The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

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The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

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Cultural Revolution and the study of
non-democratic regimes

• Lack of institutional checks on political
  authority readily allows extreme policies
• Lack of institutionalized mechanisms to address
  policy debates, leadership transitions, and mass
  participation in politics can lead to violence,
  instability
• Risks of violating separation of civilian and
  military leadership
• Undermines military professionalism
• Increases threat of military coup
• Demonstration of interplay between domestic
  politics and foreign policy

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How did Cultural Revolution (1966-76) Proceed?

• Early 1960s Prelude
• Mao increasingly concerned about revisionism
• Mao supports series of campaigns to reassert
  Maoist values and priorities
• 1966 CCP Central Committee 16-point Decision
• launches mass struggle to topple those in power
  who are taking the capitalist road
• 1966-69 Mass Phase
• unleashing of students and masses against CCP
• Conservative and Radical Red Guards
• Ended by sending 12-18 million youth to rural
  areas
• 1969-71 Civil-Military Conflict
• struggle between PLA and CCP
• Soviet threat Brezhnev Doctrine
• 1971-76 Party Conflict
• US-China rapproachment Shanghai Communique 1972
• struggle for dominance within CCP

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Prelude to the Cultural Revolution

• factors shaping Maos thinking
• revisionism in Soviet Union
• conflict over correct socialist path
• revisionism in China
• capitalist tendencies
• question of succession to Mao
• dissatisfaction with Liu Shaoqi
• ? Mao is worried about his legacy

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Prelude to the Cultural Revolution

• Series of campaigns to reassert Maoist values and
  priorities
• Socialist Education Movement, 1963-66
• revive commune system in agriculture
• Learn from the PLA under Minister of Defense Lin
  Biao, 1963
• red (Cult of MaoLittle Red Book) and expert
  (nukes)
• Other campaigns in health, education, and culture
• Health exdoctors to the countryside
• Education exintegrating manual labor into
  curriculum
• Culture Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan
• ? Mao perceived that these campaigns failed
  because of obstructionism by Communist party
  apparatus

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Primary Source DiscussionSixteen-Point Decision
August 1966

• What is the goal of the Great Proletarian
  Cultural Revolution?
• Who is intended to carry out this revolution?
• Who is expected to resist?
• Is there evidence of a power struggle? Policy
  struggle?
• What is significant about the approach to policy
  or personnel change in terms of organizational
  politics?

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Primary Source DiscussionSixteen-Point Decision
August 1966

• What is the goal of the Great Proletarian
  Cultural Revolution?
• to topple those in power taking the capitalist
  road
• To attack 4 olds (customs, habits, culture,
  thinking)
• Who is intended to carry out this revolution?
• the broad sectors of workers, peasants,
  soldiers
• Who is expected to resist?
• those in the Party taking the capitalist road
• Is there evidence of a power struggle? Policy
  struggle?
• What is significant about the approach to policy
  or personnel change in terms of organizational
  politics?

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What was the Cultural Revolution all about?

• At the elite level
• power struggle over succession to Mao
• i.e., who would shape the future?
• struggle over correct vision/policies
• i.e., what would the future look like?

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Cultural Revolution Poster

• "Revolutionary factions of the proletariat, unite
  and arise. Struggle against the power of the
  black Tianjin Communist Party Committee."Proclai
  med by the United Revolutionary Rebel Committee
  of Artists and Writers, 1967

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Battle Lines DrawnOverview of the Political
Spectrum as of 1969Mao
Radicals in Cult Rev Group PLA Surviving Moderates Ousted Moderates
Maos secretary Chen Boda Lin Biao / Zhou Enlai Liu Shaoqi (d. 1969)
/ Jiang Qing Deng Xiaoping
Kang Sheng Trained by NKVD Chen Yun
Zhang Chunqiao Shanghai cult apparat Others
Yao Wenyuan Shanghai lit crit
1967 house arrest
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What was the Cultural Revolution all about?Mass
Phase

• At the mass level
• Conservative (Scarlet)
• and Radical Red Guards
• opportunity for people to challenge
• social and economic cleavages
• created by the socialist system in China

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What was the Cultural Revolution all about?Mass
Phase

• Why so violent?
• Politics as only channel for social mobility
• Only opportunity to express discontent
• Maos charisma
• Transcendent mission of revolution
• Ends used to justify means

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Review How did Cultural Revolution (1966-76)
Proceed?

• 1966-69 Mass Phase
• unleashing of students and masses against CCP
• Conservative and Radical Red Guards
• Collapse of party organization in some places
• Phase ended by sending youth to rural areas
• Mao Red Guards had failed him.
• 12-18 million sent to countryside by 1971

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Exercise of Power 3-in-1 revolutionary
committees

• Address collapse of party authority
• Restore order, restore production, govern
• 1 PLA (army)
• 2 CCP (uncorrupted party cadres)
• 3 Representatives of the masses

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Exercise of Power 3-in-1 revolutionary
committees

• PLA itself being drawn into conflict
• Local commanders closer to CCP
• Risk of splitting militarycivil war?

