Zhihao Cao

Prof. Mood
China in Transition
Week 3
Cultural Revolution
Combining the Saich reading and resources from outside of
the class, I was able to understand the potential reasons and the
possible rationale behind Mao to launch the Cultural Revolution. As a
conscious effort on Maos end to step down from the front line and
receive criticism following the catastrophic GLF, Liu Shaoqi and
Deng Xiaoping together headed the office and took charge of
redirecting the path and get the country back on its feet.
In reality, Mao was unpleased with the way his old comrades
govern the country and controlled the social movement in an effort
to combat class struggle. As a result, Mao decided to mobilize the
mass thats mostly prone to agitation the students. Swept by the
two-line struggle between socialism and revisionism, and mostly,
Maos overly concern about his power being compromised, he
decided to instigate a student-led movement to overturn
bureaucracy and state administration at the time.
The text wasnt able to cover a lot details regarding some of
the vivid anecdotes on the purge of Liu Shaoqi and many other high
esteemed intellectuals and party leaders who didnt side with Mao
to start a radical campaign against corruption and
bureaucratization. However, imagine if Liu Shaoqi, the second most
powerful leader of the party ended up being vilified and labeled as
biggest capitalist roader, traitor and lastly, killed by the party,
what were the results for thousands of many other people?
The students enthusiasm for revolution was completely
unleashed by Mao and his radical non-intervention policy. The
country was thrown into such turmoil that even when the party
became cognizant of the complete catastrophe and social upheaval,
the Red Guards couldnt be stopped. Eventually, Mao had to utilize
military to pacify the disastrous situation.
Reading about this part of history gives me a lot of chills and I
am so mesmerized by this particular part of history that took place
during the years of social turmoil between the years of Anti-rightist
movement, GLF and all the way up to Cultural Revolution. I was
never able to learn this part of history back in China when I was in
middle school and high school. Therefore, revisiting the untold
stories and going under the rug of the now popular and positive
narrative that justified all these inhumane atrocities CCP and Mao
had done to the country and its people has been eye-opening and
liberating.