The Cultural Revolution - Attacks on Mao’s Political and Class Enemies

Question 1

Who were the cultural revolution’s main targets?

Answer 1

• start of cultural revolution identities of Mao’s targets unclear
• as cultural revolution continued it became obvious Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were main targets
• both advocated reliance on intellectuals and experts and a belief in practical solution

Question 2

What happened to Liu Shaoqi during the cultural revolution?

Answer 2

• his pragmatic policies helped rebuild China after failure of the GLF
• subjected to struggle meetings where he was abused and beaten
• his wife forced to wear western clothing as evidence of her capitalist sympathy in front of 300,000 red guards
• his children sent to work as peasants in the countryside
• at the ninth party congress, denounced as a traitor
• died Nov 1969

Question 3

What happened to Deng Xiaoping during the cultural revolution?

Answer 3

• helped Liu introduce economic reforms without Mao’s advice
• Mao complained Deng never consulted him on anything and accused him of ‘taking the capitalist road’
• sent to work in a tractor factory
• his son jumped out of a window to escape torture and was paralysed from the waist down

Question 4

How did Lin Bao rise to favour?

Answer 4

• whilst Mao had lost faith in Liu and Deng others like Lin Bao saw this as a chance to benefit
• Lin published the little red book, distributed to millions of soldiers
• red book compulsory for soldiers, assured loyalty of the army to Mao

Question 5

What happened to party membership during the cultural revolution?

Answer 5

• only 9/23 politburo members survived
• 2/3 central committee disposed
• many sent to May seventh cadre schools
• in total 3 million bureaucrats and cadres exiled to the countryside
• estimated 1/2 million Chinese killed
• everyone apart from Mao was vulnerable

Question 6

What happened to foreign representatives during the cultural revolution?

Answer 6

• Red guards attacked 3 embassy’s in Beijing
• Crowds trapped ambassadors in their cars for hours
• staff at the British embassy were beaten and British embassy set on fire