WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION?

1. WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION? Authority challenged Economic damage Disrupted education A new Chinese culture Power changes General chaos

2. Challenges & changes to Authority • Teachers were challenged and attacked by students • All ranks in the PLA were abolished • Central government’s control and ability to pass & enforce laws was seriously weakened • Any attempt to challenge the Red Guards or the ‘Thoughts of Chairman Mao’ was met with accusations of being counter-revolutionary. Mao’s authority had increased.

3. ECONOMIC DAMAGE • The economy fell into ruins 1966-68 • The industrial and agricultural progress in the early 1960s was destroyed almost overnight • Factories came to a standstill • Farming methods reverted to traditional manual labour • Many ‘reactionaries’ were forced to work as labourers in the countryside

4. DISRUPTION TO EDUCATION • Teachers were prime targets for attack • All schools, colleges, and universities were closed for 2 years • Educated people were suspected of being part of a growing bourgeois or specialist class who were causing the revolution to lose its way • Professors performed manual work e.g. cleaning toilets • Progress from 1949-66 in literacy and learning was damaged and a ‘generation’ of children received little formal education

5. A NEW CHINESE CULTURE • Anything that represented old traditional Chinese culture was destroyed – temples, shrines, art, gardens. Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, led the attack. This increased her power. She controlled art & culture until 1976. • Western, capitalist and foreign influences were attacked and banned • A new Chinese culture emerged glorifying Maoist communism, the revolution, and the achievements of the Chinese people since 1949.

6. POWER CHANGES • Local organisations of the CCP were destroyed • Senior party leaders who were opponents or rivals of Chairman Mao were accused of revisionism, capitalist ideas, and arrested and dismissed. Liu died in prison 1969. Deng was humiliated in front of 3,000 Red Guards. Deng’s son was thrown out of a window and broke his spine • Mao’s power had increased

7. GENERAL CHAOS • By 1968 China was in complete chaos • Rival groups of Red Guards began to fight each other in their efforts to prove who had most loyalty to Mao and the revolution • In 1969: • Mao was forced to order the Red guards to stop their attacks • The PLA were called in to restore order but they continued the attacks for a while • Some historians believe Mao was never able to be fully in control of the cultural revolution. Others believe that he did not want to be, and in fact wanted some chaos to destroy opponents • The cultural revolution ended by 1971

8. WAS THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION A SUCCESS OR FAILURE? • FOR MAO? • What were his original aims? • What were the outcomes? • FOR THE CCP? • FOR THE 1949 REVOLUTION? • FOR CHINA AND THE CHINESE PEOPLE?