(Communists were often referred to as “Reds” for their allegiance to the ...read more, The Neolithic Revolution, also called the Agricultural Revolution, marked the transition in human history from small, nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers to larger, agricultural settlements and early civilization. [17]:316 Furthermore, despite Mao's efforts to put on a show of unity at the Congress, the factional divide between Lin Biao's PLA camp and the Jiang Qing–led radical camp was intensifying. The majority of writers and artists were seen as "black line figures" and "reactionary literati", and therefore persecuted, many were subjected to "criticism and denunciation" where they may be publicly humiliated and ravaged, and may also be imprisoned or sent to be reformed through hard labour. The 1975 Banqiao Dam failure, one of the world's greatest technological catastrophes, also occurred during the Cultural Revolution. While the years of schooling were reduced and education standard fell, the proportion of Chinese children who had completed primary education increased from less than half before the Cultural Revolution to almost all after the Cultural Revolution, and those who completed junior middle school rose from 15% to over two-third. [68]: Maoist sociopolitical movement intended to strengthen Chinese communism, This article is about the Chinese sociocultural movement. [17]:331 Moreover, Chen launched an assault on Zhang Chunqiao, a staunch Maoist who embodied the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, over the evaluation of Mao's legacy. [62] In addition, the Banqiao Dam failure, considered by some as the greatest technological catastrophe of the world, occurred in Zhumadian region of Henan province in August 1975, resulting in a death toll of 85,600 to 240,000.[63]. His approach was less than transparent, achieving this purge through newspaper articles, internal meetings, and by skillfully employing his network of political allies. [34]:352–3 Writers, artists and intellectuals who were the recipients and disseminators of the "old culture" would be comprehensively eradicated. By late 1975, however, Mao saw that Deng's economic restructuring might negate the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, and launched a campaign to oppose "rehabilitating the case for the rightists," alluding to Deng as the country's foremost "rightist." "[130] This changed during the Cultural Revolution. •The Five themes of AP World History serve as unifying threads through which you can examine broader themes throughout each period. [14]:2–3 In this sense, the Cultural Revolution was actually a much more decentralized and varied movement that gradually lost cohesion, spawning many 'local revolutions' which differed in their nature and goals. The friction with the Soviet Union intensified after border clashes on the Ussuri River in March 1969 as the Chinese leadership prepared for all-out war. "[17]:46 While the party leadership was relatively united in approving the general direction of Mao's agenda, many Politburo members were not especially enthusiastic, or simply confused about the direction of the movement. [49]:612, On September 9, 1976, Mao Zedong died. Years of resentment over the Cultural Revolution, the public persecution of Deng Xiaoping (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. [122]:164 The university entrance exams were cancelled after 1966, to be replaced later by a system whereby students were recommended by factories, villages and military units, and entrance exams were not restored until 1977 under Deng Xiaoping. Altars were erected to display the fruit prominently; when the mango peel began to rot after a few days, the fruit was peeled and boiled in a pot of water. Most of the victims in the massacres were members of the Five Black Categories as well as their children, or members of the "rebel groups (造反派)". in the form of widespread Catholic unrest and an independent labor movement. The Revolution marked Mao's return to the cent… This short-lived resistance was branded the "February Countercurrent"[17]:195–6—effectively silencing critics of the movement within the party in the years to come. [19]:66 A revolutionary fever swept the country by storm, with Red Guards acting as its most prominent warriors. [17]:59–61, When the dismissal of Peng Zhen and the municipal party leadership became public in early June, widespread confusion ensued. It was an era noted for its initial prosperity and tumultuous final years, and for being only the second time that China was not ruled by the Han people. Students everywhere began to revolt against their respective schools' party establishment. The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a violent sociopolitical purge movement in China from 1966 until 1976. Our hope is placed on you.… The world belongs to you. Cultural Revolution China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a massive campaign launched by Mao Zedong in the mid-1960s to combat the capitalist tendencies that he believed reached into even the highest ranks of the Communist Party; the campaign threw China into chaos. [141] There were many types of posters, the two main genres being the big-character poster (大字报; dazibao) and "commercial" propaganda poster (宣传画; xuanchuanhua). [18], In late 1959, historian and Beijing Deputy Mayor Wu Han published a historical drama entitled Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. Indeed, a personal dislike of Jiang Qing drew many civilian leaders, including prominent theoretician Chen Boda, closer to Lin Biao. A society’s culture may be investigated and compared with other societies’ cultures as a way to reveal both what is unique to a culture and what it shares with other cultures. The permissible subject matter of proletarian and socialist literature would be strictly defined, and all the literary periodicals in the country ceased publication by 1968. [42][44], 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. historically novel cultural blends. In the 1960s, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong came to feel that the current party leadership in China, as Nie attacked the university's party administration and its leader Lu Ping. [49]:612 Many of those arrested were later sentenced to prison work camps. [34]:73, Although being undertaken by some of the Revolution's enthusiastic followers, the destruction of historical relics was never formally sanctioned by the Communist Party, whose official policy was instead to protect such items. The Cultural Revolution (in full, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) took place from 1966 to 1976 in China. Hu published an article in the Guangming Daily, making clever use of Mao's quotations while lauding Deng's ideas. [17]:7, In 1963, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement, which is regarded as the precursor of the Cultural Revolution. Instead of dying, he developed paraplegia. 