in China in 1966, and the context in which the country found itself was marked by internal disputes within the CCP. To understand these disputes, we need to go back to the 1950s and understand one of Mao's best-known measures: the Great Leap Forward.
Mao Tse-Tung was the leader of the Chinese Revolution, founded the China Popular Republic and was in the presidency of the country until 1959. Mao tried to carry out a series of transformations in the territory, such as: agrarian reform, purges of the bourgeois and capitalists, in addition to the modernization of the Chinese economy. Based on the desire to China's modernization is that the Great Leap Forward was born.
This economic plan defended the need to promote the industrialization from the country. To achieve this, Mao created communes and shifted to these millions of workers, with the intention that they would work producing all the steel necessary to make the country's industrialization viable.
The Great Leap turned out to be a big failure because it deregulated the production of the country's economy. The millions of workers who have been displaced from agriculture for metallurgy caused the country's agricultural production to decrease drastically. This resulted in lack of food and consequently generated hunger.
With this, historians say that at least 20 million people died of hunger in China. The failure of this plan made Mao lost popularity and it brought him criticism, especially within the CCP. In addition, this fiasco caused a more moderate wing of the party to gain strength. This wing was represented by two names: Liu Chao-Chi and DengXiaoping.
Why did Mao launch the Cultural Revolution?
The factor that explains Mao Tse-Tung's launch of the Cultural Revolution was the ambition to regain power, both within the party and at home (Mao, in the 1960s, was no longer Chinese president). the desire to centralize power in himself it made him launch this persecution on his opponents.
Mao's justification for launching the revolution was to accuse his opponents of being bourgeois and capitalists who were taking China off the path it had been taking since the Chinese Revolution of 1949. Mao wanted, therefore, remove moderates from positions of power and rule China according to his wishes.
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What happened during the Cultural Revolution?
Mao Tse-Tung formulated the Cultural Revolution in partnership with his wife, an actress who called herself JiangQing. Together with her, he formulated the principles of this campaign and officially inaugurated it with the publication of the Circular May 16th, released in 1966. The central idea of the revolution (pursuing dissenters) was already Mao's routine practice.
A clear example was the Anti-Rightist Campaign, released in 1957. This was a reaction to the Blooming One Hundred Flowers, a movement launched by the CCP to encourage freedom of expression in China. As the criticisms born out of this were too harsh, Mao ordered the crackdown on those who dissented from the regime through the aforementioned campaign.
With the launch of the Cultural Revolution, Mao made public all the dispute that existed within the party and summoned the masses to join him against those who “destroy” the revolution. This call mobilized a huge number of people, mainly students who believed they were acting in the defense of China.
Another prominent group in the 10 years of the Cultural Revolution was the gang of four, the most radicalized group that played a leading role in the persecution of opponents of the Chinese leader. Next to this was Mao's wife, as we mentioned, one of the creators of the Cultural Revolution.
The masses who joined the call were part of the Red Guard, popular militia that acted in the spread of Maoism and in the persecution of those who thought different from the leader of the PCCh. The Red Guards contributed to spreading violence in China as those accused by its members they were tried in sessions characterized by public humiliation and violence.
Many of the country's traitorous considerers were sent to "re-education camps", that is, forced labor camps, where they were forced to perform physical work and undergo ideological re-education. The members of the Red Guard were instructed to report everyone, including your parents, and implanted the cult of the leader in China.
The great targets in the Cultural Revolution were the intellectuals and the artists, especially the teachers. People who defended the capitalism, did not agree with the Maoism, practice habits considered Western, etc. they were targets of the Red Guards. O fear it was the great mark of 10 years of this revolution.
Traditional Chinese culture based on ancient precepts, such as the Confucianism, was attacked, and temples and religious texts were destroyed, as well as several historical artifacts. The persecution of teachers was such that, during that decade, the higher education system Chinese practically did not exist.
In 1969, when Mao had already achieved his goals and realized that the spiral of violence was getting out of his control, the Cultural Revolution was ended, and the Red Guard, dissolved. The habits of the Cultural Revolution, such as persecution and censorship, however, only ended when Mao died in 1976.
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Consequences
The consequences of the Cultural Revolution were serious for China. Let's look at some:
Historians put between one and two million dead;
The country's economy was disorganized because of the chaos that spread;
The country was practically without Higher Education;
Destruction of historical artifacts;
Pursuit of art and culture.
The subject remains a taboo in China today, and the study of events from that period is not encouraged by the government. The vision of the Cultural Revolution, however, is negative, and the Chinese understand the 10 years it has spanned as “lost decade”.
Image credits
[1] imranahmedsg and Shutterstock
