Cultural Revolution

[Ned Kelly]

I'm keen for some stimulating and thoughtful discussion on the Cultural Revolution? Do you see it as being justified, or a blatant attempt by Mao to undermine the Communist Party and institute his own singular rule? I think, that while some grave mistakes were made, the Cultural Revolution was justified by the fact that almost immediately after Mao's death, the nation was hijacked by Deng and put on the road of not just revisionism, but outright capitalism.

[RED DAVE]

An outline, doubtless full of error.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

RED DAVE

[Uppercut]

The Cultural Revolution wasn't all bad. New forms of management were brought in, as well as popular participation in the sciences. Intellectuals and teachers to sent to the countryside to educate workers and intellectualize them to an extent. The economy mostly grew at a stable rate and mass rallies took place all over the country.

The downside is that factional fighting was very common and in some cases, the red guards even attacked workers. Mao's personality cult was at an all time high, not only in China, but among Maoists all over the world. Although good things did happen during the GPCR, sending students to fight revisionism is not exactly the best method to further socialism. The youth can play an important role in its construction, but it is unwise to let them run free to beat people up. I understand that Mao did not call for violence, but it's naive to believe that it would not occur.

It's true that idological work took place all around, but this came at the expense of schooling and education. According to an article on kasama project, schools were out as early as 10 in the morning in order for red guards to do their thing. In my view, at least, the "anti-bookishness" of the campaign was taken too far. And given the fact that Deng rose back to the top immediately after Mao's death shows that there were serious shortcomings in pointing out revisionism, and that the masses were not as politically conscious as they should have been, despite 10 years of Cultural Revolution.

It was a good idea, but I have to say that I disagree with the methods in which it was carried out.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Machiavellian scheme by certain individuals to shore up their power and political influence.

Some of the art that came out of it was pretty cool, though.

[Shokaract]

From The Battle for China's Past:

Much of the violence, brutality and destruction that happened during the ten-year period was indeed intended, such as the persecution of people with a bad class background at the beginning, and later action against the Rebels, but the actions did not stem from a single locus of power. To use ‘Storm Troopers’ in reference to the Red Guards, for instance, is conveniently misleading. There was no such singular entity as the ‘Red Guards’ or the ‘Red Guard’. First, we must differentiate between university students and school students. It was the latter who invented the term ‘Red Guards’ and who engaged in acts of senseless violence in 1966. We should also note the difference between schoolchildren in Beijing, where many high-ranking CCP officials and army officers were located, and those in other places such as Shanghai, the home town of three of the so-called ‘Gang of Four’ radicals. It was not in Shanghai, the supposed birthplace of the Cultural Revolution radicals, but in Beijing that schoolchildren beat up their teachers most violently. It was also in Beijing (in 1966) that the children of high-ranking CCP members and army officials formed the notorious Lian dong (Coordinated Action) and carried out the so-called ‘Red Terror’ in an effort to defend their parents. What they were doing was exactly the opposite of what Mao wanted, to ‘bombard the capitalist roaders inside the Party’, that is, parents of the Lian dong Red Guards. Lian dong activists behaved like those of
the Storm Troopers, but these were not Mao’s Storm Troopers. Mao supported those Rebels who criticized CCP officials including the parents of the Lian dong Red Guards. These facts can easily be confirmed by documentary evidence; yet the post-Mao Chinese political and elite intelligentsia either pretend not to see them or choose to ignore them.


By 1969, a little more than two years after the start of the Cultural Revolution the political situation was brought under control and China’s economic growth was back on track.

From then on, new socioeconomic policies were gradually introduced and these had a positive impact on a large number of people; these policies were intentionally designed. These included the creation of a cheap and fairly effective healthcare system, the expansion of elementary education in rural China, and affirmative-action policies that promoted gender equality. Having grown up in rural China, I witnessed the important benefits that these policies had for the rural people. When the post-Mao regime under Deng Xiaoping reversed the Cultural Revolution policies on these issues, the systems and practices that had benefited the vast majority of China’s rural people were allowed (and, in some cases, pushed) to disintegrate. In terms of health and education many of the rural poor became worse off than they had been during the Cultural Revolution. Similarly, many of the gains made in achieving gender equality have been lost.