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 stage a comeback. Red August and the Sixteen Points (August 1966), Political purges and "Down to the Countryside" (1968), Down to the Countryside Movement (December 1968), "Mango fever" and Mao's cult of personality (August 1968), Restoration of Presidency (State Chairman), Antagonism towards Zhou and Deng (1972–73), Deng's rehabilitation and economic reconstruction (1975), Death of Mao and Arrest of the Gang of Four (Sept. 1976), Deng Xiaoping invalidated the Cultural Revolution, Violent Struggles, Struggle sessions, and purges, Yu, Dan Smyer. Some farmers were given informal medical training, and health-care centers were established in rural communities. (Against the back drop of a stagnant … Deng emphatically opposed Party factionalism, and his policies aimed to promote unity as the first step to restoring economic productivity. SCIENCE AS CULTURAL REVOLUTION • Scientific Revolution was revolutionary because it fundamentally challenged this understanding of the universe. Many were sent to the countryside to work in reeducation camps. However, the radical policies also provided many in rural communities with middle school education for the first time, which is thought to have facilitated the rural economic development in the 70s and 80s. Sensing that the largely obstructive party elite was unwilling to embrace his revolutionary ideology on a full scale, Mao went on the offensive. [43] One dentist in a small town, Dr. Han, saw the mango and said it was nothing special and looked just like sweet potato; he was put on trial for malicious slander, found guilty, paraded publicly throughout the town, and then executed with one shot to the head. Ferdinand, Peter. [20]:59–61 Many died through their ill-treatment or committed suicide. Relations between the two governments soured. [166]:155–66, Nevertheless, the debate continues because the movement contains many contradictions: led by an all-powerful omnipresent leader, it was mainly driven by a series of grassroots popular uprisings against the Communist establishment. In this spirit, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, established People's Communes in the countryside, and began the mass mobilization of the people into collectives. Several foreign guests were "mandated" to stand in front of the statue of Mao Zedong, holding the Little Red Book and "reporting" to Mao as other Chinese citizens did. [128], Political slogans of the time had three sources: Mao, official Party media such as People's Daily, and the Red Guards. Even a casual remark by Mao, "Sweet potato tastes good; I like it" became a slogan everywhere in the countryside. In 1972, however, Mao suffered a stroke; in the same year, Zhou learned he had cancer. 194–204 in. FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY Near the ...read more, Kublai Khan was the grandson of Genghis Khan and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in 13th-century China. Title. Zhou attempted to restore a viable economy but was resented by the Gang of Four, who identified him as their primary political threat in post-Mao era succession. [17]:24, Having ousted Luo and Yang, Mao returned his attention to Peng Zhen. [35] For example, in Beijing, three separate revolutionary groups declared power seizures on the same day, while in Heilongjiang, the local party secretary Pan Fusheng managed to "seize power" from the party organization under his own leadership. "[125]:36, However, the impact of the Cultural Revolution on accessible education varied among regions, and formal measurements of literacy did not resume until the 1980s. Deng was formally stripped of all positions "inside and outside the Party" on April 7. Along with Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, Mao is considered one of the most significant communist figures of the ...read more, The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, which intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In Shanghai, a young factory worker named Wang Hongwen organized a far-reaching revolutionary coalition, one that galvanized and displaced existing Red Guard groups. AP World History Class Notes Ch 31 The Industrial Revolution December 29, 2011 The previous chapter describes the dramatic political changes that followed the American and French Revolutions. In the 1960s, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong came to feel that the current party leadership in China, as in the Soviet Union, was moving too far in a revisionist direction, with an emphasis on expertise rather than on ideological purity. The leaders of China at the time denied that there were any illiteracy problems from the start. Red Guards destroyed historical relics and artifacts, as well as ransacking cultural and religious sites. [17]:14–9, In December, Defence Minister and Mao loyalist Lin Biao accused General Luo Ruiqing, the chief of staff of the PLA, of being anti-Mao, alleging that Luo put too much emphasis on military training rather than Maoist "political discussion." They were produced in large number and widely disseminated, and were used by the government and Red Guards to educate the public the ideological value as defined by the party state. 