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Chinese Cultural Revolution
http://asianhistory.about.com/od/modernchina/f/What-Was-The-Cultural-Revolution.htm
Between 1966 and 1976, the young people of China rose up in an effort to purge the nation of the "Four
Olds": old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas.
In August, 1966, Mao Zedong called for the start of a Cultural Revolution at the Plenum of the
Communist Central Committee. He urged the creation of corps of "Red Guards" to punish party officials
and any other persons who showed bourgeois tendencies.
Mao likely was motivated to call for the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in order to rid
the Chinese Communist Party of his opponents after the tragic failure of his Great Leap Forwardpolicies.
Mao knew that other party leaders were planning to marginalize him, so he appealed directly to his
supporters among the people to join him in a Cultural Revolution. He also believed that communist
revolution had to be a continuous process, in order to stave off capitalist-roader ideas.
Mao's call was answered by the students, some as young as elementary school, who organized
themselves into the first groups of Red Guards.
They were joined later by workers and soldiers.
The first targets of the Red Guards included Buddhist temples, churches and mosques, which were razed
to the ground or converted to other uses. Sacred texts, as well as Confucian writings, were burned, along
with religious statues and other artwork. Any object associated with China's pre-revolutionary past was
liable to be destroyed.
In their fervor, the Red Guards began to persecute people deemed "counter-revolutionary" or
"bourgeois," as well.
The Guards conducted so-called "struggle sessions," in which they heaped abuse and public humiliation
upon people accused of capitalist thoughts (usually these were teachers, monks and other educated
persons). These sessions often included physical violence, and many of the accused died or ended up
being held in reeducation camps for years. According to the Mao's Last Revolution by Roderick
MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, almost 1,800 people were killed in Beijing alone in August and
September of 1966.
By February, 1967, China had descended into chaos. The purges had reached the level of army generals
who dared to speak out against the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, and Red Guardsgroups were
turning against one another and fighting in the streets.
Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, encouraged the Red Guards to raid arms from the People's Liberation
Army (PLA), and even to replace the army entirely if necessary.
By December of 1968, even Mao realized that the Cultural Revolution was spinning out of control.
China's economy, already weakened by the Great Leap Forward, was faltering badly. Industrial
production fell by 12% in just two years. In reaction, Mao issued a call for the "Down to the Countryside
Movement," in which young cadres from the city were sent to live on farms and learn from the peasants.
Although he spun this idea as a tool for leveling society, in fact Mao sought to disperse the Red Guards
across the country, so that they could not cause so much trouble anymore.
With the worst of the street violence over, the Cultural Revolution in the following six or seven years
revolved primarily around struggles for power in the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party.
By 1971, Mao and his second-in-command, Lin Biao, were trading assassination attempts against one
another. On September 13, 1971, Lin and his family tried to fly to the Soviet Union, but their plane
crashed. Officially, it ran out of fuel or had engine failure, but there is speculation that the plane was shot
down either by Chinese or Soviet officials.
Mao was aging quickly, and his health was failing. One of the main players in the succession game was
his wife, Jiang Qing. She and three cronies, called the "Gang of Four," controlled most of China's media,
and railed against moderates such as the Deng Xiaoping (now rehabilitated after a stint in a reeducation
camp) and Zhou Enlai. Although the politicians were still enthusiastic about purging their opponents,
the Chinese people had lost their taste for the movement.
Zhou Enlai died in January of 1976, and popular grief over his death turned into demonstrations against
the Gang of Four and even against Mao. In April, as many as 2 million people flooded Tiananmen Square
for Zhou Enlai's memorial service - and the mourners publicly denounced Mao and Jiang Qing. That July,
the Great Tangshan Earthquake accentuated the Communist Party's lack of leadership in the face of
tragedy, further eroding public support. Jiang Qing even went on the radio to urge the people not to
allow the earthquake to distract them from criticizing Deng Xiaoping.
Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976. His hand-picked successor, Hua Guofeng, had the Gang of
Four arrested. This signaled the end of the Cultural Revolution.
After-effects of the Cultural Revolution
For the entire decade of the Cultural Revolution, schools in China did not operate; this left an entire
generation with no formal education. All of the educated and professional people had been targets for
reeducation. Those that hadn't been killed were dispersed across the countryside, toiling on farms or
working in labor camps.
