Cultural Revolution Essay

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution or simply the Cultural Revolution was launched by Mao Zedong in May 1966 and lasted until his death in September 1976. The first two years of the Revolution, which was the most violent phase of the struggle, was led by militia units comprised of students called the Red Guards. Their goal was to destroy anything in relation to the “four olds”: Old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. They also engaged in the purpose of the Cultural Revolution according to the “Sixteen Points” by beating, humiliating, and even killing the “capitalist-roaders”. By mid-1968, Mao realized the young Red Guards were overly annihilative, so he abolished them. Although according to the “Sixteen Points”, the purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to eliminate those who are “capitalist-roaders” and to transform China into an equal, socialist society, Mao’s true, unrevealed goal of the CR was to eliminate his biggest enemy, who was the Chairman of China and Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Liu Shaoqi, in order to further consolidate his own power in the People’s Republic of China.

Prior to the Cultural Revolution, the economic movement forwarded by Mao Zedong known as the Great Leap Forward took place from 1958 to 1960. The goal in this campaign was to modernize and industrialize China. After some degree of success in his Five Year Plan such as the increase in production of iron and coal, Mao further sought for his utopian socialist ideas by placing China’s great labor force into large collective farms called communes. However, since all factors of production benefited only the government, the peasants lost their enthusiasm toward working. As a result, agricultural failure led to famine, w...

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...o wanted to regain power, launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966, saying its goal was to establish an equal, socialist society, but in fact he wanted to undermine, and even eliminate Liu Shaoqi by giving him the title “capitalist-roader”; though this real intention of the Revolution remained a secret to most of the countrymen in China, for he cannot make his hunger for power too obvious. After Mao’s successful, complete elimination of Liu, he began to transform the government and society so that everyone in the country saw him as the best person on Earth. Even after the transformation, Mao still did not want anyone to prevent him from ruling the country as a single supreme figure, so he eventually undermined his so-called successor Lin Biao as well. After all these years of struggle, Mao became extremely ill and past away in September 9, 1976.