The Cultural Revolution in China
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The late 1960s in China was known as the period of the Cultural Revolution, and this was an attempt on the part of certain central Communist Party members to weed out dissent and to exert a tighter control. Jonathan D. Spence discusses the issue beginning with the leadership and the organizations headed by this leadership and examines the broad intentions of these leaders in launching the Cultural Revolution, noting that the leadership had goals in terms of altering first the political purposes of literature and the performing arts. What began as a push for the socialist purification of art would become pressure for the socialist purification of all aspects of society and life as well as a drawing of lines between competing groups and an effort to weed out all dissent and all enemies, real or perceived. China has undergone several periods of revolution and reform in this century, constantly redefining itself within certain parameters. The major revolution of the era was that in 1949 after a long period of conflict. This was a major break with the past, shifting from the imperial history of China to a new era under Communism, but even then the past was not simply cast out and ties remained to older philosophies. Since that time, Chinese communism has been redefined in several waves, with the most recent being labeled economic reform as China follows the rest of the world into a form of tentative capitalism unlike anything attempted since 1949. It is too early to be c
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people's thought and behavioral patterns (Hsu 696-697).
By 1966 the Cultural Revolution was a full-scale national movement in which counterrevolutionaries within the party, along with representatives of the bourgeoisie in academic and cultural circles, had been identified as targets for attack. This was the start of the mass phase of the Cultural Revolution in which power at the center passed into the hands of radical ideologues and anarchy prevailed. The rapid expansion of the Red Guard Movement showed the success of Mao's goal of striking a responsive chord with China's youth. Some, though, saw this as an opportunity to vent their frustrations about inequities in the educational system or about clogged channels of mobility after graduation. Others used the Red Guards as an instrument of vengeance against teachers they disliked or classmates they envied. Many indeed only went along for the thrill because they were intoxicated with the power and uninhibited by authority (Yuan xxvii-xix).
The Maoists proclaimed the Cultural Revolution a victory because it reestablished the supremacy of Mao's authority and of his thought and ideology, and they deemed these as necessary to China's progress. The Cultural Revolution benefited
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2343
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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