All sorts of antiquities and artifacts were taken from museums and private homes; they were destroyed
as symbols of "old thinking." Priceless historical and religious texts also were burned to ashes.
The exact number of people killed during the Cultural Revolution is unknown, but it was at least in the
hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Many of the victims of public humiliation committed suicide, as
well. Members of ethnic and religious minorities suffered disproportionately, including Tibetan
Buddhists, Hui people and Mongolians.
Terrible mistakes and brutal violence mar the history of Communist China. The Cultural Revolution is
among the worst of these incidents, not only because of the horrific human suffering inflicted, but also
because so many remnants of that country's great and ancient culture were willfully destroyed.
http://www.britannica.com/event/Cultural-Revolution
Cultural Revolution, in full Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Chinese (Pinyin) Wuchanjieji
Wenhua Dageming or (Wade-Giles romanization) Wu-ch’an Chieh-chi Wen-hua Ta Ke-ming,
upheaval launched byChinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong during his last decade in power
(1966–76) to renew the spirit of the Chinese Revolution. Fearing that China would develop along the
lines of the Soviet model and concerned about his own place in history, Mao threw China’s cities into
turmoil in a monumental effort to reverse the historic processes underway.
Background
During the early 1960s, tensions with the Soviet Union convinced Mao that the Russian Revolution had
gone astray, which in turn made him fear that China would follow the same path. Programs carried out
by his colleagues to bring China out of the economic depression caused by the Great Leap Forwardmade
Mao doubt their revolutionary commitment and also resent his own diminished role. He especially
feared urban social stratification in a society as traditionally elitist as China. Mao thus ultimately
adopted four goals for the Cultural Revolution: to replace his designated successors with leaders more
faithful to his current thinking; to rectify the Chinese Communist Party; to provide China’s youths with a
revolutionary experience; and to achieve some specific policy changes so as to make the educational,
health care, and cultural systems less elitist. He initially pursued these goals through a massive
mobilization of the country’s urban youths. They were organized into groups called the Red Guards, and
Mao ordered the party and the army not to suppress the movement.
Mao also put together a coalition of associates to help him carry out the Cultural Revolution. His
wife,Jiang Qing, brought in a group of radical intellectuals to rule the cultural realm. Defense
Minister Lin Biao made certain that the military remained Maoist. Mao’s longtime assistant, Chen Boda,
worked with security men Kang Sheng and Wang Dongxing to carry out Mao’s directives concerning
ideology and security. Premier Zhou Enlai played an essential role in keeping the country running, even
during periods of extraordinary chaos. Yet there were conflicts among these associates, and the history
of the Cultural Revolution reflects these conflicts almost as much as it reflects Mao’s own initiatives.
The early period (1966–68)
Mao formally launched the Cultural Revolution at the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee
in August 1966. He shut down China’s schools, and during the following months he encouraged Red
Guards to attack all traditional values and “bourgeois” things and to test party officials by publicly
criticizing them. Mao believed that this measure would be beneficial both for the young people and for
the party cadres that they attacked.
The movement quickly escalated; many elderly people and intellectuals were not only verbally attacked
but were physically abused. Many died. The Red Guards splintered into zealous rival factions, each
purporting to be the true representative of Maoist thought. Mao’s own personality cult, encouraged so
as to provide momentum to the movement, assumed religious proportions. The resulting anarchy,
terror, and paralysis completely disrupted the urban economy. Industrial production for 1968 dipped
12 percent below that of 1966.
During the earliest part of the Red Guard phase, key Politburo leaders were removed from power—most
notably President Liu Shaoqi, Mao’s designated successor until that time, and Party General
Secretary Deng Xiaoping. In January 1967 the movement began to produce the actual overthrow of
provincial party committees and the first attempts to construct new political bodies to replace them. In
February 1967 many remaining top party leaders called for a halt to the Cultural Revolution, but Mao
and his more radical partisans prevailed, and the movement escalated yet again. Indeed, by the summer
of 1967 disorder was widespread; large armed clashes between factions of Red Guards were occurring
throughout urban China.
