Cultural Revolution, by Patricia M. Thornton.

The decade of the Great proletarian cultural revolution took place in China from 1966 to 1976,
led by the past communist president, Mao Zedong. This historical period remains a sensitive subject in
the history of the Popular Republic of China, as it is seen to be “an extraordinary leftist error” 1according
to the resolution adopted by the Party’s Eleventh central committee in 1981 to close this chapter. In fact,
this resolution was taken seriously as it was the object of a three-year campaign to neglect this period but
also by encouraging Chinese citizens to emit a vast criticism related to it. It is also said that this program
was about determining three types of people, as members of a counter-revolutionary movement which
were ‘followers of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four, those seriously affected by factional ideas, and the
“smashers and grabbers” of the Cultural Revolution”.2
Therefore, the Cultural Revolution had already been mentioned in the 30s in China by the CCP
leadership to deconstruct the cultural norms imposed by the traditional Han, as paternalism and abuse of
power and authority. The program of this revolution, predominantly used as a cultural construction, was
characterized by eliminating illiteracy among the citizens to increase political participation through many
civic activities. In other words, the Mao era wanted to create the perfect Chinese citizens in a stable
society by transforming “illiterate workers and peasants into revolutionary political subjects”3. The main
goal of this revolutionary transformation was about raising the consciousness and education of the worker
population (proletariat), increasing intellectual and political equality among them, according to
communist ideas.
In the 1950s another point of view had been exposed by Mao. From his ideological vision, the
main issue opposing socialism and capitalism in the Chinese society could only be solved by “the method
of discussion, criticism, and reasoning that we can really foster correct ideas and overcome wrong ones”4.
Also, concerning this ideologic duality, according to him, the education of the laboring classes in a
socialist and cultural context would help this societal issue by also encouraging the Soviet model. This
socialist construction (favoring capitalism demolition) has also been stated at a national conference
organized by the Education ministry in 1958, where 5 tasks had been determined to carry the cultural
evolution, “a sweeping nationwide literacy campaign, an expansion of elementary education, the
establishment of agricultural middle schools, improvement of teacher training, and a complete overhaul of
the educational system to meet the needs of socialist construction”5.
However, because of critics, it was during the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962), that the real aim
of the cultural revolution emerged as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In addition to the adult
literacy and cultural gains mentioned previously, the national plan was also based on boosting industrial
and agricultural production, technological and scientific ones to have the opportunity to catch up with
Great Britain in several years. But, the victory of this program was short, as the main objective of the
country became the economic recovery. For instance, the main difference between the 1958 cultural
revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was that the first one was led by “teams of
students and teachers brought literacy and cultural enrichment to workers and the peasantry [...] to
transform them into “peasants with a socialist consciousness and culture”6 and the second one referred to
“vast rustication campaign that dispatched 17 million urban Chinese youths into the countryside to be
reeducated (zai jiaoyu) by the poor and lower-middle peasants “7. Finally, the end of this revolution was
marked in 1989, as a new administrative era with a “depoliticised or anti-political political ideology”.8
From my point of view, if we situate ourselves into this era in China, the Cultural Revolution
which led to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution isn’t that surprising. The need for Mao to educate
the Chinese population, mainly the peasants and workers to increase their empowerment in a political
area could have been legitimate. On contrary, those reforms were mainly left extremist which never
remains good for a government, as we could have seen with the socialist construction among the society,
demolishing capitalism rising. In fact, this revolution was pictured as civilized progress for the
proletarian, but it was a campaign of reeducation for communist indoctrination. Therefore, I understand
why this period is seen as a dark place for Chinese history, as under Mao's authority, the population didn’t
really have a word to say.

1
Patricia M. Thornton, “Cultural revolution”, in Afterlives of Chinese Communism, ed. Christian Sorace, Ivan Franceschini,
Nicholas Loubere. (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), p.55.
2
Thornton, “Cultural revolution”, p.55.
3
Thornton, “Cultural revolution”, p.56.
4
Thornton, “Cultural revolution”, p.57.
5
Thornton, “Cultural revolution”, p.58.
6
Thornton, “Cultural revolution”, p.60.
7
Thornton, “Cultural revolution”, p.60.
8
Thornton, “Cultural revolution”, p.61.