Lucy Hornby
May 17, 2016
Fifty years on from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which unleashed a decade of violence across the country and caused more than 1m deaths, China has reminded citizens it was a “total mistake”.
During Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution, which he saw as a path towards absolute power, as many as 36m people were persecuted and up to 1.5m were killed. At its vanguard were millions of young “red guards” who attacked the country’s institutions, including the party, and worshipped Mao as his personality cult took root.
Mao, who died in 1976, has since been judged “70 per cent correct and 30 per cent wrong”.
An editorial in Tuesday’s People’s Daily, mouthpiece for the Communist Party, revived the party’s original harsh verdict on the anniversary of the revolution as it sought to quell a wave of leftist nostalgia for a ruinous decade that nearly tore the Communist party apart.
“History has proven that the cultural revolution was a complete mistake, it is not and could never be a revolution or social progress in any sense,” it read. “We won’t and will never allow a mistake like the ‘cultural revolution’ to happen again.”
The party had braced itself for critical recollections from intellectuals and others hurt in the movement, but appeared unprepared for the wave of revulsion triggered by a lavish celebration of the cultural revolution held in Beijing earlier this month.
The revolution, in addition to depriving a generation of an education, indirectly put China on the path towards today’s status as one of the world’s most vibrant economies. Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping adopted market reforms a few years later to restore the economy and the credibility of the party.
But as China has developed, so too has an element of nationalism that draws on Mao’s ideology of Communist equality to criticise widening class differences today. That helps foster current president Xi Jinping’s vision of a stronger China internationally and a stronger Communist party at home.
A gala held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing earlier this month celebrated that version of history with cultural revolution-themed singing and slogans, including “people of the world unite to destroy American imperialism!”.
After word leaked out on social media, the sponsors quickly claimed they had been duped by an “unauthorised” event organiser while censors raced to delete all pertinent posts.
“We must firmly keep in mind the historic lessons we learnt from ‘cultural revolution’, firmly adhere to the party’s political conclusions on the cultural revolution, and resolutely prevent and combat the interference from the ‘left’ and the right concerning cultural revolution issues,” the People’s Daily concluded.
History has proven that the cultural revolution was a complete mistake, it is not and could never be a revolution or social progress in any sense
– Editorial in the People’s Daily
