RSU Cultural Revolution 12/16/15 3:38pm

History is not just about a story of events filled with facts and dates, it is a
weapon to be used in the hands of the working class.

This demonstrates the importance and centrality of the Mass Line. Learning history (facts and
dates) in order to teach history (propaganda) with an eye towards inspiring the masses to act.

4 Main actors with distinct and competing interests

Students (Red Guards)

Workers
Peasants
Capitalist Roaders
The Party/PLA (Mao)

Domestic Context

Great Leap Forward (1957)

Attempt to move from feudal agricultural country to modern industrialized state

Collectivization - combine farms through mass campaigns - create enthusiasm for

socialism (vs. Stalin and coercion needed)

By 1958 - 750k collective farms merged into 24k peoples communes (5k
households per commune)

Farms included education facilities, blacksmiths, chemists (creating fertilizers) -

basically a communal city

Confucian influences on popular mind state - Mandate of Heaven Hierarchy (Filial

Piety)

Lack of communication upwards - people dont want to displease superiors - lie

about amount of grain being collected people relocated from vital agricultural industries
to vital industrial areas, grain was redistributed accordingly there was also massive
drought and bad weather conditions that could not be predicted - Perfect storm for
famine

Mao takes responsibility and suffers political setback resulting in loss of party influence

Successes of Leap

Communalization of farms masses exposed to methods of cooperation and socialism

 Huge response of masses to mass mobilization
Millions experience different projects and their positive effects - irrigation, roads, canals
Women not restricted to home, given leadership, mobilized, "Women Hold up Half the
Heavens"

Deng and Liu Shaoqi Empowered in place of Mao

Draft 70 Articles for regulation of industry - managers and individuals given incentives -
reintroduction of piece-work and profit motivation of industries - collective farms reduced to
more family sized (restricted to 5%, raised to 12%) - mass institutions defunded (local industries
supporting communal institutions like blacksmiths, stores etc)

These policies produce a sharp divide between countryside (poverty, ignorance, backwardness)
and city (urban elites, intellectuals going to university)

Mao sees this as China being moved from socialist road to Capitalist road

Mao with little power, is marginalized by Deng and allies

International Context

Sino-Soviet Split (1960-61)

Kruschev speech on Cult of Personality Many good communists died, we should

destalinize. - Mao cant openly break at first although he disagrees
USSR critical of PRC after Great Leap - Soviets withdrew industrial and technical
experts and advisors forcing China to develop its own administrators. Projects dependent
on Soviets left uncompleted
PRC/Albania vs USSR/Yugo - USSR aids India against PRC Tense Border

Goals of Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Anti-Revisionism - Marxist principles demand progress towards liberation

Revisionism = revising principles of revolution into principles of reform (instead of

saying we need to run our own factories they say that workers should be treated better by
their bosses). Deng's economic reforms that followed the Great Leap introduced various market
reforms and were the first examples of Revisionism domestically.
 International Revisionism = Stalin created only temp alliances to solidify Socialist areas
of control. Kruschev advocated for peaceful coexistence between the USSR and the USA. This
was contrary to the revolutionary overthrow of Capitalism on global scale and the removal of the
exploitation of workers.

4 Clean Ups (1961-62) *Politics, Economics, Organization, Ideology*

Mao: "We will come to know all that we dont know" - statement against technocracy

Goal was to create Socialist Education (Replace old ideas with new Socialist ones)

Deng and Liu block attempts to reform education and implement specialists instead

Politicization of People's Liberation Army

1965: Play criticizing new PLA involvement in politics gets attacked by Jiang Qing

5 Man Group says this is just academic and artistic, not really about politics - people
reject this

Cultural Revolution Group established after previous one dissolved - They initiate the
May 16 Big Character Campaign

May 25 - Philosophy teacher writes big letter posters saying university officials were stifling
debate and posts them up everywhere. Officials tear them down - Mao finds out - encourages all
to speak out against corrupt officials - Posters spread across the nation Ability to post up your
political views: support, attacks, polemics
Mao writes one titled called Bombard the Headquarters

