2013 Cultural Revolution Powerpoint

1. 2013 Cultural Revolution Powerpoint

2. Events Prior To Cultural Revolution

3. A brief overview 1962-73 • End of GLF – loss of power to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping • Plan to make Mao figurehead • Mao initiated Socialist Education Campaign • This grew into Cultural Revolution (1966), aim to totally revise Chinese culture, key role of the Red Guards and youths

4. Background Information • In the early 1960s, Mao was on the political sidelines and in semi-seclusion. • By 1962 he began an offensive to purify the party, having grown increasingly uneasy about what he believed were the creeping "capitalist" and antisocialist tendencies in the country. • Mao continued to believe that the material incentives that had been restored to the peasants and others were corrupting the masses and were counterrevolutionary.

5. Background Information • To arrest the so-called capitalist trend, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement (1962-65) • Primary emphasis was on restoring ideological purity, reinfusing revolutionary fervor into the party and government bureaucracies, and intensifying class struggle. • There were internal disagreements, not on the aim of the movement but on the methods of carrying it out. • Opposition came mainly from the moderates represented by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.

6. Socialist Education Campaign

7. Socialist Education Campaign • 3 interrelated campaigns: • Educational campaign • Rectification campaign • Purification movement – PLA • Mao: open investigation • Liu: covert infiltration • Mao: mass education movement • Liu: party-controlled rectification operation

8. Socialist Education Movement • The Socialist Education Movement was soon paired with another Mao campaign, the theme of which was "to learn from the People's Liberation Army." • Minister of National Defense Lin Biao's rise to the center of power was increasingly conspicuous. • It was accompanied by his call on the PLA and the CCP to accentuate Maoist thought as the guiding principle for the Socialist Education Movement and for all revolutionary undertakings in China.

9. Socialist Education Movement • A thorough reform of the school system, which had been planned earlier to coincide with the Great Leap Forward, went into effect. • The reform was intended as a work-study program--a new xiafang movement--in which schooling was slated to accommodate the work schedule of communes and factories. • It had the dual purpose of providing mass education less expensively than previously and of re-educating intellectuals and scholars to accept the need for their own participation in manual labor.

10. Socialist Education Movement • The drafting of intellectuals for manual labor was publicized through the mass media as an effort to remove "bourgeois" influences from professional workers--particularly, their tendency to have greater regard for their own specialized fields than for the goals of the party. • Official propaganda accused them of being more concerned with having "expertise" than being "red" .

11. Mao’s Plans For China and Need for Cultural Revolution • The revolution was to destroy the four olds: old ideology, old thoughts, old habits and old customs • Those who opposed Mao were publicly punished • Farm production fell, factory work stopped and schools closed • As a result there was no economy, many people had left and there was no education • It was an enormous failure and Mao ended it in 1969

12. Toward a Cultural Revolution • Only PLA campaign successful • Lin Biao Minister Defence – key role • "Chairman Mao is a genius, everything the Chairman says is truly great; one of the Chairman's words will override the meaning of ten thousand of ours.” • “Little Red Book”

13. The Chinese People's Liberation Army is the Great School of Mao Zedong Thought

14. Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) • Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution • commitment to revolution and “class struggle” • power struggle to succeed Mao • Phase I: the rise and fall of “Red Guards” • Phase II: the rise and fall of Lin Biao • Phase III: the rise and fall of the “Gang of Four”

15. Reasons/Causes for the Cultural Revolution

16. Why a need for Cultural Revolution? • Failure of Great Leap – masses capitalist • 1962 Mao tries to implement the Socialist Education Movement – re-educate masses • Liu and Deng against, ‘unrealistic’ while countryside still struggling • 1963, Mao appeals directly to people • Party cadres openly criticise themselves, but masses able to criticise them too

17. Reasons Mao Wanted Cultural Revolution • Mao felt that he could no longer depend on the formal party organization, convinced that it had been permeated with the "capitalist" and bourgeois obstructionists. • He turned to Lin Biao and the PLA to counteract the influence of those who were allegedly "`left' in form but `right' in essence." • The PLA was widely extolled as a "great school" for the training of a new generation of revolutionary fighters and leaders.

