Chinese History- The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Since I'm going to China this summer, I've been doing a lot of research about China and it's history. One thing that I encountered was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Not many people know about it, but it's one of the most important events in Chinese history. Still, there is an uncertainty of why it happened.

The Cultural Revolution occurred from 1966 to 1976, and occurred mainly because Mao Zedong wanted to show everyone that he was the all-powerful leader. To do this, Mao repressed people who he thought rejected him and his ideas, and he killed innumerable amounts of innocent people who he thought to be a threat. One of Mao’s theories is that a privileged class had risen in China, and these consisted of educated people. Mao thought that the working class, the proletariat, should have some power and should control society. Thus, Mao told his followers to start brutally murdering and injuring teachers, scientists, economists, and other educated people. Mao wanted to create a classless society, a society in which no class had more benefits than another.

After Mao declared his desire, two main groups were organized. The first was the Red Guard, which consisted of a bunch of students and youths who fought against educated people, often killing their own teachers. By doing this, it often sparked a cascade of wrath in which people started killing others for no good reason. Although the main function of the Red Guards was to teach people about Mao’s ideas, they became especially brutal to those who opposed Mao. Those students who opposed Mao in the end were not educated and China lost much of educated people through the Cultural Revolution.

One story during the Cultural Revolution deals with a little boy, and he describes China as turning from “black to white.” He said everything became chaotic. His father was sent away to the countryside to work, and the boy had to fend for himself. He explained that he grew up quite quickly because he had to understand what was going on to survive. However, stories of Chinese people during this time aren’t very numerous because the Chinese government does not encourage talk about this time period. Many Chinese do not want to remember.