The Cultural Revolution: How did Mao Zedong’s Strategies Change China?

Ginny Lin

May 23, 2024

In the early 1960s, Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward was unsuccessful due to errors in execution, natural disasters, and the discontinuation of support from the USSR. In response to this failure, some important members of the Chinese Communist Party suggested that China needed more experts and materialistic motivation to boost the economy. However, Mao viewed this idea as opposing his ideology, and many historians believe that Mao started the Cultural Revolution to disrupt this plan. 

The Cultural Revolution also happened partly due to Mao’s fear that China would follow Khrushchev’s reforms that happened in the USSR after Stalin’s death. Later, in 1966, Mao started the Cultural Revolution with the goals of fixing the CCP to align with his thinking, providing the youth with a revolutionary experience, establishing policies related to education, health care, and culture, and most importantly, destroying the “bourgeoisie” class that was on the rise.  However, different from Mao’s expectations, the Cultural Revolution would later be remembered as one of the biggest “mistakes” made since the creation of the PRC. Even though Mao designed the Cultural Revolution to remove social stratification and strengthen communism in China, his strategy was ultimately destructive because it pitted the old against the young and weakened future generations by restricting access to higher education. 

Although Mao seemed to have a concrete plan for the Cultural Revolution, the goals he wanted to achieve were unrealistic. One of Mao’s goals for starting the Cultural Revolution was to create a classless society in China. At the time, Mao believed that there was a division between the bourgeoisie and the proletarian and the educated and the uneducated. However, this goal is impossible to achieve because of the differences between people’s political ideologies and occupations. For example, someone who is a member of the communist party will have a more advantageous social status than someone who harvests rice in the countryside. Another goal of Mao was to accomplish common prosperity. Similar to creating a classless society, he believed there was a division between people of different statuses and wanted to reduce the inequality between them by promoting the concept of common prosperity. Nonetheless, this goal is impractical because of the scarcity of resources for people living in rural areas. For example, Mao implemented collectivization with the idea that peasants could achieve an equal share of income. However, he failed to understand that they had only recently received more land from a new policy and that they earned less than others whose occupations were not farmers. In an interview, Zhang Chaoke, a village party official during the Cultural Revolution, remembers that “His [a peasant in Zhang’s village] income…went down after he joined, so he was unhappy.”   Additionally, a goal of Mao was to completely discard “The Four Olds”, specifically known as old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. He wanted to do so in order to revise the CCP to align with his thinking and to eliminate the reemergence of capitalist practices, localism, and bureaucracy after the socialist transformation in the 1950s.  However, this goal is unrealistic to obtain because certain aspects of culture and ideas have been fully implemented in people’s daily lives. For example, the system of thoughts of Confucianism and Taoism was established and taught to people since ancient China. 

One effect of Mao’s strategies is that they pitted the young from the old. Even though it is impossible to change the class status one was born in, the Red Guards made the young people extremely conscious of their own class status, causing them to blame the older generations as the reason for their poor class status. In a campaign poster created during the Cultural Revolution, four Red Guards, represented by the red band around their arms and the military-styled clothes they wear, are illustrated as they are spreading the ideologies of Mao, as seen by the white book titled “Selected Works of Mao” and the “Little Red Book”. The white poster held by the man in the middle is emphasized by its distinct colors of black and white against a mainly red and green background, which reads “Fire fiercely at the bourgeois reactionary line and the handful of people in power within the party who are taking the capitalist road!”  This demonstrates how the Red Guards are attempting to make people aware of the importance of non-bourgeois class status by showing one of bourgeois status will be treated differently [see attachment 1]. The impacts of this strategy are shown in the memoir of the Red Scarf Girl, in which the main character Ji-li is being treated differently for her poor class status and how she is forced to oppose her family. Looking back as an adult, Ji-li’s class was electing members of the Red Guards and she recalls “Right! Those who don't have good class backgrounds shouldn't be elected," somebody else agreed. My heart fell. Class status. There was that phrase again.”  Despite being unaware of her family’s class status yet, Ji-li describes that her “heart fell”, showing the amount of pressure she feels by having to know her class status and having to have a good class status was required to be elected as a Red Guard, which she eagerly wanted to join. Later, when Ji-li finds out that her grandfather is a landlord, she starts detesting her family for the reason of her poor status. Eventually, she also notices that “We had a bad class status. That was why An Yi was not allowed to wear mourning bands or even cry aloud for her grandmother. That was why my house was searched, and strangers could come in and do whatever they wanted…”  For her grandfather’s bourgeois status, there was no privacy guaranteed in her house because it had to be open to the Red Guards’ search. She started seeing the differences between people of different statuses and how people of  “poor” status are being treated with no respect. She also remembers being told by a woman “‘The key is your class stance. The daughter of our former Party Secretary resolved to make a clean break with her mother. When she went onstage to condemn her mother, she actually slapped her face…The point is that as long as you have the correct class stance, it will be easy to testify.’”  Ji-li is being pressured to give evidence that her father is coming from a “black family” or otherwise she will not be considered someone with proper class status and a revolutionary member of the party, which she felt extremely shameful of. 

