1. POLI 324: Asian Politics
Dr. Kevin Lasher

2. GREAT PROLETARIAN
CULTURAL REVOLUTON

3. Mao’s Retirement,
Mao retreats to “semi-retirement” to deal with theoretical issues after disaster of Great Leap Forward
Pragmatists Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and others return to moderate economic policies of 1950s
Return to normal collective farms with private plots
Economic recovery

4. Mao’s Retirement,
Mao is restless and unhappy with the return to pragmatism and bureaucratization
Mao is “marginalized”
Feels he has one more chance to reshape his revolution
Plotting his “return to power”
Turns 70 in 1963

5. Socialist Education Movement, 1962-65
Mass campaign to combat bureaucracy, corruption, growing capitalism, improve relations between cadres and people
Pragmatists are able to minimize the negative effects of this campaign

6. Cult of Mao
Defense Minister Lin Biao and PLA promote intensified “cult of Mao” in which Mao assumes god-like status
Culminates in publishing of hundreds of millions of copies of “Mao’s Little Red Book” (Quotations from Chairman Mao), beginning in 1964
Previous “adoration” of Mao taken to new, extreme level

7. Cult of Mao
People collected and traded Mao badges like baseball cards

8. Cult of Mao
“He is the People’s
Great Savior”

9. Cult of Mao

10. Return of Mao
Formation of Cultural Revolution Group in May 1966 consisting of Mao loyalists, including Jiang Qing (Mrs. Mao)
Replaced Politburo Standing Committee as top body for a few years

11. Return of Mao
July 1966 Mao swims in Yangtze River to show he is healthy and ready for action

12. Beginning of Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

13. What was GPCR? 1966-1969 (core of disruption)
(until Mao’s death)

14. What was GPCR?
“To struggle against and overthrow those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic authorities and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes, and to transform education, literature and art, and all other parts of the superstructure not in correspondence with the socialist economic base.”
CCP at 11th Plenum, 1966

15. What was GPCR?
An effort to remove old bourgeois-traditional culture and replace it with proletarian-egalitarian-socialist culture (art, education, relationships, thought)
Unleashing of ideological squads to attack and change improper thinking and behavior
Attempt to destroy corrupt party structures and replace them with revolutionary Mao-led structures
Attempt by Mao to return to power and “save” his revolution

16. What was GPCR (Really)?
Re-impose Mao’s policies by unleashing power of youthful masses
Cynical move by Mao loyalists to gain power
Bizarre movement by aging Mao to reassert total control over CCP
Chaos that attacked CCP members and society
Civil war between different Red Guard factions
Mao’s improvisation (PLA steps in to stop chaos)

17. What was GPCR (Really)?
A kind of “madness” that falls upon Chinese society, only partially controlled by Mao

18. Cultural Revolution: Why?
Mao’s concern over nature of his revolution
Mao’s political marginalization
Mao and mass line; Mao and permanent revolution
Pragmatists unable to resist
Mao couldn’t control violence of Red Guards

19. Nature of revolution CCP was bureaucratic and elitist
Less equality under post-GLF policies
Soviet-style “degradation” in China
Need for permanent revolution
Old Mao’s last chance to “get it right”

20. Mao’s Political Marginalizaton
Pragmatists “manipulated” and “limited” Mao
Mao did not really accept his semi-retirement
GPCR was Mao’s way of eliminating pragmatists and returning to full control
Khrushchev (USSR) ousted in 1964

21. Mao and mass line
GLF failed but Mao still believed in power of mass politics
Another super-mass movement
Focus on culture and politics more than economics

22. Pragmatists unable to resist
Supported early Cultural Revolution, just another minor mass movement
Divided and fought back too late
Couldn’t confront Mao, replacing him was “unthinkable”

23. Red Guards
Encouraged by Mao, millions of youth (age 12-21) who created Red Guard units
Originally to attack the four olds – old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas
Eventually attacked party members and civilians (especially teachers)
Split into different factions and attack each other

24. Red Guards
Targets: university professors and administrators, teachers and school administrators, intellectuals, artists, writers, bureaucrats, party members
Red Guards criticized, attacked, tortured and killed “enemies”

25. Red Guards Strange combination of travel, enthusiasm and violence
Main activity from
PLA finally disbands Red Guards and millions are banished to countryside for years or decades
Schools shut down from
A lost generation who were exiled to countryside or shut out of higher education

26. Red Guards
Eventually little logic to targets of Red Guard attacks except opponents of Mao
Identity of different factions eventually loses coherence
How can you determine which Red Guard faction is truly “the most Red”?

27. Mao lost control of Red Guards
Mao created Red Guards with little conception of their function
Red Guards attacked Mao’s enemies but then began to attack each other
Civil war between Red Guard factions from
PLA cracks down and Red Guards sent to countryside in 1969

28. Mao lost control of Red Guards
Millions sent to languish in countryside
Mao discarded Red Guards after they had served his purposes (bring him back to power)

29. Lin Biao Began cult of Mao in early 1960s Defense Minister since 1959
Named Mao’s successor in 1969
PLA nearly replaces CCP (for a time)
Opposed opening to USA
Died in plane crash in mysterious circumstances in 1971
Rumors of anti-Mao coup
Lin’s demise leads to more questioning of Mao’s decision-making

30. Lin Biao
After death of Lin Biao, Mao again calls on pragmatists (Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping) to quell turmoil and bring normalcy back to China
PLA had taken over many functions from discredited and ravaged CCP

31. Nixon Visits China, 1972
US and China begin process of normalization of relations when President Nixon visits China in February 1972
China more worried about military threat from USSR than from USA
“Making peace” with USA while GPCR continues points to the strange nature of the period

32. End of Mao Era,
Sickly Mao plays different factions off one another
Maoists vs. PLA group vs. pragmatists
Delayed power struggle waiting for the death of Mao
Mao dies September 9, 1976

33. What did the Cultural Revolution accomplish?

34. The End