5.01 Authoritarian States

1966-1976 Cultural Revolution

🔗 Discussion

Coursework II Discussion 2024 – Google Docs (Class Discussion)

Quote

“Revolution is not a dinner party.”
–Mao Zedong

Learning Objectives (what to know)

Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution:

1. Causes.
2. Gang of Four. (vague)
3. Political impact.
4. Social impact.
5. Cultural impact.

Dramatis personae

• The Big Three of China’s administrative government
  • Liu Shaoqi
  • Deng Xiaoping
  • Zhou Enlai
• Gang of Four (infamous)
  • Zhang Chunqiao
  • Jiang Qing – wife of Mao Zedong
  • Yao Wenyuan
  • Wang Hongwen
• Lin Biao – creator of the Little Red Book
• Bo Yibo – veteran & survivor of The Long March, ‘heavy hitter’ in the Party

Timeline of Events

• 1959: Lushan central committee plenum. Peng Dehuai (Minister of National Defense) attacked all of Mao’s radical domestic and foreign policies
  • 👤 Peng Dehuai: basically Trotsky, previous military general, around since the Sino-Japanese wars and The Long March
  • with this standing, his scathing critique of the Great Leap Forward going ‘above and beyond’ and the resulting devastation was not taken kindly (despite not naming Mao directly)
  • his critique resonated with attendees
• 1966 May: Articles in CCP newspapers introduce the concept of a Great Proletarian Revolution

---

• 1969 April: Border clashes with the Soviets. 👤 Lin Biao, Minister of Defense, declares martial law and is declared Mao’s official successor. Mao opens talks with the U.S., seeking to form a relationship that can counter the USSR threat.
  • CCP and Central Committee are dominated by the military.
  • Propaganda is released, painting Lin as the Stalin to Mao’s Lenin. “With you in charge, I am at ease.” –Mao Zedong, 1976 (when Lin visits him after his stroke)
• 1970-1971: 👤 Jiang Qing and other radicals oppose Lin Biao as Mao’s successor.
  • Chinese political leadership is split into several camps.
• 1971 August: 👤 Chen Boda, a supporter of Lin Biao, is arrested and disappears.
• 1971 September: Lin Biao is killed in a plane crash over Mongolia while trying to flee China. Lin was accused of plotting to kidnap or kill Mao and take control of China himself (known as the 571 incident).
  • Whether he attempted a coup or not hasn't been fully addressed or proven either way, but it is the official story/general explanation.
    • It’s a very big accusation to make in the CCP, but it is one of the only stories they can cook up with the appropriate severity
  • Theories surround Lin’s death; one is that he fled in such a hurry he didn’t fuel the plane right (supporting the idea that he did something wrong) or that he was assassinated politically.
    • “Dead men tell no tales”
• late 1971-mid 1973: 👤 Zhou Enlai tries to organize a recovery of China from the Cultural Revolution. Mao has a stroke. Zhou finds out he has cancer.
• 1972 February: 👤 President Richard Nixon visits China. Shanghai Communiqué is issued, defining a new relationship between the U.S. and China.
  • He is the first American president to step foot on Chinese soil; a propaganda win for both sides.
• early 1973: 👤 Deng Xiaoping is rehabilitated and brought back to organize the recovery.
  • Previously, he’d been axed by the Gang of Four much earlier.
• mid-1973 to mid-1974: Jiang Qing and her radicals dominate the government.
• 1973 July: Mao shifts support to Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, away from the Gang of Four.
  • Perhaps because they are too radically right; Zhou and Deng are moderates, and he shifts back to the center
• 1975 autumn: Mao shifts support back to Jiang Qing and the radicals. Deng Xiaoping is removed from power.
  • Political turmoil of the revolution, and how it afflicts the leadership, is evident.
• 1976 January: Zhou Enlai dies.
• 1976 February: 👤 Hua Guofeng is appointed as acting Premier.
  • Later, he will wage a power struggle against Deng Xiaoping
• 1976 April: Public tributes to Zhou Enlai in Tiananmen Square, which Jiang Qing gets Mao to declare as counter-revolutionary. Authorities use the military to break up public demonstrations.
  • Zhou sought to go to U.S. for cancer treatment; Mao stopped him.
• 1976 July: Major earthquake devastates North China. Hundreds of thousands die. Beijing government turns down outside aid.
• 1976 September: Mao dies. Hua Guofeng is made Chairman of the Party.
• 1976 October: Gang of Four arrested.
• 1977 July: Deng returns to his official positions, and made chief of staff of the PLA.
• 1978 December: Deng Xiaoping emerges as paramount leader of the PRC.
  • Deng had been dropped from the leadership after the 1976 Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
  • This support came about as a result of consensus between top leaders to follow his lead, not because of his formal office positions.
  • Deng and Hua fight; Hua holds offices of Premiership and Party Chairmanship, but Deng had the PLA.