18. Reasons for the Cultural Revolution? • Remove opposition • Remold China so deeply that it could never change back in order to ensure the survival of revolutionary spirit • Obliterate the failure of the GLF • Undermine intellectuals and bureaucrats and restore the peasant nature of China’s revolution • Differentiate China from the USSR, which was too “revisionist” • Test the young party members who had no experience

19. Purpose of the Cultural Revolution • Fundamental change in the way the Chinese people viewed the world • Aim to totally replace older feudal attitudes and to replace with socialist attitudes • Mao’s bid for power? • Lin Biao and Jiang Qing’s ambitions? • Wu Han’s play – key (Hai Rui = Peng Dehuai, Emperor = Mao)

20. Cultural Revolution(1966-68) The purpose of this movement was to: Restore Mao’s power and control Get rid of Soviet style communism Renew the spirit of revolution in China Destroy the rise of differentiation between the proletariat and bourgeois (he believed a hierarchy was increasing in development)

21. Factions During the Cultural Revolution • Maoist Faction • Closely associated with Mao • Believed in continual revolution, mass campaigns • Believed in virtues of “red over expert” • Members included Mao, Jiang Qing (wife) Ken Shang • Party Bureaucrats • Leaders of the party apparatus in Secretariat • Believe in pragmatic economic development using incentives to increae production • Respected Mao but disliked his romantic views of change • Great Leap policies were misplaced and damaging • Members included Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping

22. Government Faction • Composed of governmental officials in administration • Ideologically closer to party bureaucrats but members has close personal relations with Mao • Knew their skills would be necessary to administer China • High managerial ability • Zhou Enlai identified with this faction • Military Faction • Internally divided between followers of Lin Biao who supported Mao and Lo Juijin who favored a strong, conventional PLA • People’s militay vs. regular military • Improvement in relations with Russia favored by PLA

23. Views on Cultural Revolution • Considerable intraparty opposition to the Cultural Revolution was evident. • On the one side was the Mao-Lin Biao group, supported by the PLA; on the other side was a faction led by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, which had its strength in the regular party machine. • Premier Zhou Enlai, while remaining personally loyal to Mao, tried to mediate or to reconcile the two factions.

24. What was the Cultural Revolution?

25. Communist China Under Mao • Designed to renew revolutionary spirit and establish a more equitable society • Mao wanted to put “intellectuals” in their place • Schools shut down – students revolted • Red Guards – students who attacked professors, government officials, factory managers

26. The Cultural Revolution • New Movement • Mid-1960s, Mao tried to regain power, prestige lost after Great Leap Forward • Initiated new movement called Cultural Revolution, sought to ride China of old ways, create society where peasants, physical labor were the ideal • Red Guards • Campaign meant eliminating intellectuals who Mao feared wanted to end communism, bring back China’s old ways • Mao shut down schools, encouraged militant students, Red Guards, to carry out work of Cultural Revolution by criticizing intellectuals, values • Destruction of Society • Mao lost control; Red guards murdered hundreds of thousands of people; by late 1960s, China on verge of civil war before Mao regained control • Cultural Revolution reestablished Mao’s dominance, caused terrible destruction; civil authority collapsed, economic activity fell off sharply

27. Cultural Revolution (1966-1969) • “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” • Effort to revive interest in Mao’s ideas (and for Mao to regain power) after the failed Great Leap Forward • Mao claimed that reactionary bourgeoisie elements were taking over the party • Call for youths to engage in post-revolutionary class warfare • Red Guards (consisting of young people) marched throughout China • Older alleged reactionaries removed from positions of power

28. What Was The Cultural Revolution (1966-68) • Red Guards (groups of youths who banded themselves together) were encouraged to criticize those who Mao deemed untrustworthy with regards to the direction he wanted China to take. No-one was safe from criticism • Schools were seen as being elitist, so they were closed. Students were encouraged to work beside peasants in the countryside to enhance their understanding of the revolution • Everyone had a file on them, many were tortured or killed (500,000), humiliated in public, committed suicide, or sent to labor camps

29. What was the Cultural Revolution? • The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (无产阶级文化大革命), was started in 1966. • It was set up to secure Maoism and eliminate Political Opponents. • It officially ended in 1969, when Mao himself admitted that the revolution had ended. • Over this period of three years, many died and millions more imprisoned. The leaders of the Cultural Revolution remained in power, even after the end of the Revolution. • The period is widely considered to have been a period of economic stagnation.

30. What was the Cultural Revolution • The Cultural Revolution took place from 1966 to 1976. • Mao Zedong was the leader of the Cultural Revolution. • He wanted to establish a more effective bureaucracy. • Mao organized a group of young people, and their goals were to spread the idea of socialism around China. • The Cultural Revolution, instead of creating a better China, left great negative impacts on the people and the economy of China, and also affected foreign countries as well.

