The Cultural Revolution, also known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a period of political and social upheaval in the People’s Republic of China that began in 1966 and lasted until 1976. It was initiated by Mao Zedong, chairman of the Communist Party of China, and was marked by widespread purges of perceived enemies of the state, campaigns of mass mobilization, and a wholesale rejection of the ideological tenets of the party’s previous decade-long rule.
The Cultural Revolution had a profound impact on almost all aspects of life in China. The economy was thrown into chaos, the educational system was disrupted and millions of people were persecuted for their political views or for simply being members of certain social groups. Millions of Chinese fled to other countries, most notably Hong Kong and Macau, in search of safer living conditions. The Cultural Revolution also had a strong ideological component, which sought to promote the cult of Mao Zedong and the establishment of his vision of a proletarian socialist society.
To understand the Cultural Revolution, it is necessary to look back to the 1950s and the early years of the People’s Republic of China. Throughout the 1950s, Mao Zedong led the country through a series of socialist campaigns, which included the collectivization of agriculture, land redistribution and urban industrialization. These reforms were met with some levels of success, but ultimately Mao felt that they had not gone far enough in transforming China into a truly socialist society.
In order to further his vision, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward campaign in 1958. This tried to modernize China’s economy by pushing for the rapid industrialization of the countryside, as well as encouraging small-scale production of iron and steel. Unfortunately, the campaign was an unmitigated disaster, leading to rural famine and millions of casualties.
In response to these failures, Mao called for a “Cultural Revolution” in May 1966. Through this, he sought to rid the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of what he saw as bourgeois thought, traditional Chinese culture, and factionalism. During the next decade, young people, in particular, were encouraged to purge the country of all “counter-revolutionary” elements, sometimes taking violent methods to achieve this.
In addition to the internal purging of dissidents, the Cultural Revolution also saw a sharp decline in domestic economic activity, causing economic hardship and a reliance on foreign aid. In 1971, following the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Mao reversed some of his earlier policies and made an effort to open up diplomatic relations with the West, most notably the United States. This culminated in the 1972 meeting between Mao and US President Richard Nixon.
By 1976, Mao had died and the power struggle between his allies and his opponents within the party had been won by his adversaries. The end of the Cultural Revolution was announced by the new leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, who shifted the ideology of the party away from Maoism and implemented a program of economic reform. The Cultural Revolution, however, had left a lasting impression on China and its citizens, and the reverberations of this period can still be felt today.