Mao’s loss of the Presidency

• unhappiness within the Party
  • 🔎 1966 May: Beijing University’s Philosophy Department had a top party official write a dazibao (big character poster) attacking her university's administration
    • faculty at other universities followed suit – radicals among students and faculty began to criticize Party members
  • causes included the 1958-1962 Great Leap Forward; the radical pace of change and its implementation and failure’s consequences
• no peasants dared to blame Mao – he was a venerated and adored figure
  • instead they blamed officials, themselves, bureaucracy
  • their entire worldview would have been shattered if they placed blame solely on Mao
  • “no one blames Jesus, everyone blames his ideology”
• Mao paid a political price for this unhappiness → stepping aside from the presidency
  • he lost face – administrative power passed to 👤 Zhou Enlai, 👤 Deng Xiaoping, 👤 Liu Shaoqi
  • with the presidency he lost direct control over all administrative government (bureaucracy) – i.e. the civil servants and bureaucracy
  • BUT he retained political capital in staying Chairman of the Party, the proverbial tip of the spear
  • at this point, his authority went far beyond any given title or position
• Zhou, Deng and Liu passed economic reforms that brought back forms of capitalism to stimulate the economy
  • individual incentives were given to encourage the farmers to increase output
  • in doing so, they ==deviated from Maoism== → officially blessed and sanctioned a type of capitalism → viewed as anti-Mao and society Mao fought for; revisionist==
    • especially given that they implemented this once he stepped aside
  • the Chinese revolution was at stake… as well as his ego and face!
  • it stimulated the economy – 📈 by 1963 they saw improvement
  • basically China’s 1921-03 New Economic Policy

Economic impact of the Cultural Revolution

Social Impact of the Cultural Revolution

• peasants from rural areas were given the chance to pursue a middle & high school education for the first time
  • a new curriculum tuned to rural needs was instituted
• significant increases in adult literacy + life expectancy
  • China’s GDP grew 6% every year during the Cultural Revolution (??)
• reforms allows students to practice preaching policies
• narrow gap between manual and intellectual labor – self-reliance
  • students were given hands-on practical education in manual laborers, and given experience working on farms with peasants
  • those who took part in these programs were given better schooling and progressive education through ‘theory centers’, where factory workers studied history, philosophy and social sciences under Party theory
    • not found even in developed countries today

The ‘Lost Generation’

• 10 years of no education, with lots of youth shipped out to revolutionize the countryside and prevent overcrowding in urban areas

Cultural cleansing

• ‘Four Olds’: Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits
  • an attempt to control culture and way of thinking – a Complex Undertaking
• easier to claim that you are attacking culture rather than politicians as a guise – hence Cultural Revolution, in which Mao cleaned house in the Party and society
  • culture is learned; even bureaucrats have a way of thinking
    • e.g. bad culture: taking bribes → corruption → nepotism → KMT, Imperial times
• was an attempt to throw out everything holding China down, including the return of capitalism
• statues, temples, books were all destroyed

