Mao – Debunking Myths of China

Urbanization: Chinese Cultural Revolution

cmathon / April 7, 2014May 6, 2015 / Cultural Revolution, Urbanization

By Claire Mathon, Tommy Hauver and Michael Tan

Many societies undergo events that have profound effects on their culture. In China, this event is regarded as the Cultural Revolution. Between 1965 and 1976, Mao attempted to reassert his authority over China through implementation of his beliefs because he feared that China was moving in an inegalitarian direction. Mao was heavily influenced by similar events in the Soviet Union and made the decision to move toward a more ideologically pure society, as the Soviets did. (Cultural).

The objective of the Cultural Revolution was to get rid of old ideas and customs in order to make education, art, and literature more in line with Communist ideology. Anything that displayed feudal or bourgeois ideals was destroyed. Mao was essentially attempting to create a society in which there was no gap between urban and rural, rich and poor, and laborers and intellectuals. (Cultural Revolution)

In an effort to close this gap, many young Chinese were sent from cities to work in the countryside. In fact, the Chinese government ordered that one teenager from every urban household move to the countryside to work on the farms. (CNN: Tracy You) This deprived many young people from receiving educations in the city. Interestingly enough, this period of time in China showed an extreme urban-to-rural migration, or reverse migration, for the Chinese youth. However, soon after the Cultural Revolution, urban populations began to increase again due to an increase in employment opportunities in cities. (Britannica: Consequences of the Cultural Revolution)

This photo was taken in 1967 and shows two Chinese citizens being branded as “Capitalist Roader” and subjected to physical abuse in front of the public. Source

Photo taken by 蒋少武 (translation: Shaowu Jiang)

It is estimated that 1.5 million people were killed during the Cultural Revolution and millions of others suffered from imprisonment, torture, and humiliation. (Cultural) The long-term effects of the Revolution are still prevalent in China today, particularly in Chinese villages. The traditional village social structure was severely affected. Peasants were encouraged to seize landlords’ fields and other property, which was an effort by the government to strengthen support from the poor. Land was distributed equally among all social classes, and in the process, all traditions of the villages’ social structure were lost. The Cultural Revolution paved the way for urbanization, which ultimately transformed village culture. People were forced to move to cities because they could no longer sustain themselves in the villages. They left behind their history, their tradition, and their legacy because the country made such a dramatic shift toward a more urbanized society.

Remnants of a banner from the Cultural Revolution in Anhui Province. Photo taken by: Chang Liu

The Cultural Revolution: A Grand Revamp of China or Mao’s Greatest Mess

cstachurski / November 29, 2012May 6, 2015 / Assessing China's History, Cultural Revolution

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.

China: Neighbours are Watching by Sylvain Labeste

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.