During 1967 Mao called on the army under Lin Biao to step in on behalf of the Red Guards. Instead of
producing unified support for the radical youths, this political-military action resulted in more divisions
within the military. The tensions inherent in the situation surfaced vividly when Chen Zaidao, a military
commander in the city of Wuhan during the summer of 1967, arrested two key radical party leaders.
In 1968, after the country had been subject to several cycles of radicalism alternating with relative
moderation, Mao decided to rebuild the Communist Party to gain greater control. The military
dispatched officers and soldiers to take over schools, factories, and government agencies. The army
simultaneously forced millions of urban Red Guards to move to the rural hinterland to live, thus
scattering their forces and bringing some order to the cities. This particular action reflected Mao’s
disillusionment with the Red Guards because of their inability to overcome their factional differences.
Mao’s efforts to end the chaos were given added impetus by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in
August 1968, which greatly heightened China’s sense of insecurity.
Two months later, the Twelfth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee met to call for the convening of a
party congress and the rebuilding of the party apparatus. From that point, the issue of who would
inherit political power as the Cultural Revolution wound down became the central question of Chinese
politics.
Rise and fall of Lin Biao (1969–71)
When the Ninth Party Congress convened in April 1969, Defense Minister Lin Biao was officially
designated as Mao’s successor, and the military tightened its grip on the entire society. Both the Party
Central Committee and the revamped Communist Party were dominated by military men. Lin took
advantage of Sino-Soviet border clashes in the spring of 1969 to declare martial law and further used his
position to rid himself of some potential rivals to the succession. Several leaders who had been purged
during 1966–68 died under the martial law regimen of 1969, and many others suffered severely during
this period.
Lin quickly encountered opposition. Mao himself was wary of a successor who seemed to want to
assume power too quickly, and he began to maneuver against Lin. Premier Zhou Enlai joined forces with
Mao in this effort, as possibly did Mao’s wife Jiang Qing. Mao’s assistant Chen Boda, however, decided to
support Lin’s cause. Thus, despite many measures taken in 1970–71 to return order and normalcy to
Chinese society, increasingly severe strains were splitting the top ranks of leadership.
These strains first surfaced at a party plenum in the summer of 1970. Shortly thereafter Mao began a
campaign to criticize Chen Boda as a warning to Lin. Chen disappeared from public view in August 1970.
Matters came to a head in September 1971 when Lin himself was killed in what the Chinese asserted
was an attempt to flee to the Soviet Union after an abortive assassination plot against Mao. Virtually the
entire Chinese high military command was purged in the weeks following Lin’s death.
Lin’s demise had a profoundly disillusioning effect on many people who had supported Mao during the
Cultural Revolution. Lin had been the high priest of the Mao cult, and millions had gone through
tortuous struggles to elevate this chosen successor to power and throw out his “revisionist” challengers.
They had in this quest attacked and tortured respected teachers, abused elderly citizens, humiliated old
revolutionaries, and, in many cases, battled former friends in bloody confrontations. The sordid details
of Lin’s purported assassination plot and subsequent flight cast all this in the light of traditional,
unprincipled power struggles, and vast numbers of Chinese people began to feel that they simply had
been manipulated for personal political purposes.
Final years (1972–76)
Initially, Premier Zhou Enlai benefited the most from Lin’s death, and from late 1971 through mid-1973
Zhou tried to nudge China back toward stability. He encouraged a revival of the educational systemand
brought back into office a number of people who had been cast out. China began again to increase its
trade and other links with the outside world, and the economy continued the forward momentum that
had begun to build in 1969. Mao personally approved these general moves but remained wary lest they
call into question the basic value of having launched the Cultural Revolution in the first place.
During 1972, however, Mao suffered a serious stroke, and Zhou learned that he had a fatal malignancy.
These events highlighted the continued uncertainty over the succession. In early 1973 Zhou and Mao
brought back to power Deng Xiaoping. Zhou hoped to groom him to be Mao’s successor. Deng, however,
had been the second most important purge victim at the hands of the radicals during the Cultural
Revolution. His reemergence made Jiang Qing and her followers desperate to firmly establish a more
radical path.