Weakening of the social fabric

• evidenced via Red Guard infighting
• anarchy and chaos in society
• Red Guards sent to villages became disillusioned
  • they felt aimless and purposeless; they thought they were fighting for a noble cause, struggling against revisionists to create a New China
  • link to The ‘Lost Generation’ as a result of turmoil

Political Impact of the Cultural Revolution

• plurality of egalitarian self-managed organizations; organic and bottom-up rather than top-down
  • recognization of the masses’ political power
    • factories, mines, enterprises and villages all had their own cultural revolutionary groups and committees intended to be permanent and mass-standing
  • unheard of for state socialist regimes to allow citizens to form mass political organizations; the masses created hundreds of self-directed political communist projects
    • e.g. democratic schools, communes, self-directed factories, etc.
  • initially a good thing, which Mao embraced; but later he turned his back on these organizations
    • the groups launched attacks on civil and military organizations, which Mao initially supported but later walked back
    • Shanghai Commune formed, which Mao rejected as 'too radical' in lieu of the more moderate and ‘united’ military revolutionary committees
• there was factional infighting within even Red Guards
  • massive amount of political power held by a heterogenous mass → highly destablizing when the Red Guard formed factions → brink of ==civil war==, needed PLA to restore order
    • evidence of deep infighting
• rehabilitated cadres were allowed to rejoin the Party, including Deng Xiaoping
• Politburo, Standing Committee bureaucracy lost power to the CCRG (incl. Gang of Four), which drove the Cultural Revolution

Purge of the CCP

• removal of pragmatic and effective leaders leading much of the economic reform like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping
• economic recovery in China halted

Politicization & Indoctrination of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)

• Mao’s thoughts and sayings were formalized and put into print via the Little Red Book, spread under Lin Biao
• every soldier had the book and used it daily in study sessions
• PLA became a stronghold of Maoist teachings
• eventually, the PLA was mobilized to restore order to the chaos that had gotten out of control due to infighting between Red Guard factions
  • PLA was previously only mobilized against foreign threats; this time it was attacking the people it was meant to defend
    • a force unleashed by Mao himself
    • almost ‘cannibalization’ of fellow Chinese
  • mobilization of the PLA signals how serious the crisis was

Deepened control between the Party and PLA

• evidenced by the 1965 Wuhan Affai

Power struggles & infighting

• Central Cultural Revolution Group (CCRG) headed by Chen Boda and the Gang of Four (headed by Jiang Qing) and minister of Defence (Lin Biao) v.s. moderates

---

from google doc

• Party functions DISRUPTED

  • Local/regional level: Red guards attacked cadres, party officials were driven to suicide or public humiliation
  • Bureaucratic level: infighting amongst Gang of Four, Moderates, Lin Biao
  • Result: China is a mess politically, power of centralized government greatly diminished
  • Mao doesn’t help either, swinging between the moderates and radicals a few times
  • Internal power struggle/disputes Expansion of Mao cult of personality → greater control over people

• Little red book, Mao pins, more slogans 

• Propaganda – Emphasis placed on showing loyalty to Mao

Power seizures across China

• CCP provincial leaders returned home, inspired to “seize power” by Chairman Mao’s exhortations

• Students took over offices, official seals and issued manifestoes left and right

• first half of 1967: Immediately after Shanghai’s January Storm, most provincial power-seizures failed, and only five (Heilongjiang, Shandong, Guizhou, Shanxi and Beijing) were recognized

• Even those that seized power struggled internally; Shanxi’s party first secretary was outsmarted by a colleague, consequently imprisoned and committed suicide

• 1968: Another 20 power-seizures recognized – testimony to the infighting and refusal of the capital to recognize power seizures that weren’t from “capitalist roaders” to “proletarian revolutionary rebels”.

Effects of political violence on people

• Widespread terror + fear amongst people

• Social control – Mao has greater control over people’s beliefs, actions

**