31. What was the Cultural Revolution? • The Cultural Revolution could also be described as the time when young Chinese citizens, called Red Guards, fought against the democratic society. • Much respect and many rewards were given to the Red Guards; therefore Mao was able to gather many student volunteers. • The Cultural Revolution was based on the belief that school should be simpler, and the more books a person read, the more unintelligent they become. • Mao wanted to brainwash Chinese society - especially young people - and create Chinese citizens who would grow up to become uneducated and mindless.

32. Goals: Destroying the Four Olds

33. Cultural Revolution Swept Away 4 OLDS Old customs Old culture Old habits Old ideas

34. The “four olds” • One of the ways to approach this is to rid every one of their valuable possessions. • Mao’s red guards would raid • houses looking • for “four olds”. *A four old is an item or behavior that shows old custom, old culture, old habit, or old ideas. *Remember that while Mao was draining the people in China of their wealth and power, Mao was a very wealthy man himself.

35. Destroying The 4 Olds… Eroded family structure Families divided to work in countryside Attempted to wipe out Confucian thought Silenced intellectuals Elena Songster & Jessica Stowell, OU

36. The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) Against the Four Olds • Red Guards: school students, mostly teenagers • Sacking, looting, beating and killing • Destroyed public and personal properties, and anything regarded as representing the Four Olds • landlords, reactionaries, counterrevolutionaries, rightists, bad elements, traitors, spies, capitalist-roaders, all of them “ox ghosts and snake spirits”

37. Destroy the Four Olds Elena Songster & Jessica Stowell, OU

38. Key aspects of the Cultural Revolution • Personality Cult (strongest 1968) • Amongst the young in particular • Cult built around Mao • Deep sense of gratitude to Mao

39. The Militant Phase, 1966-68 • By mid-1965 Mao had gradually but systematically regained control of the party with the support of Lin Biao, Jiang Qing (Mao's fourth wife), and Chen Boda. • In late 1965 a leading member of Mao's "Shanghai Mafia," Yao Wenyuan, wrote a thinly veiled attack on the deputy mayor of Beijing, Wu Han. • In the next six months Mao and his supporters purged or attacked a wide variety of public figures, including State Chairman Liu Shaoqi and other party and state leaders. • By mid-1966 Mao's campaign had erupted into what came to be known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the first mass action to have emerged against the CCP apparatus itself.

40. The PLA reading Mao’s Little Red Book Elena Songster & Jessica Stowell, OU

41. Red Guards

42. Phase I: Red Guards (1966-69)

43. 8 August 1966 • 16 point decision • Red Guards destroy the “four olds”: • Thought • Culture • Customs • Habits

44. Phase I: Red Guards (1966-69) • Purge of party cadres • Deng Xiaoping • Purge of intellectuals

45. The Red Guards • Galvanized by the August 1966 Rally, the Red Guards became the primary instruments of the Cultural Revolution • “We have to depend on them to start a rebellion, a revolution, otherwise we may not be able to overthrow the demons and monsters. We must liberate the little devils. We need more monkeys to disrupt the palace” (Mao, 1965-interesting!)

46. The Red Guards • One of the key instruments employed during the Great Cultural Revolution by Mao is The Red Guards. • These are people in their teens and twenties who supported the shake-ups within the Communist Party in the Cultural Revolution. • Their key activity was to terrorise closet capitalists. • They attacked and tortured respected teachers, abused elderly citizens, humiliated old revolutionaries, and, in many cases, battled former friends in bloody confrontations. • They carried Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book with religious fervour, often using the quotations to justify their revolutionary efforts. • Most of the Red Guards did not finish their education as a result of the cultural revolution.

47. Red Guard • The Red Guard is the name given to the hundreds of thousands of students who left their schools to spread Mao’s message; that the Moderates were bringing China down the ‘Capitalist Road’, and needed to return to pure Communism once again • They were responsible for a majority of the chaos created during the Cultural Revolution • They traveled the countryside and visited factories, etc. to spread the message • At the end of the Cultural Revolution, they were sent to the countryside to ‘learn from the peasants’

48. Red Guard • Red Guard activities were promoted as a reflection of Mao's policy of rekindling revolutionary enthusiasm and destroying "outdated," "counterrevolutionary" symbols and values. • Mao's ideas, popularized in the Quotations from Chairman Mao, became the standard by which all revolutionary efforts were to be judged.

49. A Young group of Red Guards Mao gathered to fight against democratic society.

50. Red Guards • Schools closed so the kids could join • They beat anyone that they thought were counterrevolutionaries • Most of these people with authority. • They were publicly humiliated, beaten, and sometimes killed