From mid-1973 until Mao’s death in September 1976, Chinese politics shifted back and forth between
Jiang Qing and those who supported her (notably Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan,
who with Jiang Qing were later dubbed the Gang of Four), and the Zhou-Deng group. The former
favoured ideology, political mobilization, class struggle, anti-intellectualism, egalitarianism, and
xenophobia, while the latter promoted economic growth, stability, educational progress, and a
pragmatic foreign policy. Mao tried unsuccessfully to maintain a balance between these two forces while
he struggled to find a successor who would embody his preferred combination of each.
From mid-1973 until mid-1974 the radicals were ascendant; they whipped up a campaign that used
criticism of Lin Biao and of Confucius as a thinly veiled vehicle for attacking Zhou and his policies. By
July 1974, however, the resulting economic decline and increasing chaos made Mao shift back toward
Zhou and Deng. With Zhou hospitalized, Deng assumed increasing power from the summer of 1974
through the late fall of 1975, when the radicals finally convinced Mao that Deng’s policies would lead
eventually to a repudiation of the Cultural Revolution and of Mao himself. Mao then sanctioned criticism
of these policies by means of wall posters (dazibao), which had become a favoured method
ofpropaganda for the radicals. Zhou died in January 1976, and Deng was formally purged (with Mao’s
backing) in April. Only Mao’s death in September and the purge of the Gang of Four by a coalition of
political, police, and military leaders in October 1976 paved the way for Deng’s subsequent reemergence
in 1977.
Assessment
Although the Cultural Revolution largely bypassed the vast majority of the people who lived in rural
areas, it had serious consequences for China as a whole. In the short run, of course, the political
instability and the constant shifts in economic policy produced slower economic growth and a decline in
the capacity of the government to deliver goods and services. Officials at all levels of the political system
learned that future shifts in policy would jeopardize those who had aggressively implemented previous
policy. The result was bureaucratic timidity. In addition, with the death of Mao and the end of the
Cultural Revolution (the Cultural Revolution was officially ended by the Eleventh Party Congress in
August 1977, but it in fact concluded with Mao’s death and the purge of the Gang of Four in the fall of
1976), nearly three million party members and countless wrongfully purged citizens awaited
reinstatement. Bold measures were taken in the late 1970s to confront these immediate problems, but
the Cultural Revolution left a legacy that continued to trouble China.
There existed, for example, a severe generation gap; individuals who experienced the Cultural
Revolution while in their teens and early twenties were denied an education and taught to redress
grievances by taking to the streets. Post-Cultural Revolution policies—which stressed education and
initiative over radical revolutionary fervour—left little room for these millions of people to have
productive careers. Indeed, the fundamental damage to all aspects of the educational system itself took
several decades to repair.
Another serious problem was the corruption within the party and government. Both the fears
engendered by the Cultural Revolution and the scarcity of goods that accompanied it forced people to
fall back on traditional personal relationships and on bribery and other forms of persuasion to
accomplish their goals. Concomitantly, the Cultural Revolution brought about general disillusionment
with the party leadership and the system itself as millions of urban Chinese witnessed the obvious
power plays that took place under the name of political principle in the early and mid-1970s. The postMao repudiation of both the objectives and the consequences of the Cultural Revolution made many
people turn away from politics altogether.
Among the people themselves, there remained bitter factionalism, as those who opposed each other
during the Cultural Revolution often shared the same work unit and would do so for their entire careers.
Perhaps never before in human history has a political leader unleashed such massive forces against the
system that he created. The resulting damage to that system was profound, and the goals that Mao
sought to achieve ultimately remained elusive.
11 slogans that changed China
By Joe BoyleBBC News

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24923993
1. Let 100 flowers bloom (百花齐放) 1956
The use of slogans is solidly linked to patterns in everyday Chinese speech, where short rhythmic
phrases are considered to be the clearest way of speaking.
These kinds of phrases are often represented by four characters in Chinese and have been deployed by
leaders for more than 2,000 years.
Mao often plundered classical Chinese works and employed rhythmic phrases to get his message across.
"Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend" was borrowed from a phase in
the Warring States period, which ended in 221 BC.
