Cultural Revolution

Question 1

What were the causes of the cultural revolution?

Answer 1

• after the famine caused by the second leap forward Mao withdrew from government
• liu and Deng allowed some private farming and began to reverse collectivisation in the local area which began to increase growth
• maoists feared that they were losing Maoism and the party began to split between the different ideologies
• Khrushchev criticised stalins cult of personality which Mao took as a criticism of himself
• Mao wanted a permanent revolution where capitalist elements are constantly searched for and eliminated and wanted the youth to have a formative experience
• lin, the propaganda minister began to turn Mao into a cult and his remoteness from public life helped
  -PLA were strongly influenced by his little red book
• some delegates including line here sent to investigate any reactionary elements that had caused the failure of the Great Leap Forward. Lin had concluded that the corruption and collusion between local party bosses and the officials sent to implement them had caused the failure.
• may summoned liu to a meeting where he berated him for undermining the CCP and ignoring peasant capitalists who he accused of causing the famine. Maoists became more aggressive to the reformists
• wu wrote the dismissal of hai Rui from office which was set in a previous dynasty. Maoists took this to represent peng and Mao. Wu was criminally charged and he killed himself.
• Gang of Four began to criticise the modernisation of the party. Kiang said that liu and Deng should be dismissed and anyone that opposes Mao should be cleansed from the culture
• Maoists filled the key party committees Liu and Deng outmanouvered and undermined

Question 2

What happened in the cultural revolution?

Answer 2

• may 1966 Mao announced that the central cultural revolution group would purge anyone who was rightist in the party. Kang sheng was organising this and he obliterated the upper ranks of the party
• 90% OF THE CCP WERE PURGED OVER THE NEXT 10 YEARS. SENT TO LAOGHIS AND MAY CADRE SCHOOLS FOR REDUCATION WHERE THEY HAD TO SELF DENUNICATE IN ORDER TO SURVIVE, 25 MILLION DIED. LIU AND DENF SNETENDED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT. LIU DIED. DENGS SON PUSHED OUT OF WINDOW
• Mao swam in yangzi river to show return to power. Called a meeting of ccps central committtee where he condemned the revisionists, demoted Liu and promoted Lin.
• august rally 1966. Organised by Liu and Chen. Mao stirred the youngsters: red guards. “Mao zedong is the rising sun in the east”
• waved little red books which were presented in marriage
• Mao presented students with a banner saying bombard the headquarters of officials who were less Maoist. Lin said attack old culture, ideas and customs,
• Lin organised university wall poster campaign promoting permanent revolution, red guards attacked teachers and anyone else on the streets they felt was counter revolutionary
• chaos more virtuous than peace in order to create a permanent revolution
• Mao leant of a girl who’s name was gentle, said she should have been called militant
• red guards didn’t go school roamed around and attacked the four olds. Education useless if it didn’t help the revolution. ONLY 2% WENT TO UNI AND ONLU 1/3 GOT A PRIMARY EDUCATION
• to destroy the four olds, smashed temples, destroyed art, books, paintings and the forbidden palace only just survived as it was protected by the PLC- they could have stepped in but never did.
• THE RED GUARDS SEIZED PUBLIC TRANSPORT, CONTRIBUTING TI A 13% DECLINE IN INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT
• took over to and radio
• victims had to keep confessing to their crimes until it was good enough
• clubbed many people to death records of them clubbing over 500k CCP officials to death
• censorship and western culture was banned,traditional Chinese opera replaced with show of communist themes. CULTURAL DESTRUCTION: tried to get rid of plays and films. This was led by mao’s wife jiang
• no public worship allowed
• red guards sent to mountains or villages where they became barefoot doctors. 250k red guards arrested, 50k killed. Mao said the excesses must be checked and therefore the arrests and killings stopped because of fears of maos criticism
• laoghis held 10 million people at a time
• Mao was worried that Lin was getting too powerful. Lin knew he was a marked man. Lin reluctantly became involved in a plan to assassinate Mao in 1976. Mao found out. Lim tried to escape to ussr but his place crashed in Outer Mongolia. Rumours it was Mao, but no evidence he had shot it down.

Question 3

What happened in the end of the cultural revolution?

Answer 3

• Tiananmen Square incident 1976. Zhou, a moderate, died. Official order was that there should be no public displays of mourning. But there was a large demonstration for him, showing that people liked his policies.
• eventually this became a riot and people were criticising the governments corruption.
• Politboru said this was the work or rightist agitators and blamed Deng who had just come out of prison. Deng was dismissed as party secretary. Mao was in a coma. People were scared of how Mao would react
• sept 1976 Mao died. Gang of Four wanted to carry on the cultural revolution. They had assumed they would take power and continue ruling in Maoist way. However Mao had named hua guofeng as his successor. Had a good relationship with army generals so he hoped he could keep power.
• military disliked the Gang of Four. Hua invited them to a rearranged politburo meeting on 6 oct 1976 anf gave them seperate arrival times. They were all arrested on arrival except for jiang who was arrested in her house
• they were put on trial and they were accused of betraying Mao in the cultural revolution and collectively responsible for the deaths of 35k people and persecuting 750k
• positive: allowed CCP to secure communism so later CCP could be more moderate without losing their communist ideals