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 the CCP Politburo was that Mao should assume the office with Lin becoming Vice-Chairman; but for unknown reasons, Mao had voiced his explicit opposition to the recreation of the position and his assuming it. Mass organisations in China coalesced into two hostile factions, the radicals who backed Mao's purge of the Communist party, and the conservatives who backed the moderate party establishment. Mao then responded to the letters by writing his own big-character poster entitled Bombard the Headquarters, rallying people to target the "command centre (i.e., Headquarters) of counterrevolution." Temples, churches, mosques, monasteries, and cemeteries were closed down and sometimes converted to other uses, looted, and destroyed. [citation needed]. Mao directed Deng to write self-criticisms in November 1975, a move lauded by the Gang of Four. They were vital to Mao's struggle in the Cultural Revolution, and Mao himself wrote his own dazibao at Beijing University on August 5, 1966, calling on the people to "Bombard the Headquarters. In response, Lin Biao issued a directive for the army to aid the radicals. Mao envisioned himself as a wartime guerrilla leader, which made him wary of the bureaucratic nature of peacetime governance. In 1969, Mao suggested the end of the Cultural Revolution. [2005] (2005). [127], According to Shaorong Huang, the fact that the Cultural Revolution had such massive effects on Chinese society is the result of extensive use of political slogans. The revolutionary committee also made a wax replica of the mango and displayed this as a centrepiece in the factory. [39][40] On August 7, an article was published in the People's Daily saying: In the afternoon of the fifth, when the great happy news of Chairman Mao giving mangoes to the Capital Worker and Peasant Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team reached the Tsinghua University campus, people immediately gathered around the gift given by the Great Leader Chairman Mao. Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, paint the movement as neither a bona fide war over ideological purity nor a mere power struggle to remove Mao's political rivals. Through AP courses in 38 subjects, each culminating in a … "China." The Little Red Book (Mao's Quotations) was the mechanism that led the Red Guards to commit to their objective as the future for China. [134]:219–20, The effect is similar in the film industry. Mao’s own position in government had weakened after the failure of his “Great Leap Forward” (1958-60) and the economic crisis that followed. This drew the ire of the Chairman, who saw it as evidence that his authority was prematurely usurped by his declared successor. It also served to spread revolutionary ideology across China geographically.[37]. The return to pluralism, and therefore the end of the worst of the effects of the Cultural Revolution on ethnic minorities in China, coincides closely with Lin Biao's removal from power. [145]:217 Revolution, in social and political science, a major, sudden, and hence typically violent alteration in government and in related associations and structures. Succeeding party founder Sun Yat-sen as KMT leader in 1925, he expelled Chinese communists from the party and led a successful unification of ...read more, Mao Zedong led communist forces in China through a long revolution beginning in 1927 and ruled the nation’s communist government from its establishment in 1949. [17]:14–9 While the "literary battle" against Peng raged, Mao fired Yang Shangkun—director of the Party's General Office, an organ that controlled internal communications—on a series of unsubstantiated charges, installing in his stead staunch loyalist Wang Dongxing, head of Mao's security detail. ", "At China's New Museum, History Toes Party Line", Fengqiao – a Maoist Revival to Attack Religion, Li Peng, the 'Butcher of Tiananmen,' was 'Ready to Die' to Stop the Student Turmoil, The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang, Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution, Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese propaganda posters gallery (Cultural Revolution, Mao, and others), Hua Guofeng's speech to the 11th Party Congress, 1977, Morning Sun – A Film and Website about Cultural Revolution, Memorial for Victims of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, "William Hinton on the Cultural Revolution", Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia, International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations, Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, Counterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal-of-Verdicts Trend, Central Organization and Propaganda Leading Group, List of campaigns of the Communist Party of China, Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire, Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent, Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent, Persecution of Muslims during Ottoman contraction, Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc, Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries, Attacks by Islamic extremists in Bangladesh, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cultural_Revolution&oldid=1021165272, Campaigns of the Communist Party of China, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from March 2021, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, Articles containing Chinese-language text, Articles containing simplified Chinese-language text, Articles containing traditional Chinese-language text, Articles with failed verification from January 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2018, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from May 2019, Pages using Sister project links with default search, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. New York: Cambria Press. On January 15 Deng Xiaoping delivered Zhou's official eulogy in a funeral attended by all of China's most senior leaders with the notable absence of Mao himself, who had grown increasingly critical of Zhou. society to a “big picture” of history. With the Cultural Revolution Mao was simply "returning to form", once