Mao used it to indicate that criticism of the party would be allowed. But when the criticism came, it was
widespread and vitriolic. Giant posters were hung criticising officials; students and lecturers openly
denounced party policies.
A year after the Hundred Flowers period started, Mao brought it to an end.
"What should our policy be towards non-Marxist ideas? As far as unmistakable counter-revolutionaries
and saboteurs of the socialist cause are concerned, the matter is easy, we simply deprive them of their
freedom of speech," he said in a speech.
An anti-rightist purge took hold and intellectuals were denounced, jailed or sent to work in the
countryside.
Academics still argue over the campaign: was it a genuine attempt at opening up that went too far, or a
cynical ploy to encourage "counter-revolutionaries" to reveal themselves?
2. Dare to think, dare to act (敢想敢干) 1958
The crucial slogan during the Great Leap Forward, a two-year campaign where Mao encouraged
peasants to join together in collective farms.
"Dare to think, dare to speak, dare to act" was the exhortation used by Mao to encourage the peasants to
follow his lead.
But during the period agricultural production collapsed. Mao's policies combined with natural disasters
contributed to the deaths of up to 30 million people.
Despite its association with the disastrous Great Leap Forward, Mao's supporters continued to use the
phrase for years after.
3. Smash the four olds (破四旧) 1966
If one slogan sums up the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, this was it. It exhorted young cadres to
destroy anything regarded as "old" - loosely defined as old ideas, customs, culture, and habits.
Jennifer Altehenger, of King's College in London, says in Western minds this is most closely associated
with images of youths destroying temples. But the movement escalated and many older people and
intellectuals were physically abused; many of them died.
The Cultural Revolution threw up an endless stream of slogans, including "to rebel is justified", which
was very much the companion of "smash the four olds".
Mao encouraged attacks on virtually all forms of authority in an attempt to create permanent revolution.
He was trying to reassert his authority after the Great Leap Forward had seriously damaged his
reputation.
The campaign, which formally ended in 1976, cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Some believe millions
died in violence related to the Cultural Revolution.
4. Smash the gang of four (打倒四人帮) 1976
Image captionThe four were depicted as symbols of corruption
After Mao's death, a power struggle broke out at the highest levels of leadership.
Mao's designated successor, Hua Guofeng, took over all the formal roles of leadership, but faced
opposition from Mao's wife Jiang Qing and three of her allies.
They were associated with the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, and were quickly arrested and
purged.
Propaganda posters at the time portrayed them as traitors. The most famous featured caricatures of
their faces with a red cross through it, stating: "Decisively Throw Out the Wang-Zhang-Jiang-Yao AntiParty Clique!"
Hua was himself usurped by Deng Xiaoping, who ushered in an era of reform. The four eventually went
on trial in the most public bloodletting of any power struggle in modern China.
The courtroom drama played out on TV, with particularly fiery exchanges involving Jiang Qing, who
remained defiant even as her former allies denounced her. All were jailed for life. Jiang Qing died in
1991; she had apparently killed herself.
5. Reform and opening up (改革开放) 1978
Deng Xiaoping was quick to set China on course for economic reform. First he quietly dropped
references to "class struggle", the ubiquitous slogan printed in newspapers and hanging from banners
for the previous 12 years.
Instead, newspapers and posters were now filled with the "four modernisations", a pithy policy platform
proposed in the 1960s but never enacted under Mao.
He also instituted the "socialism with Chinese characteristics" idea, which allowed the leadership much
more flexibility to deviate from Marxist dogma.
The overall motto for Deng's programme became "reform and opening up".
It was eventually incorporated into the preamble of China's constitution: "Chinese people of all
nationalities will continue to adhere to the people's democratic dictatorship and the socialist road,
persevere in reform and opening to the outside world."
6. Seek truth from facts (实事求是) 1978
With a whiff of pragmatism, a slice of common sense and a frustrating vagueness, this is an established
favourite of Communist leaders.
"It is an ancient Chinese philosophical concept, but during the [late 1970s] reform period, it really takes
off," says Dr Altehenger.
Phrases like this have forebears in debates going back to the 2nd Century BC, when legal experts framed
such maxims as "follow the constancy of nature" and "comply with the four seasons".
