The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Analysis

Discuss the historiographical debate surrounding the causes of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Historical Investigation on the Cultural Revolution

Handojo, Priscilla

7/31/2015

Essay Word Count: 1777

Discuss the historiographical debate surrounding the causes of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

SYNOPSIS

In the early 1960s China, in response to the pragmatic and in some eyes revisionary policies pursued in the wake of the Great Leap forward, a radical group emerged which supported Mao Zedong in his ambition to restore the revolution. The Cultural Revolution was to revitalise the values of Communism and bring about a classless society. To Mao, this meant eliminating any remnants of past culture, customs, ideas, and

habits. He called these the Four Olds and ordered them destroyed.
The Cultural Revolution has brought about debate according to

ESSAY
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76) considered a “watershed in Chinese modern history,” is characterised by Chairman Mao’s radical purge of the ‘bourgeois reactionary line’ within both the Communist Party of China (CPC) and its society. It has presented a contentious historiographical debate surrounding the causes for such violence among its own people. Although Mao initiated the movement, once the masses were mobilised, the programme gained its own momentum. Debates extend as to whether Mao and his personality cult was the leading cause, or more so a process of mass movement. Consequently through evaluating several historians’ interpretations and perspectives, this essay critically aims to address the historiographical debate surrounding the causes of the Cultural Revolution.
The Cultural Revolution was allegedly launched as a last-ditch attempt to stem revisionism and preserve the revolution.

The two-line struggle which broke between Mao Zedong’s promotion of socialism and his opponents’ lapsed into revisionism. The designation of Liu Shaoqi with the dominant authority was an assertion that consensus had diminished over a variety of issues, including the economy and ‘spontaneous developments towards capitalism’ in the countryside. The party was accused of having become ‘divorced from the masses’ and education thrived of ‘bourgeois individualism’. The struggle between the Soviet Union and China was escalating, in which a split seemed to be inevitable. Mao as a result attempted to spur China’s independent economic development through the Great Leap Forward. Hence the social violence of the Revolution was caused by the incoherence of pre-Cultural Revolution political system as explained by Richard Kraus, “Maoism itself was embodied in the paradox that Mao wanted people to act voluntarily exactly as he wanted them to, without quite trusting they would do so.” Shifting from this political argument, Lynn T. White III interpreted the Cultural Revolution as an unintended result of administrative policies, claiming the campaigning, controlling and labelling of such swayed students’ attitudes towards each other and their leaders, hence seen as merely the long term cost of these

