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The Cultural Revolution was a movement started by Chairman Mao of China from 1966 to 1976.  In this time, intellectuals and other revisionists who spoke out against Mao's policies were targeted.

20 years prior to the Cultural Revolution, there had been a revolution, thus creating the People's Republic of China. When Mao felt that leaders were getting too comfortable in their positions or caring too much about bourgeois values, he wanted to strike up revolutionary fervor again.

He published his thoughts in a book called the Little Red Book, which was distributed to everyone. This led to a large surge in the youth of China believing in Mao's ideals.  The youth were then assembled into organized Red Guards, which would follow the teachings of Mao.  When the schools were shut down, in further persecution of intellectuals, the Red Guards would go around harassing  or even killing government officials, intellectuals, or sometimes their own professors.  This led to purges all over China of all of the people that Mao did not feel belonged in his version of what he believed China should be.

Eventually, the Red Guards got too out of control and were close to anarchy, so they were sent out to the countryside to simmer down their aggression.

After the Cultural Revolution had been slowly ending for a while, since about 1969, Mao died in 1976.  This put an end to many of the problems as new people took over the government, and people were imprisoned who worked with Mao, particularly the Gang of Four, who were Mao's closest allies.

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Perpetrators were largely Chairman Mao Zedong, the Gang of Four, and the Red Guards.  Victims of these groups included intellectuals, revisionists, the elderly, and any enemies, especially enemies of Mao's policies. This largely impacted the people in China by throwing cities and towns into utter disarray as the Red Guards wreaked havoc throughout China. Before the Cultural Revolution, the country was already largely in debt and many people died of hunger due to the fail of Mao's giant leap forward, but Cultural Revolution intensified these drastic effects.

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How has China or other nations denied the fact that even though the Cultural Revolution is over, some of the ideals still live on?

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How has China or other nations denied the fact that even though the Cultural Revolution is over, some of the ideals still live on?

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China as well as other nations have consistently denied the fact that some of Mao's ideals still live on by covering up or trying to ignore the knowledge that there is a problem in China.  First off, Matt Vasilogambros at The Atlantic Newspaper writes, "Though the party’s Central Committee quickly distanced itself from the performance, critics still said a group inside the country wants a return of the repressive period.  Xi has led a crackdown in recent years on dissent, censoring media and the Internet. He has also gone after civil society, giving security forces control over foreign non-governmental organizations that deal with human rights, public health, and education.  Like Mao during the Cultural Revolution, there’s also been an increase in Xi’s cult of personality, as his face dons the front page of newspapers and propaganda across the country. There are even pop songs that celebrate him."  Even though China's government is trying to distance themselves from Maoism, they are really just denying the fact that many of the country's leaders like Xi are doing many of the same things as what Mao did during the Cultural Revolution.  Mandy Zuo at the South China Morning Post also informs, "The original version read, “Mao Zedong wrongfully believed that the central leadership of the party had the problem of revisionism and the party and the country were facing the risk of the restoration of capitalism. ” The later version said, “Mao Zedong believed that the party and the country were facing the risk of the restoration of capitalism”, according to the post."  In this instance, a student text-book had been censored to shift the blame of the Cultural Revolution away from communism and Mao's distorted beliefs.  This is another example of how it has been covered up that there may still be some people who believe in the ideals of Mao, as they don't let the youth learn about how what Mao did was wrong.  Finally Lee Edwards at The Heritage Foundation states, "Google has revealed what many in the Internet world have known for some time -- China routinely hacks into U.S. and Western Web sites for national security and other valuable information." This shows how the United States has many times acknowledged the terror going on in China, but has failed to do anything about it.  During the time of the Cultural Revolution, this kind of denial would have caused Mao and his followers to continue with their horrific genocide, which is why it is scary to know that the US is still putting up with the things that China is doing.  Thus, China as well as countries such as the US have consistently ignored issues in China which may be drawing the country closer to another Cultural Revolution.

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How does the idea of conformity tie into the prolonged genocides in China?

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How does the idea of conformity tie into the prolonged genocides in China?

