Mao Zedong

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Mao Zedong

• The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
• The Prelude

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A brief overview 1962-73 (The next two lectures)

• End of GLF loss of power to Liu Shaoqi and Deng
  Xiaoping
• Plan to make Mao figurehead
• Mao initiated Socialist Education Campaign
• This grew into Cultural Revolution (1966), aim to
  totally revise Chinese culture, key role of the
  Red Guards and youths

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Aftermath of the Great Leap Forward

• red vs. expert controversy in leadership
• Peng Dehuai criticised 3 aspects
• Damage to long-term economic development
• Rejection Soviet development model
• Obvious decline moral and efficiency

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Reversal Great Leap Forward

• Lius policy changes
• Reintroduction material incentives
• Efficiency
• Technical expertise vs. ideology
• Relaxation central planning
• Strict discipline
• Reorganise party

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Socialist Education Campaign

• 3 interrelated campaigns
• Educational campaign
• Rectification campaign
• Purification movement PLA
• Mao open investigation
• Liu covert infiltration
• Mao mass education movement
• Liu party-controlled rectification operation

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Toward a Cultural Revolution

• Only PLA campaign successful
• Lin Biao Minister Defence key role
• "Chairman Mao is a genius, everything the
  Chairman says is truly great one of the
  Chairman's words will override the meaning of ten
  thousand of ours.
• Little Red Book

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• The Chinese People's Liberation Army is the Great
  School of Mao Zedong Thought

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What was its purpose?

• Fundamental change in the way the Chinese people
  viewed the world
• Aim to totally replace older feudal attitudes and
  to replace with socialist attitudes
• Maos bid for power?
• Lin Biao and Jiang Qings ambitions?
• Wu Hans play key (Hai Rui Peng Dehuai,
  Emperor Mao)

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Official History of GPCR

• The official historical view of the Communist
  Party of China on the Cultural Revolution and
  Mao's role within it is incorporated in the
  Resolution on Certain Questions in the History
  of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's
  Republic of China adopted on June 27, 1981.
• In this document, it is stated that "Chief
  responsibility for the grave Left' error of the
  cultural revolution,' an error comprehensive in
  magnitude and protracted in duration, does indeed
  lie with Comrade Mao Zedong" and that the
  Cultural Revolution was carried out "under the
  mistaken leadership of Mao Zedong who was used by
  the counterrevolutionaries Lin Biao and Jiang
  Qing and brought serious disaster and turmoil to
  the Party and the Chinese people.

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Marx and Mao

• Both agree that communist revolution requires
  cultural revolution
• Marx oppression change attitude
• Mao - revolution occurred in China BEFORE the
  majority had changed their attitudes

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Why a need for Cultural Revolution?

• Failure of Great Leap masses capitalist
• 1962 Mao tries to implement the Socialist
  Education Movement re-educate masses
• Liu and Deng against, unrealistic while
  countryside still struggling
• 1963, Mao appeals directly to people
• Party cadres openly criticise themselves, but
  masses able to criticise them too

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Result of the SEM

• 3 advantages for Mao
• Still had power to initiate new political
  campaigns
• Influenced those outside the army
• Made clear Maos suspicions of the other members
  of the party leadership

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Key aspects of the Cultural Revolution

• Personality Cult (strongest 1968)
• Amongst the young in particular
• Cult built around Mao
• Deep sense of gratitude to Mao

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8 August 1966

• 16 point decision
• Red Guards destroy the four olds
• Thought
• Culture
• Customs
• Habits

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Controlling the media

• Power of art and literature
• Art and literature political
• Only character development was when all
  traditional bases for friendship were abandoned
  and replaced by shared class consciousness

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Emulation Campaigns

• Socialist heroes for the people to emulate

• 1962 Lei Feng appeared, orphaned by brutal
  landlords and Japanese aggression and saved by
  communist forces, had developed a profound love
  for his fellow proletarians

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Ideological Trainings

• Mass meetings held
• In schools and colleges students discussed the
  wisdom of Maos words and why he was always
  correct
• Maos role in the revolution became the subject
  of plays, films and novels
• Newspapers dedicated front pages to his sayings

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The Education System

• Indoctrination in the classroom began with
  primary education
• History taught to highlight the wrongs of the
  feudal past and western imperialism
• Students taught to have unbounded love for
  comrades and hatred for class enemies

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The Education System

• All children taught to aspire to being young
  pioneers, the first rung towards party membership
• Enrollment as a young pioneer was a major event
  for a student and family
• All students were encouraged to admit their
  failings in public in an attempt to become better
  socialists

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• Completely Smash the Liu-Deng Counter-Revolutionar
  y Line, 1967

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• Smash the old world/Establish a new world.

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• Let the new socialist performing arts occupy
  every stage

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• Proletarian revolutionary rebels unite!

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• Field for criticism

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• Dazhai, Maoist Chinas most famous agricultural
  collective

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• Handpainted poster, common during the GPCR

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• Youths in countryside

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• Still Awake in the Middle of the Night