policies.
Increasing social and political conflicts within pre-cultural Revolution China presented a rally towards the movement. The Power struggle between Mao Zedong and his critics which dated back to the Great Leap Forward and the downfall of the cooperative leadership at the Lushan conference was seen as an agent in the conflicts leading to the Cultural Revolution. Mao’s utilisation of the Socialist Education movement aroused fears of revisionism in 1962, heightening political tension in midst of conflict. Counting on the support of the People’s Liberation Army and of ‘revolutionary successors’ among the younger generation, he propelled what was termed a cultural revolution, although its’ true objective was not revisionism but his political opponents. His primary opponents were Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, although in truth they were not revisionists, but hard line leftists. Accordingly, Tang Tsou argued in a series of essays that the Revolution was to a degree a necessity as a result of excessive power of the government, and therefore a functional expression of ‘people power’ which limited Government power and thereafter paved way for reforms. Although the Cultural Revolution initiated mass violence, Tsou asserted that it was controlled, and had achieved the desired social change with the least disruptive effects. However this was counter challenged by Anne Thurston who argued that China had never been a society where individual judgement was encouraged. Thurston herself as a counterrevolutionary during the Cultural Revolution saw the cause of political upheaval as a tragedy in which the Revolution was surpassed only by the Nazi Holocaust.
Tension between the conservation and destruction of tradition in China was seen present long before, and accumulating to the Cultural Revolution; it wasn’t just the Maoist regime that challenged the issue. Generally recognised as the ‘Enlightenment’ catalysed by the May Fourth Movement in the turn of the twentieth century, an emerging idea of anti-tradition sparked for modernisation for a ‘progressive’ China from all political inducements. Consequently, the leaders of the People’s Republic of China and of the Cultural Revolution did encourage a further radical ideology of anti-Chinese Tradition, in tension between Mao’s motivations and Chinese Traditional political culture. This was further substantiated by American Historian, Lucian Pye, in an article in “The China Quarterly”, in which he queried whether the political and social upheaval of 1966 had deeper caused roots within China’s past. It was suggested that it was not enough to blame only Lin Biao and the gang of four; they could not have done this alone.
The Chinese people’s involvement in the movement further initiated conflict which fuelled the Revolution to such mass violence. Historian Lu Xiuyuan, in his article “A step Toward Understanding Popular Violence in China’s Cultural Revolution”, insisted that the Chinese people were active agents in the revolution, not simply victims of Mao. Lu’s perspective enforced the occurrence of the Revolution as a response to the people’s actions following Mao’s lead, supporting the ideology of the people, not as passive items manipulated by Mao but as active participants who transformed their situation in the process. The public’s incentives and behaviours stemmed within the Chinese social reality. The weakening of families as a socialisation agent was replaced by the authority of the state, reinforcing social tension in the lead up to the Cultural Revolution presented with mass violence. Lessening prospects for upward movement stemmed a growing struggle for education, where the students had to achieve political credentials and high grades to enter the Communist Youth League. Jonathon Spence, author of “The Search for Modern China” substantiated that disillusioned students frustrated over policies that kept them from political advancement fuelled the Revolution. The Cultural Revolution in an initiation of mass movement was a consequence of the tensions and conflicts among social groups, which used punishment and discipline against one another.
Social tensions as a result of class antagonisms transformed into Red Guard Factionalism, and Mao utilised this to his advantage calling for the purge of cultural bureaucracy, which developed towards the social-political movement. It was divided between the ‘five kinds of red’ and the ‘bourgeois’ background who devoted to the idea that, “China could be re-made into a prosperous and politically pure society.” The Red Guards became the frontline towards the new Revolution, and regarded Mao the father of the revolution and raised him to the status of deity; those considered anti-revolutionary were subjected to mass violence, humiliation and criticism. The extent of this outburst of violence and the fury of the Red Guards against the elders suggest countless frustration within Chinese society that gave rise to the Cultural Revolution. Spence explains that, “They were repressed, angry, and aware of their powerlessness. They eagerly seized on the order to throw off all restraint, and the natural targets were those who seemed responsible for their cramped lives.” However Jung Chang, who herself had been a Red Guard in the Revolution regarded Mao to be single-handedly responsible for it. Chang considered the vast majority of Chinese to have been brainwashed by Maoism and its personality cult, where the Cultural Revolution was seen as Mao’s challenge to re-establish control within the party by turning his indoctrinated subjects against it. Alliances based on mutual interests made it difficult to resolve conflicts and control violence, ultimately leading to the Red Guard violence during the Cultural Revolution.
Mao’s successful cult of personality as a result of propaganda drive behind it helped him regain public support, introducing the origins of the Cultural Revolution. Mao encouraged political persecution of ‘counter-revolutionary’ elements threatening his regime, particularly high-ranking CPC cadres, as well as the destruction of cultural symbols of feudalistic China. He further created a revered image of himself by offering out “The Little Red Book” which instituted guidelines for social communications based on his cult. The presence of young men and women who had volunteered or had been sent down to the countryside contributed to the vehemence of political debates. These frequently invoked the Cult of Mao Zedong. Only approximately a year after the start of the Cultural Revolution, the ritualization of Mao’s image had reached its height with ‘grotesque’ forms of worshipping, as Jung Chang describes. Michael Lynch however considered the Cultural Revolution as a political strategy, affirming that Mao, “unleashed the Cultural Revolution to secure the continuation of the China he had created”. Conversely, Ross Terrill also views the Cultural Revolution as Mao’s handiwork, though he suggests it was not only about asserting political control. “He was worried about the softness of the 300 million young people born since 1949” Terrill wrote, “They must be put through a struggle of their own.”
This complex event in Chinese History affected the social, political and economic aspects of Chinese Society, which induced a profound sense of loss in regard to the Cultural Revolution. Early perspectives of the movement saw the people victimised as a result of political tension, however in advancement they were seen as a significant involvement towards what became the Cultural Revolution. Thus the debate over what caused such violence to the futile movement carries on, with theoretical studies to assist in understanding China’s turbulent past.

Annotated Bibliography
Roberts, J. and Roberts, J. (1998). Modern China. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Pub.

Jonathon Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1990)
In this book, author and professor of Chinese History, Jonathon Spence, argues that the building up of frustration among the Chinese students were a cause of the violence within the Cultural Revolution. Spence interpreted that the political system bred both fear and compliance, thus making it possible for mass campaigns of pressure and terror. The limitations of this source lie primarily in the possible existence of bias due to the probable desire to position his theory as most plausible, which may have resulted in a too easy dismissal of contrary theories in addition to important issues such as the possible necessity for the Revolution.
G. Kucha & J. Llewellyn, “Chinese Revolution”, Alpha History
This website has introduced a brief summary along various arguments in relation to the Cultural Revolution to sustain a wider, more holistic representation surrounding the causes of the movement. There are multiple perspectives and historiographical interpretations that present both positive and negative views to the Revolution. In addition views from the Chinese people some of who were involved, and views from the west were outlined in the summary, and therefore gave relatively unbiased information. This website has furthermore proved reliable as it listed out opinions from scholars and studies relating to the Revolution.

Bibliography
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Roberts, J. and Roberts, J. (1998). Modern China. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Pub.

10. Anita Chan, Stanley Rosen, and Jonathon Unger, “Students and Class Warfare: The Social Roots of the Red Guard Conflict in Guangzhou, “The China Quarterly, no. 83 (September, 1980)

11. Anita Chan. Children of Mao: Personality Development and Political Activism in the Red Guard Generation (Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1985)

12. Communist Party of China, Resolution on CPC History, (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981), 13 http://www.marxistarkiv.se/kina/engelska/on_cpc_history.pdf

13. Anita Chan, Richard Madsen and Jonathon Unger, Chen Village: The Recent History of a Peasant Community in Mao’s China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984)

14. Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2009)

15. Gerald Tannenbaum, ‘China’s Cultural Revolution: Why it had to happen’, and Richard Baum, ‘Ideology redivided’, in Baum and Bennet (eds)

16. William A. Joseph, Christine P.W. Wong, and David Zweing, eds., New Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

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17. Philip Bridgman, ‘Mao’s “Cultural Revolution”: Origin and Development’, in Richard Baum and Louise B. Bennett (eds), China in Ferment: Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution (Englewood Cliffs Prentice-Hall Inc., 1971)