In fact, Chinese "slogans" can be closer to chengyu - four-character phrases or series of phrases with a
deep cultural meaning. In other words, an effective way of communicating.
"Seek truth from facts" is a good example. The phrase was deployed by Mao, possibly in the 1930s, so
the new leadership could reuse it and claim legitimacy.
"Only if we emancipate our minds, seek truth from facts, proceed from reality in everything and
integrate theory with practice, can we carry out our socialist modernisation programme smoothly,"
Deng said in a 1978 speech.
Dr Altehenger says it is a broad concept and presumes that there is an objective truth. In reality,
whoever is running the show can dictate its meaning.
7. Have fewer children, raise more pigs (少生孩子多养猪) 1979
A bizarre example from a slew of phrases connected with the one-child policy.
Such slogans were not necessarily approved by the central authorities, but have been daubed on walls
by zealous local officials for decades.
More graphic slogans have included: "Induce labour! Abortion! Anything but an excess baby", "If one
family has an excess baby, the whole village will be sterilised" and "One more baby means one more
tomb".
As China's birth rate has steadily dropped, the one-child policy has been under constant scrutiny.
In a 2007 directive, and a 2011 campaign, the National Population and Family Planning
Commission suggested softer alternatives to the more direct slogans.
Their new approach suggested phrases such as: "Mother Earth is too tired to sustain more children."
8. Three represents (三个代表) 2000
Jiang Zemin's pet project during his 10 years at the helm of Chinese politics was enshrined in the
preamble to China's constitution, characterised as the "important thought of the three represents".
Mr Jiang put it forward in a 2000 speech, and further elaborated during a 2002 speech celebrating the
party's 80th anniversary.
"The party must always represent the requirements of the development of China's advanced productive
forces, the orientation of the development of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of
the overwhelming majority of the people in China," he said.
But unlike some of Mao's classically inspired phrases, there appears to be little deeper resonance.
Instead, it reflects Mr Jiang's background as an engineer. He was much more of a technocrat than an
inspirational poet-warrior in the mould of Mao.
9. Harmonious society ( 和谐社会) 2005
If the way to judge the success of a slogan is its inclusion in China's constitution (see above), Hu Jintao
must be waiting nervously. Deputies at China's parliament (NPC) first proposed for his harmonious
society to be included in the constitution in 2005, but he is still waiting.
However, there are other measures of success. Dozens of policies, rules, regulations and reforms have
flown from the initial harmonious society idea (or have been categorised under its umbrella).
For example, massive projects to develop the western cities of Qinghai and Urumqi fall under its banner.
But crackdowns on free speech and repression in Tibet and Xinjiang have also been put into the same
family of ideas.
Mr Hu launched his platform as a deliberate response to the inequalities caused by rapid economic
growth in the 1980s and 1990s, saying in a 2005 speech: "A harmonious society should feature
democracy, the rule of law, equity, justice, sincerity, amity and vitality."
However, perhaps a victim of its own success, the harmonious society has since been widely lampooned
by Chinese web users. They use the Chinese word for "river crab", which sounds like "harmony", as a
way of criticising the government without falling foul of the censors.
10. Three supremes (三个至上) 2007
It might sound like a Motown group, but in Hu Jintao's mind it was a way of controlling an increasingly
reform-minded judiciary.
"In their work, the grand judges and grand procurators shall always regard as supreme the party's
cause, the people's interest, and the constitution and law," he said.
Mr Hu effectively shut down the discussion of legal reforms by appointing as Supreme Court president
Wang Shengjun, an apparatchik with no legal training.
Mr Wang set about making sure the courts obeyed the three supremes doctrine. Since then, the interests
of the party have reigned supreme over the other two supremes.
11. Chinese dream (中国梦) 2013
The jury is still out on Chinese dream. It is the favoured slogan of Xi Jinping, who took over as
paramount leader in early 2013. Even for hardened apparatchiks, it seems a bit vague.
"The Chinese government and Communist Party have a problem: these slogans no longer resonate with
the broader public or the political class that is supposed to be absorbing them," says Tom Kellogg, a
China expert at the Open Society Foundation in Washington.