May 29 - High School Students write 2 letters: Red Guards - Red = Communist, Guard =
guarding against capitalist restoration - Group are created throughout the country at all levels
from elementary to middle to high school to college

Grassroots movement - disagreement was natural - how to interpret Mao and his
thought, who was and was not a Capitalist roader - Included everything from street gangs
controlling blocks to political street fights about Party lines on Vietnam or Albania. - Often got
violent

Capitalist Roaders attack this movement - Deng: "Better to buy than manufacture and
better to rent than to buy" - Dengs group says yes, discuss, as long as it doesnt effect your school
or job. Mao said fuck that shit: If people arent at your meetings, its more your problems than
theirs. Why should students study if the teacher doesnt do their job, sleep is more productive,
gives them more energy to go out and act. Only respect the teacher if they are actually teaching.
- Mao opposed to technical/efficiency centered political line of Deng

Mao calls for Red Guards to come to Beijing - paid for transportation and accomodation

Red Guards were much different than contemporary USA hippies/radicals

Soldiers give students rides, the two exchange, discuss experiences
communal experience
Other students walk the whole way - want to expierience Revolutionary
history - "The Great Link Up"

Mao proposes 4 Great Rights as alternative to bourgeois "free speech" - Right to speak out
freely, to air views fully (not be cut short), write big character posters, and to hold great debates
Contrast with USA Free Speech - Anti-War activists raided
What would happen if we wrote our views and posted them everywhere on
the walls of a city? What if there was a debate taking place that spilled out into the streets about
revolution? How long until tear gas and arrests?

What happens if Red Guards get out of control? (there is no police restricting radical politics)
- Public humiliations - Verbal (caused some to commit suicide out of shame and disgrace) and
physical attacks - PLA told not to get involved with students (Red Guards)

Negatives

Smashed monuments and cultural artifacts - Who are we to tell Chinese people what their
culture is worth. If they decide a new society is more important than past that had
dominated them for centuries. - Democracy in that it is right if you get enough people to
smash shit or open school
Privileged left class to be in Red Guards

Positives of Red Guards

Mass Movement
Think of new ways to practice socialism - everyone from peasants to professors
Struggle sessions encouraged self criticism within Red Guards and outside
o Including Prison guards
1967 - January Storm

Lin Biao (New leader of PLA) & Jiang lead expansion of criticism of corrupt
officials through Red Guards

"Government grinds to stand still" Does this matter if goal is communism? Efficiency
not a priority over workers participation/revolution. (Matters little if government institutions do
not function if those institutions do not have a revolutionary role towards proletarian liberation)

Red Guards raid PLA

By late '67 there are Red Guards fighting reactionaries, each other, the party, and the
army. Armed street fights against each other.

1968 Move to restore order

International Climate (Sino-Soviet Split)

Prague Spring made PRC nervous

Border skirmishes and raids, troops massed on borders
Declaration of USSR as state capitalist

Red Guards formally dissolved, replaced with Back to the Countryside Campaign

Youre being too wild, need to recenter yourself and understand struggle from peasant
perspective. Some go and enjoy, some are forced to go for reeducation, others refuse and keep
fighting

1969 Production resumed to defend PRC from USSR

Lin Biao dies in 1971, succession battle ensues

Zhou Enlai is Right Wing for normalization/stabilization with US in order to not

have to fight both US and USSR
Gang of Four is Left Wing in support of Cultural Revolution
Mao mediates between the two and ends up nominating Hua Guafeng (1976).
Letter of confidence written by dying Mao

1978: Deng Xiaoping with support of PLA arrests Gang of Four, moving China to
Capitalist road

Privatization of state industries Multinational Corporations allowed entry, bring

sweatshop efficiency. Ownership goes from private to being owned by China after 10
 years. Ex. Audi opened factory, ten years later, China has car that is mass produced that
uses all the same parts.

What could have been differently?

Establishment of more mass organizations that could

act as democratic institutions to create dual power