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Review How did Cultural Revolution (1966-76)
Proceed?

• 1969-71 Civil-Military Conflict
• Struggle between PLA and CCP
• CCP
• Seeks to rebuild itself
• Seeks to reassert primary of party over army
• Soviet threat Brezhnev Doctrine
• PLA, Lin Biao
• Dual threats from US, USSR
• Aggrandizes PLA
• CCP
• Talks with Kissinger (1971)
• PRC UN seat (1971)

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Review How did Cultural Revolution (1966-76)
Proceed?

• 1971-76 Party Conflict Phase
• US-China rapproachment
• Shanghai Communique (1972)
• Struggle for dominance within CCP

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Conflict over Policy Radical Maoist Vision for
China

• Socialist new born things
• education health
• industry culture
• agriculture party affairs
• Learn from Daqing (industry)
• Learn from Dazhai (agriculture)
• May 7th Cadre Schools (party affairs)

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Conflict over Policy Moderate Vision for China

• Four Modernizations (January 1975)
• Agriculture
• Industry
• Defense
• Science and technology
• Restore material incentives
• Introduce foreign technology
• Emphasize expertise
• Increase managerial authority

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Overview of the Political Spectrum as of 1969(
in Gang of Four, arrested 1976)Mao (d. 1976)
Radicals in Cult Rev Group PLA Surviving Moderates Ousted Moderates
Chen Boda Lin Biao (d.1971) Zhou Enlai (d. 1976) Liu Shaoqi (d. 1969)
Jiang Qing Deng Xiaoping (V.Ch MAC75) Mao brought back to reorganize PLA
Kang Sheng Chen Yun
Zhang Chunqiao Others
Yao Wenyuan Mao Loyalists
Wang Hongwen Factory sec guard (Politburo 1973) Hua Guofeng (Whatever Faction)
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Themes in analysis of Cultural Revolution

• Challenge norm of civilian control over military
  party controls the gun
• 9th CCP Central Committee (1969) 45 military
• 8th CCP Central Committee (1956) 29 military
• 1975 Mao brought Deng Xiaoping back to reorganize
  PLA
• PLA Chief of Staff
• Military Affairs Commission, V.Chairman
• Politburo Standing Committee, V. Chairman
• Interplay of domestic and foreign policy
• Sino-US-Soviet relations
• Doctrinal disputes
• Soviet threat (Brezhnev Doctrine, border clashes)
  ? bigger PLA or turn to USA

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Results of Cultural Revolution Impact on
Chinese Communist Party

• Organization of CCP undermined
• Absence of institutionalized succession processes
  dramatized
• Liu Shaoqi
• Lin Biao (Maos close comrade-in-arms and
  successor)
• Gang of Four
• Deng Xiaoping
• Legitimacy of CCP undermined

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Results of Cultural Revolution Impact on
Chinese Society

• Youth
• Lost educational opportunities
• Personal tragedies
• By 1971, 12-18 million sent-down youth
• Workers (urban residents)
• Wages stagnant
• Production very inefficient
• Personal tragedies
• Farmers (rural residents)
• Incomes stagnant
• Output per capita flat
• Society as whole
• Loss of cultural patrimony
• Estimated 10 million deaths

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Any good results from Cultural Revolution?

• Broad-based provision of basic needs
• Unintended consequencesparty/society more open
  to liberalizing reforms?
• Egalitarian starting point for reform
• Opportunities for women?debate

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Looking Back at the Cultural Revolution

• "The dream that we had at that time is not
  finished. I don't regret that time. We made a
  sacrifice for our ideals."
• Shanghai Businessman
• "The Cultural Revolution was a barbaric and
  ignorant phenomenon. You couldn't have your own
  thoughts. If you didn't participate you would be
  criticized.... It was a Red Terror."
• Retired Government Worker
• Source http//www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/ordi
  narylife/intro_new.html

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Cultural Revolution and the study of
non-democratic regimes

• Lack of institutional checks on political
  authority readily allows extreme policies
• Lack of institutionalized mechanisms to address
  policy debates, leadership transitions, and mass
  participation in politics can lead to violence,
  instability
• Risks of violating separation of civilian and
  military leadership
• Undermines military professionalism
• Increases threat of military coup, civil war
• Demonstration of interplay between domestic
  politics and foreign policy

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Totalitarianism defined

• Single charismatic leader
• Single dominant party
• Utopian, forward-looking ideology
• State control over all organized activity
• Mobilized participation
• Popular fear instilled by arbitrary terror