Cultural Revolution in China

In 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a political campaign that convulsed China for a decade. Ostensibly aimed at purging "bourgeois" and "counter-revolutionary" elements from the Communist Party and society, it unleashed mass violence, destroyed countless cultural artifacts, and disrupted education and the economy. It remains one of the most consequential and contested episodes in modern Chinese history, and its shadow still shapes how the Party handles its own past.

The roots lay in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962), whose failures contributed to a catastrophic famine. Mao's standing within the leadership was weakened, and pragmatic officials such as Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping took greater control of economic policy. Mao feared that the revolution was losing momentum, that bureaucracy was hardening into a privileged class, and that China might follow the Soviet Union's path of revisionism. Historians debate how far his motives were ideological and how far they were about reasserting personal power; most see both at work.

The campaign opened in mid-1966 with attacks on writers and intellectuals and a Party directive that set out its aims. Mao encouraged students to form Red Guard groups, and young people across the country denounced teachers, officials, and anyone labeled a class enemy. Schools and universities closed. Red Guards attacked the "Four Olds" (old customs, culture, habits, and ideas), ransacking temples, libraries, and homes. Senior figures, including Liu Shaoqi, were purged, and Liu died in custody in 1969. As rival factions fought each other, each claiming loyalty to Mao, violence spread and in places approached civil war. In 1968 the army was used to restore order, and millions of urban youths were sent to the countryside in the "down to the countryside" movement.

The most intense phase subsided by the late 1960s, but political struggle continued until Mao's death in 1976, followed shortly by the arrest of the radical leaders later called the Gang of Four. Estimates of deaths vary widely, commonly ranging from several hundred thousand to over a million, and tens of millions are thought to have been persecuted, imprisoned, or displaced. Reliable figures are hard to establish because records remain restricted.

The consequences were profound. A generation lost years of schooling, historic sites and artworks were destroyed, and trust in institutions and neighbors was badly damaged. Under Deng Xiaoping, the Party in 1981 officially declared the Cultural Revolution a disaster, while placing the primary blame on Mao's errors and the radical leaders. The reforms that followed, beginning in 1978, were partly a reaction to its chaos. Public discussion in China remains limited, and the period is still debated by scholars and survivors alike.