again taking on the role of a guerrilla leader fighting against an institutionalized party bureaucracy. A personality cult quickly sprang up around Mao, similar to that which existed for Josef Stalin, with different factions of the movement claiming the true interpretation of Maoist thought. Definition. Currently, our objective is to struggle against and crush those people 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 that do not correspond to the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system. Mao launched the so-called Cultural Revolution (known in full as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) in August 1966, at a meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee. In the spring of 1968, a massive campaign that aimed at enhancing Mao's reputation began. [149], Among the over 40 countries which had established diplomatic or half-diplomatic relations with China at the time, around 30 countries went into diplomatic disputes with China—some countries even terminated their diplomatic relations with China, including Central Africa, Ghana and Indonesia. According to Shen, the trigger for the famous Tiananmen hunger-strikes of 1989 was a big-character poster (dazibao), a form of public political discussion that gained prominence during the Cultural Revolution. [64][66], In Inner Mongolia incident, official sources in 1980 stated that 346,000 people were wrongly arrested, over 16,000 were persecuted to death or executed, and over 81,000 were permanently disabled. [20]:61–4 In a few years, countless ancient buildings, artifacts, antiques, books, and paintings were destroyed by Red Guards. The Neolithic Revolution was the gradual process in which agriculture, and consequently civilization, developed around the world. It was felt that pushing minority groups too hard would compromise China's border defences. [17]:2–3 While Mao's personal motivations were undoubtedly pivotal to the Cultural Revolution, they reasoned that other complex factors contributed to the way events unfolded. [17]:62–4 Even the top Party leadership was caught off guard by the sudden anti-establishment wave of protest and struggled with what to do next. He was the first Mongol to rule over China when he conquered the Song Dynasty of southern China in 1279. [83][90] Weapons used in armed conflicts included some 18.77 million guns (some claim 1.877 million), 2.72 million grenades, 14,828 cannons, millions of other ammunitions and even armored cars as well as tanks. The Cultural Revolution was launched in China in 1966 by Communist leader Mao Zedong in order to reassert his authority over the Chinese government. The Cultural Revolution was meant to totally destroy all the aspects of Chinese culture that didn't align with communism. [14]:2–3, Academic interest has also focused on the movement's relationship with Mao's personality. [citation needed], At the time, Jiang Qing and associates held effective control of mass media and the party's propaganda network, while Zhou and Deng held control of most government organs. [83][93][94] However, academics have estimated a death toll between 20,000 and 100,000. [48]:213, Official attempts to enforce the mourning restrictions included removing public memorials and tearing down posters commemorating Zhou's achievements. [17]:321 During his meeting with U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1972, Mao hinted that Lin had opposed seeking better relations with the U.S.[17]:322, After Lin was confirmed as Mao's successor, his supporters focused on the restoration of the position of State Chairman (President),[46] which had been abolished by Mao after the purge of Liu Shaoqi. In the late 1960s, China experienced a period of strained relations with some of its neighbours, notably with the Soviet Union and India. When his death was announced on the afternoon of September 9, in a press release entitled "A Notice from the Central Committee, the NPC, State Council, and the CMC to the whole Party, the whole Army and to the people of all nationalities throughout the country,"[51] the nation descended into grief and mourning, with people weeping in the streets and public institutions closing for over a week. [131] It led to the persecution and death of its writer Wu Han, as well as others involved in theater, such as Tian Han, Sun Weishi, and Zhou Xinfang. It also separated Mao's personal mistakes from the correctness of the theory that he created, going as far as to rationalize that the Cultural Revolution contravened the spirit of Mao Zedong Thought, which remains an official guiding ideology of the Party. Zhou said that the artworks were for meant for foreigners, therefore were "outer" art not be under the obligations and restrictions placed on "inner" art meant for Chinese citizens. At the rally, Party leaders told the masses assembled to 'not be afraid' and bravely take charge of the movement themselves, free of Party interference. As the PLA commanders had developed close working relations with the party establishment, many military units worked instead to repress Mao's radicals. Yao's article was initially only published in select local newspapers. In Yunnan Province, the palace of the Dai people's king was torched, and a massacre of Muslim Hui people at the hands of the PLA in Yunnan, known as the Shadian incident, reportedly claimed over 1,600 lives in 1975. Religious persecution intensified during this period, as a result of religion being viewed in opposition to Marxist–Leninist and Maoist thinking. While the Lushan Conference served as a death knell for Peng, Mao's most vocal critic, it led to a shift of power to moderates led by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, who took effective control of the economy following 1959. With army backing and the support of Marshal Ye Jianying, on October 6, the Special Unit 8341 had all members of the Gang of Four arrested in a bloodless coup. [17]:20–7, Lu's removal gave Maoists unrestricted access to the press. [13], By the early 1960s, many of the Great Leap's economic policies were reversed by initiatives spearheaded by Liu, Deng, and Premier Zhou Enlai.