Although the Red Guards did not intentionally attack the older generations for their age, they were encouraged to attack all traditional values commonly held by these people. This idea was displayed in a Red Guard campaign poster created during the Cultural Revolution. In the poster, the young man illustrated in the middle is a Red Guard, shown by the red band around his arms that reads “Red Guard” in traditional Chinese and the “Little Red Book” held in his hand. On the bottom of the poster, it is written “Criticize the old world and build a new world with Mao Zedong Thought as a weapon.”  This poster depicts how the Red Guards were encouraged to spread Mao’s ideology of destroying the “old world”, which includes old ideas and traditions, to other young people, as the young man is doing by reading out loud quotes from Mao in his book [see attachment 2]. The members of the Red Guards were usually always exclusively people of the younger generation, which included students, workers, and peasants.  With this provided, it was likely that they were not in much contact with the older generation except members of their own family, therefore making them vulnerable to being attacked as the Red Guards might assume them as “counter-revolutionary”. Similarly, as reflected in Red Scarf Girl, Ji-li remembers that her brother Ji-yong refuted their grandmother by saying “Besides, Grandma, there’s no such thing as an auspicious date. That’s superstition, and superstition is four olds…Right?”  Even though it is reasonable for their grandmother to incorporate some aspects of the “four old” in her speech, the young generation failed to understand that they need more time to learn about the new concepts, as Ji-yong demonstrates by questioning their grandmother. 

Another effect of Mao’s strategies is that they limited educational opportunities for the younger generation. Although Mao intended to encourage equality of educational opportunities for rural and urban students by changing the education system, it discouraged the younger generation from continuing their studies and their development as a person. One change Mao made to the education system was sending students to the countryside. Students who were sent to the countryside often dedicated most of their time to labor. In the case of Ji-li, she was assigned to harvest rice. She describes the physical pain she feels from harvesting as “Every muscle, every joint in my body was aching. I wondered if the arthritis I had suffered as a child was returning.”  Not only was no educational content provided to these students, but after a long day of physical labor, it was extremely difficult for them to continue their studies and learn when they lacked rest. Another change Mao made was when he changed the content of the school. Instead of teaching regular classes, students used their time to learn how to become revolutionary. As an adult looking back to her younger years, Ji-li remembers “Just a few weeks earlier Aunt Xi-wen had complained to the school because some students had climbed into her yard to pick mulberry leaves for their silkworms.”  Even though it was inappropriate to offend one’s private property, the school teaches students that it is acceptable because Xi-wen is a bourgeois. This education method deters students from having basic respect for the rights of others, which should not be dependent on their class status. Mao also changed the education system when he closed all colleges and universities and stopped the college entrance examination in 1966. By doing so, students who wished to pursue higher education could not have received the education they desired and were mostly sent to factories to work. 

Mao’s revolutionary teachings in schools also gave rise to other issues. Even though the use of violence is considered harmful by the common people, Mao’s use of fear made the young people believe that assaulting others was the correct revolutionary action to take. By encouraging young people to become revolutionaries, schools were solely involved in activities that were considered revolutionary. In the memoir Red Scarf Girl, as an adult, Ji-li remembers when she was young that “A few days later, when I got to school, I was told we were going to post da-zi-bao on the houses of some of the bourgeoisie living near the school.”  This was an activity Mao made compulsory for students to take by making it a part of the education system. Da-zi-bao were posters that criticized a person or an idea that was against the thoughts of Mao. Therefore, students who are accustomed to think that everything they learn in school is correct will also think that denouncing others using da-zi-bao is also correct. As a result, as evident in a newspaper from the New York Times, it is reported that “figures gathered from 12 cities by the Public Security Ministry report 12252 cases of juvenile crime involving street fights, theft, and ‘some cases of murder.’” In fact, the cases of crime have increased by 10 times more over the last 20 years based on the time the newspaper was written, and which of those 10 years included when the Cultural Revolution took time.  This was very likely to be a result of the violence that was promoted during the Cultural Revolution. Furthermore, the situation after the Cultural Revolution continued to be so terrible that the government created a three-program system for juveniles. If a minor crime was committed by a young person, teachers, parents, and neighborhood committees took care of it. However, if a violent crime was committed, the young person was to be sent to a reformatory, where their time is devoted to studying, learning about politics, and working in terms of labor.