The ‘positives’ should also include developments in China’s military defence, industry and agriculture. The politically correct line announces that the Chinese economy was brought to the brink of collapse during the Cultural Revolution. However, documentary evidence and special studies of the period (Meisner 1986, Lardy 1978, Rawski 1980 and 1993, Endicott 1989, Bramall 1993, Chow 1985, Perkins 1985, Field 1986, Hinton 1983, and Gao 1999a) all demonstrate that this was not the case. True, China’s economy was disrupted in 1967 and 1968, but throughout the rest of the late 1960s and through all of the 1970s China’s economy showed consistent growth. Even US official estimates had to acknowledge this state of affairs. In one official report a Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress (1978) states that in the era of Mao China’s economy had a ‘record of positive growth in both agriculture and industry’, that Mao and his fellow leaders ‘had already created a significant economic base for the new [post-Mao] leadership to build on’, and that the economic impact of the Cultural Revolution overall was not huge. It is also worth pointing out that the development of she dui qiye (commune and production brigade enterprises) during the Cultural Revolution were the forerunners of the xiangzhen qiye (township and village enterprises) developed in post-Mao China.


• It is necessary to draw a distinction between Rebels and Red Guards – the former were supported by Mao to target ‘capitalist roaders’ inside the party while the latter were actually followed the party bureaucrats in ideology and political line.
...
• The Rebels treated the party officials humanely in their ideological fight.
• Mao did not intend to suppress all of the party officials, but wanted them to go through the experience of learning from the masses before they were allowed back into office (as testified by Wang Li (2001) who avers that Mao said to him personally several times that even Liu should be allowed to be a member of the CCP Central Committee).
• Even at the height of struggle against ‘capitalist roaders’, there were always instructions that the people who were targets of struggle had to be physically protected and well fed.
• Most of the so-called armed fighting was not factional fighting among Rebels but oppression of Rebels by party officials.
• Most of the important party officials were called to Beijing for protection after a few struggle sessions and many others came back to power within two years.
• In the revolutionary committees that were set up during the Cultural Revolution, the army representatives never took the Rebel representatives seriously.
• Only in Shanghai was the situation a little better for the Rebels because the Rebels had direct support from the centre.
• The army was strongly against the Rebels.
• Mao’s Cultural Revolution strategy was forced upon him after all other efforts failed.
• Mao was hesitant during the Cultural Revolution, but thought that the cadres could be made to change their attitude by a mobilization of the masses.

Lee Feigon's non-communist position:

NOTHING HAS DAMAGED Mao's image as much as his role in initiating the Cultural Revolution, yet few of Mao's actions deserve as much praise. From today's perspective it is hard to understand why many still condemn a movement that not only battled corruption and streamlined bureaucracy but also strengthened the economy and promoted artistic and educational reform. Far from being the wasted decade, as it is usually called, the movement inaugurated a period of cultural and economic growth which set the stage for the celebrated transformation of China's financial system that has been much ballyhooed since Mao's death. The decade dominated by the Cultural Revolution left an enduring legacy of social justice, feminist ideals, and even democratic principles which today still resonate with many Chinese.

The positive impact of Mao’s exercise in political engineering cannot be underestimated. Not only did he succeed in ousting more than 70 percent of the Chinese Communist party’s Central Committee, he also reduced and decentralized the Soviet-style bureaucracy that was threatening to choke China, pruning it to one-sixth its former size.1 The impact of this bureaucratic cleanup was far-reaching, with especially salubrious effects on China’s economy. By managing to remove the central government from much of the day-to-day functioning of the economy, Mao, contrary to popular views, not only spiked the growth of Chinese industry during the Cultural Revolution period but also made it impossible for his successors to reestablish a Soviet-style economy in China after his death.

Almost everyone agrees that during the Cultural Revolution Mao shattered the unity of the Communist party by attacking the system of consensus under which the party had built its rule during the previous decades. If you believe that the destruction of a bureaucratized Communist state is desirable, it is hard to understand why this assault on the party’s traditions is not applauded—unless you believe that Mao’s purpose was simply to build a new and more efficient party. I do not believe this was Mao’s intent. Even if it was, the fact is that the party bureaucracy emerged from the Cultural Revolution more resilient than Mao had hoped but still a shattered remnant of its former self. That, I argue, cannot be a bad thing.