"Xi Jinping has tried to change that with the Chinese dream. But that is problematic because other
people can latch on to it, so you can have the Chinese dream of constitutionalism, or the Chinese dream
of social harmony."
This slogan perhaps belongs in the same category as the UK Labour Party's "forward, not back" 2005
election slogan or, even more reductively, "forward", the slogan of team Obama in last year's US election.
Essentially, the Chinese dream can mean anything to anyone. Mr Xi is likely to deploy many more
technical slogans before deciding which to truly throw his weight behind.
Psychology, Propaganda, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution
By Deniz Cem Ozensoy ⋅ April 26, 2012
- See more at: http://triplehelixblog.com/2012/04/psychology-propaganda-and-the-chinese-culturalrevolution/#sthash.k3kGvRrO.dpuf
http://triplehelixblog.com/2012/04/psychology-propaganda-and-the-chinese-cultural-revolution/
What we know as propaganda uses a constructed language on media to implant ideas in the minds of
individuals. It creates public trends on how susceptible we are to authorities at the individual
level. Unfortunately, the human tendency to trust in an authority is well known, and often
exploited. This article will approach propaganda seen during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, in the
words of theorist Sheryl Tuttle, as something “epistemically defective or lacking epistemic merit where
this criterion not only applies propositions and arguments but also to conceptual schemas (ways of
carving up the world) as well as moral precepts.”2
Widespread propaganda played a central role in encouraging youth activism through a variety of
techniques during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Examples include art, literature,
government publications, newspapers, and television. Propaganda of this era used various techniques
to distinguish the just from the opposed. Some frequently recurring techniques included visually
disfiguring and dehumanizing opponents, distorting proportions to make favored groups look larger
than their opponents, and giving preferred physical traits such as a muscular build to the favored
groups. Often these stylistic devices are accompanied by blatant practices of propaganda and
marginalization of the opposition. These devices included targeting and intimidating individuals,
repeating certain ideas, using depictions of large crowds to encourage the audience to join the
”bandwagon”, emphasizing colors associated with violence, among other tactics.
Propaganda in different and more subtle forms such as omission of information, and use of
discriminatory language still plays a central role today, albeit to discourage such extreme levels of
activism practiced during the Revolution.
In my later blog posts, I will demonstrate several functions of propaganda that encouraged the youth to
criticize important political figures of their time. I will do this by analyzing a struggle for political power
within the 1960’s-70’s Communist Party of China (CPC), as narrated by propaganda posters, and finally I
will discuss how subtler propaganda in national history textbooks affects the contemporary public
opinion in China, particularly that of youth. The psychological role that propaganda plays in political
participation will be the primary focus of this article series.
I interviewed delegates of governmental authority in the classrooms (specifically, high-school history
and political education teachers), current high school students, their parents, and the generation that
was at least 10 years old at the time of the Revolution to measure the success of such methods of
propaganda in engineering public opinion.
First, we need to understand the dynamics that fueled the Cultural Revolution, as well as the true
motivations behind it to understand that Mao started the Cultural Revolution to affirm his grasp on the
Chinese political scheme. The “Great Leap Forward” (1958-1961) that Mao Zedong hoped would push
China to “surpass Britain and catch America” had left the country in great economic and social
devastation. Mao envisioned measures that would create the communist utopia: communal farms,
communal access to the work force, placement of metal ovens within each settlement to encourage local
steel production, etc. His scheme, which included a communal land ownership policy, not only failed to
produce high quality steel that had any industrial use, but more significantly led to a decrease in harvest
production as the steel manufacturing industry consumed all tools that that would otherwise have aided
in harvesting. Consequentially, potentially 40 million civilians1 died in the resulting great famine, yet
such apparently unsound methods were maintained for three years. The public was falsely reassured by
propaganda posters that depicted fruits larger than humans, as well as abundant produce at farms, and
bountiful communal farms and dining. As the public began to recognize the propagandistic ruse, it was
no coincidence that faith in Mao’s guidance declined greatly. In the aftermath, he resigned from his duty
as State Chairman of PRC at 1959, and the party saw a transfer of political power from Mao to reformists
such as Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.