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The idea of conformity has tied into the genocide in China because many had to conform to Mao's standards in order to stay alive, which would lead to no one speaking up against what horrific things were going on.  BBC News reports, "During the Cultural Revolution, in which millions were persecuted or killed, owning it "became a way of surviving", says Daniel Leese, professor of modern Chinese history and politics at the University of Freiburg. Paramilitary "Red Guards" mobilized by Mao to purify the Communist Party would check whether those suspected of bourgeois tendencies were carrying it or whether they could quote from it."  In this time it was vital to conform to others in order to stay alive.  If one did not follow the teachings of Chairman Mao one could be persecuted or killed, which would lead to no one speaking out against the genocidal purges going on and would cause the genocide to continue on. Additionally,  Anne Faulkner's book on the Cultural Revolution writes, "Outside the party, on the streets, the Red Guard were given free reign.  Anybody could be denounced for anything- even reading a foreign book.  The Red Guard destroyed monuments, museums, libraries, Buddhist temples, and works of art.  They entered people's houses and workplaces and took anything the considered incriminating- letters, diaries, even books."  Anything could be considered incriminating during the Cultural Revolution, so it was often best and crucial to only own and do things that Mao would approve of, as to not die.  Conformity was the only way to live when anything could be turned into evidence against you.  Though no one speaking out against the government led to genocides that lasted for a long time. Lastly, the Britannica article called Cultural Revolution states, "One of his goals in starting the Cultural Revolution was to eliminate such elitism and the class differences between rural peasants who performed manual labor and urban workers who performed mental labor. He also wanted to rid the leadership of the schools, the Communist party, the government bureaucracy, the army, and the intellectual community of those who did not fully agree with his policies."  Mao wanted to make everyone in China equal or the same as well as getting rid of everything he didn't believe in, which is a strong example how the idea of conformity impacted many of the decisions that Mao made. In conclusion, conformity was a large factor which contributed to the prolonged genocides in China as speaking out meant you could get killed.

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What was the US response to the Cultural Revolution?

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What was the US response to the Cultural Revolution?

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Before the Cultural Revolution, many Chinese people were without food. Many American's were sympathetic to this problem and urged Kennedy to help the people, without helping the communist government. Kennedy instituted a plan where he would give food- but only under the condition that Beijing asked for it. There were also still embargoes placed on China. Johnson was going to continue this same policy, but he was persuaded to ease up on embargoes as many wanted stronger relations with China.  As for the Cultural Revolution, very little was clear about it from the US standpoint other than that China seemed to be in the middle of a change in power.  The decision was to improve ties with China, but to not involve themselves with their internal affairs.  From what little American officials knew about the issue, many were in favor of the revisionists or intellectuals, who were being persecuted, but nothing was done to stop the genocides.  Officials such as Consul General Rice believed the the Maoists were in the wrong and the revisionists might develop stronger relations with the US if they took power, but again the US kept quiet as they knew that they could do very little to nothing to influence China's affairs.

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2 Events Going On in the World During the Cultural Revolution

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2 Events Going On in the World During the Cultural Revolution

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-The American Civil Rights movement was in full affect during the Cultural Revolution. Black leader, Martin Luther King Jr. was a huge activist for rights and desegregation through peaceful means. He helped to bring the country closer together, though many Southerners did not like him challenging their way of life. On April 3, 1968, King was shot by an assassin.  This man, James Earl Ray, pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

-In 1966 the US and the Soviet Union both submitted drafts to the United Nations in order to keep outer space a peaceful zone.  This meant that no nuclear weapons were allowed in space, nor was any country allowed to place claim over the moon or any other celestial body.  This plan finally came into force on October 10, 1967.

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Depicted in this propaganda poster is a soldier carrying one of Mao's books. It was intended to enforce Mao's teachings and to promote obedience and loyalty.  The text at the bottom reads "Warriors love reading Chairman Mao's books most" .

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In this image there is Chairman Mao with his third wife, Jiang Qing.  An actress, she mainly took over as leader when Mao was too ill and was much more radical than her husband.  She was also head of the Gang of Four.  After Mao died, she tried to seize power, but was arrested and eventually committed suicide 1991.

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This historic visit to China in 1972, still in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, helped in getting rid of tensions from the Cold War as well as improving exchanges between China and the US.  It also shows how little the US might have known about the true affects of the Cultural Revolution.