By A. Nichols
Throughout the history of the world each country experiences some number of powerful, influential events that become known for drastically changing societies for better or for worse. These types of events can take many shapes and forms, such as wars or revolutions, and often leave marks that last for decades if not longer in the culture and lives of the people. In the recent history of China the Cultural Revolution had a huge impact, albeit one damaging to the Chinese way of life. Unfortunately, instead of constructively building Chinese society and education system, the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong only caused a great deal of suffering for the people of China.
Mao’s intentions for starting the Cultural Revolution might have been pure at first, but what really happened caused much more harm and destruction to Chinese society then help. Take the inception of the Red Guard, for example. The Red Guard had the potential to serve as a transition from the ancient Chinese way of life filled with traditions and the ways of the past to a more modern China. In reality, the Red Guard corrupted centuries of tradition and respect with modern language, attire, and actions in ways reflected in Elizabeth Perry and Li Xun’s chapter “Revolutionary Rudeness” of the book Twentieth-Century China.
The physical and social changes accompanying the formation of the Red Guard may not have been entirely negative, due to the rapid and moderately radical social changes seen in societies all over the world. However, physical changes introduced with the formation of the “new class” in Chinese society were accompanied with a strong new sense of seeking out and correcting the enemies of Communism. This lead to “an era when children turned on their parents and friends betrayed friends,” as noted by Wasserstrom in his book that addresses China both in the present day and during the period that molded the nation into what it is today.
In addition to bringing about more harm than help to China socially, the education system also served as the target for change provoked by the Cultural Revolution. According to the ideas on which the Cultural Revolution was built upon, citizens should work for the commune however assigned to them in addition to becoming strong and ideal citizens. “The new intellectuals must be able to wield a hoe as well as a pen,” and in order to insure that this happened students were sent out to work on farms while their universities became open and available to all through the elimination of entrance exams. Author Jan Wong in her memoir Red China Blues retells her experience of this era, demonstrating the true chaos that ran society during the 1960’s and 70’s under Mao.
It does not take much to see the Cultural Revolution was more harm than help. Be it the nature of Communism or the manner in which it was instituted in China, Mao’s Cultural Revolution only placed China farther behind in modernization.