One of Mao’s most important reasons for attacking the bureaucracy was the corruption he felt it engendered. As he put it: “At present you can buy a branch secretary for a few packs of cigarettes, not to mention marrying a daughter to him.”2 His belief that corruption wastes valuable resources and erodes the relationship between government and the people was an area where he found immediate support. His desire to rid his country of mindless bureaucrats who epitomized the problems of the Communist system was a goal with which almost everyone sympathized. Sadly, after Mao’s agenda was overturned following his death, corruption returned, and so did the fear of popular participation in the government. It is no coincidence that many of the people whom Mao purged were the same bureaucrats who, when they returned to their jobs after the chairman’s death, carried out the bloody massacre of Tiananmen demonstrators in 1989.


In August 1966 the government officially labeled Liu Shaoqi “the leading person in authority taking the capitalist road” and Deng Xiaoping the “second leading person in authority taking the capitalist road.” In late fall the two disappeared from public view. Liu died in 1969 after being transferred out of Beijing. Deng spent seven years in the countryside.

If the Cultural Revolution was simply a Stalinist-type movement by Mao to purge the government of his deputies and strengthen the power of the state, his actions following the disgrace of Liu and Deng certainly do not support that interpretation. Mao did not move to take stronger control of the government for himself; he cleared the way to allow the masses, or at least the Red Guards, to do most of the purging on their own.On August 5, 1966, Mao mounted his own wall poster urging students to “bombard the headquarters.” This was a call to attack the Chinese Communist party, which Mao referred to as a “bourgeois dictatorship.”37

Mao’s actions sparked the formation of the Revolutionary Red Guards. They organized to oppose the established Red Guard groups, which now became known as the Royalist Red Guards. The members of these new Revolutionary Red Guard groups included students who had been sneered at, some from landlord and merchant backgrounds who, in the complicated politics of post-1949 China, had become the most disparaged elements in the society.

I think overall the Cultural Revolution was beneficial to the Chinese people, especially the rural population. By the end of the Cultural Revolution, life expectancy was around 65 years (as opposed to around 32 in 1949) and the literacy rate was about 80% (as opposed to around 15% in 1949).

The Dengist coup and counterrevolution from within the CPC have also shown that at the very least Mao's motivations for beginning the Cultural Revolution were not without basis.

[Kiev Communard]

My own views on the Cultural Revolution are quite mixed. On the one hand, I consider Rebel (Zàofăn) and, to a lesser extent, Red Guard (Hóng Wèi Bīng) movements to be at least half-revolutionary, if not completely so. Their anti-bureaucratic and at the same time anti-capitalist stance and activities show this profoundly.

However, their obsession with Mao's cult of personality and their dependence on his "moral authority" led to them loosing any kind of political independence and actually facilitated their downfall when the PLA generals forced Mao to accede to the Hóng Wèi Bīng suppression.

The correct course of their actions would be to stop following - and uncritically praising - Mao and to start developing their own political movement, completely independent from the bureaucratised CCP.

[Saorsa]

Machiavellian scheme by certain individuals to shore up their power and political influence.

You really think you can dismiss the entire period as a machievellian scheme by Maoist puppet masters?

I guess Chinese workers are really stupid sheeplike creatures. Their so easily manipulated.

[RedStarOverChina]

I think we may never come to an justified conclusion about it because we treat it as a single event/movement, whereas it is in actuality, an entire era in which both good things" and "bad things" happened. More bad stuff than good---A lot of the tragedies that happened were totally unnecessary and were result of astonishing ignorance. It was worse under KMT or Japanese rule, but much of the sufferings in the CR were unnecessary and meaningless.

I think it must have been exhilerating to have the right to rebel against any authority (except for Mao), but it did not ultimately help the cause.

The Capitalist restoration would not have came so swiftly had there not been a Culture Revolution.

[Os Cangaceiros]

You really think you can dismiss the entire period as a machievellian scheme by Maoist puppet masters?