- See more at: http://triplehelixblog.com/2012/04/psychology-propaganda-and-the-chinese-culturalrevolution/#sthash.k3kGvRrO.dpuf
In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward, the party was clearly divided between the Mao loyalists and
the revisionists; the former faction enjoyed Mao’s god-like reputation with the people, and the latter
disliked Mao’s poor economic and social leadership, and therefore wanted to impose a more liberal
economic model. With the revisionists slowly gaining more repute, Mao started to see the revisionists
and the path the CPC could follow as the primary enemy against the Communist Revolution of China. As
he declared the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Mao urged young civilians to from armed militias
called the “Red Guards” to physically harass his political rivals. Just as significantly, he urged militia that
were guided by his “Little Red Book” — of which individuals were encouraged to memorize and apply to
all aspects of their lives — to return to the countryside once his adversaries were eliminated. This
delocalization of the militias was not only an attempt to regain the trust and authority he had lost in the
rural areas as a result of the Great Leap Forward, but also served to decrease the damage they were
doing in the cities by scattering the mobs.
Posters that encouraged Mao’s supporters in the working class to attack the revisionists — such as Liu
Shao Qi and Deng Xiaoping — were used in great abundance. These posters that depicted the
revisionists as public enemies were soon found everywhere. Repeating themes in these posters, such as
excessive usage of red in the background, invites the audience to violence. The armband worn by the
proletarian figures mark them as members of the infamous “Red Army,” and show their devotion to
Mao. The big red letters on a white background became the preferred design of posters issued by the
state, as well as of those created by the people who hoped to convey the zealous devotion of the people
towards Mao; they conveyed their frustration that had grown throughout the last decade. Significant
revisionist figures are targeted and accused with treason as the scapegoats of failed economic policies
and the great famine. Effectively pinpointing names in these propaganda posters gave the public an
outlet and target to discharge the built up frustration of poverty and famine, whilst renewing their
zealous devotion to Mao. Use of various tools, such as shovels, painting brushes, pens, and guns, aimed
to appeal to all members of the proletariat and to spread the revolutionary spirit to an audience as large
as possible. Indeed, both genders are equally represented in all posters for the same purpose. Another
significant aspect of these posters is that Mao and his “revolutionaries” are portrayed
disproportionately bigger than Mao’s political rivals. This is significant in showing that the proletariat
— depicted muscular, and looking down upon their enemies — is much more powerful than their
disfigured and significantly smaller enemies. Portrayals of Mao either as an overarching shadow in the
background or in the form of a sun shining above the gazing over the revolutionaries with a satisfied
look show Maoist approval and the support of extreme public activism.
These posters derive most of their power from what can be explained in terms of the Social Psychology
model — especially the Role Theory in this case — and Ross’s Epistemic Merit model of
propaganda. First, the strong emphasis on the figure of Mao, a widely trusted and revered figure in the
eyes of the proletariat of China, exploits the population’s strong desire to follow Mao, their savior and
esteemed leader. Second, these posters bring forward concepts that are not thoroughly understood by
the masses, such as communism and capitalism. The former ignites strong nationalist feelings, and the
latter is associated with enemies, and hatred. Similarly, even though the enemies — Mao’s significant
political adversaries — are well defined, the question of why they should be considered enemies is
ambiguous at best. The ambiguity of the concepts that are played upon, in addition to the goals of the
movement, thus make these concepts “epistemically defective.” Similarly, each piece of propaganda has
a well-defined “sender” (the Maoist cult in the Chinese government) and a well-defined receiver (the
mass of people that adore Mao as a war hero, who collectively hold significant political and physical
power). This being the case, we see how propaganda that is employed almost in a book-like fashion can
move masses with tremendous power and speed.
These posters clearly invited the Chinese youth of 1960’s and early 1970’s to actively influence and
interfere with the flow of Chinese politics. Even more significantly, the government actively encouraged
extreme youth activism, albeit to cleanse itself from opposition. In my further blog posts, I will show
how the use of propaganda has changed into active discouragement of youth activism.
- See more at: http://triplehelixblog.com/2012/04/psychology-propaganda-and-the-chinese-culturalrevolution/#sthash.k3kGvRrO.dpuf