I guess Chinese workers are really stupid sheeplike creatures. Their so easily manipulated.

LOL I knew someone would take the bait on that one.

[hobo8675309]

no. the cultural revolution was a forced way to destroy chinese history and make people forget about the glory of ancient china.

[Chimurenga.]

This is worth the watch for some personal experiences of the Cultural Revolution..

http://thisiscommunism.org/rediscovering_chinas_cultural_revolution.htm

[RedStarOverChina]

no. the cultural revolution was a forced way to destroy chinese history and make people forget about the glory of ancient china.
Ain't nothinig wrong with that.

[Invincible Summer]

no. the cultural revolution was a forced way to destroy chinese history and make people forget about the glory of ancient china.


When people make these criticisms, you do realize that if you're a commie, you want to destroy capitalist history to an extent?

[Soviet dude]

I think it was the wrong way to go about a real (though exaggerated) problem, and ultimately failed. I mean, was Mao right or wrong to basically end the cultural revolution? A lot of Maoists seem to think he was wrong, and over-glorify the GPCR, even if it means disagreeing with Mao, which they are usually loathe to do on any other subject.

That the Chinese made serious ultra-Left errors in regards to foreign policy is generally accepted (UNITA, Pinochet, Afghanistan, etc), but this is only a reflection of the general ultra-Left tendencies of how the party governed at home. I generally think, we need a more all-sided approach to the history of revolutionary China. Leftists tend to always interpret China through the lens of "Deng=revisionist" that obscures more than it illuminates about the struggles in the party, and how the masses have and continue to relate to the CCP. Truth is, even "Khrushchev=revisionist" often obscures a lot more than it illuminates about that period of Soviet history (yes, he was a revisionist, but what did that actually mean in a real, practical sense in terms of foreign and domestic policy?).

These are questions I think serious Marxist-Leninists are only beginning to explore. We should look more closely at the anti-revisionist movement. It contains the best of communist theory, but it does contain theoretical errors and habits of thinking that can lead to mistakes.

[PilesOfDeadNazis]

no. the cultural revolution was a forced way to destroy chinese history and make people forget about the glory of ancient china.
So you(a Communist) are saying that ancient, feudal China was glorious and should be considered so by the workers and/or those oppressed by such a system? Exactly what is the good in teaching that an oppressive hierarchy is glorious or honorable when trying to build Socialism? I would think that holding something like that in such high regards would be counter-productive.

I might have read too much in to the post, however.

[el_chavista]

You may want to take a look at Kasama's articles:

Mao’s Cultural Revolution Pt. 1: Seeding Machine for Revolution (http://kasamaproject.org/2008/11/10/maos-cultural-revolution-pt-1-seeding-machine-for-revolution/)

Mao’s Cultural Revolution Pt. 2: The Sweep of A Revolution, 1966-1976 (http://kasamaproject.org/2008/11/18/maos-cultural-revolution-pt-2-the-sweep-of-a-revolution-1966-1976/)

Mao’s Cultural Revolution Pt. 3: A Startling Theoretical Leap (http://kasamaproject.org/2008/11/29/mao%e2%80%99s-cultural-revolution-pt-3-a-startling-theoretical-leap/)

Mao’s Cultural Revolution Pt 4: Radical Changes in Culture (http://kasamaproject.org/2008/12/03/maos-cultural-revolution-pt-4-radical-changes-in-culture/)

Mao’s Cultural Revolution Pt 5. Deep Among the People (http://kasamaproject.org/2008/12/11/maos-cultural-revolution-pt-5-deep-among-the-people/)

[kasama-rl]

Mao didn't end the cultural revolution, it went on until his death.

The hightide of mass upsurges and takeovers died down after 1968 -- but the conflict and the revolution itself continued without a clear resolution (which was part of the problem).

And unfortunately, the disappearance of Mao, from the scene, tipped the balance in a terrible way in 1976, allowing his enemies to seize power and rather quickly restore capitalism (under the banner of modernization).

[Roach]

For an non-maoist but still anti-revisionist view of the Cultural Revolution read the china chapter of Enver Hoxha's Imperialism and the Revolution avaible at Marxists.org(I would posts the link here but I dont have enough posts).