Overall, despite Mao’s appealing plans for the Cultural Revolution, they were unfeasible and instead ruined Chinese society. Not only was the younger generation put into opposition to the older generation with the use of the Red Guards, who made the young blame the old for their poor class status and who supported attacks on traditional values, but they were also unable to receive appropriate education due to various changes in the education system and the encouragement of violence. The impact of the Cultural Revolution does not stop with the younger generations who experienced it, however. After Mao’s death, which also marked the end of the Cultural Revolution, China experienced a struggle between leaders of two different ideologies. One was Jiang Qing, who promoted class struggle and anti-intellectualism similar to Mao. Another was Deng Xiaoping, who encouraged economic growth and educational progress.  Fortunately, Deng was able to gain control and China was able to slowly recover from the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution through his policies. Today, China praises the value of “尊老爱幼” (Respect the old and love the young) and organizes the college entrance exam, also known as Gaokao, which is taken by approximately 13 million students annually.

“Hold High the Great Red Banner of Mao Zedong Thought to Wage the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the End - Revolution Is No Crime, to Rebel Is Justified”, 1966

 “Criticize the Old World and Build a New World with Mao Zedong Thought as a Weapon”, September 1966

Annotated Bibliography

“Criticize the Old World and Build a New World with Mao Zedong Thought as a Weapon,” September 1966. https://chineseposters.net/posters/e15-699.

This source is a propaganda poster from 1966 when the Cultural Revolution just started. The poster provides information on Mao’s ideologies and how the Red Guards reacted to them. This source is useful but only limited to the perspectives of Mao and the Red Guards. 

“Cultural Revolution | Definition, Facts, & Failure | Britannica.” In Encyclopædia Britannica, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/event/Cultural-Revolution.

This source is an encyclopedia (Britannica) and it provides background information on the Cultural Revolution including the cause, main events, actions taken, and the consequences of the revolution, which is the basis of my research. I was able to learn that Mao was concerned about the bourgeoisie in China and that he started the revolution with the main goals of selecting his successor, revising the CCP, providing the youth with a revolutionary experience, and establishing new policies related to education, health care, and culture. This source is useful for my paper because it gives a broad view of how the revolution impacted the Chinese people and society. This information can be used in the introduction and help with analyzing primary sources. However, the limitation of this source is that it does not discuss in detail the strategies that Mao used or created and the separation or unification of the different groups in China during the Cultural Revolution. 

“Great Leap Forward | Definition, Facts, & Significance | Britannica.” In Encyclopædia Britannica, February 26, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Leap-Forward.

This source is an encyclopedia that gives an overview of the Great Leap Forward. Although it is not a part of the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward can be accounted for as one of the reasons why the Cultural Revolution started. From this source, I learned that the Great Leap Forward was a campaign that started in the early 1960s intending to avoid the long, usual process of industrialization by encouraging people to make steel in their backyard furnaces. Another reason why the campaign started was that the USSR’s model for industrialization had failed in China due to the differences in the population. However, the campaign was unsuccessful due to errors in execution, natural disasters, and the discontinuation of support from the USSR. This created disunity among the leaders in which some claimed that China needed more experts and materialistic motivation to boost the economy. It is said that this was the idea that Mao was trying to remove during the Cultural Revolution. This source is useful because it shows another possible motivation for why Mao wanted to start the Cultural Revolution. This source will be used in the introduction to provide context for the Cultural Revolution.

“Hold High the Great Red Banner of Mao Zedong Thought to Wage the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the End - Revolution Is No Crime, to Rebel Is Justified,” 1966. https://chineseposters.net/posters/e13-764.

This source is a propaganda poster from 1966, which is the start of the Cultural Revolution. This poster states the Red Guards’ goal of the Cultural Revolution and the actions they plan to take in the revolution. This source is useful but limited to the visions of the Red Guard. 

Ji-li, Jiang. Red Scarf Girl. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

This source is a nonfiction memoir of the author Ji-li Jiang when she was a middle school student during the Cultural Revolution. From this book, I was able to learn how Ji-li’s perception of the Cultural Revolution changed over time. At first, she was eager to participate in the revolution and implemented the “new ideas” in her family and at school. However, as she learns about the dark history of her grandfather and observes the unfairness around her, she comes into conflict with her family and society. This source is useful for my paper because it provides real examples that explore the ideas of unity and separation and reflect the strategies that Mao used and their impact on different people. However, the limitation of this source is that it mainly describes the author’s life in Shanghai and as children and therefore it does not take into account others living in different areas in China and of a different age. 

Lee, Hong Yung. “Mao’s Strategy for Revolutionary Change: A Case Study of the Cultural Revolution on JSTOR.” Jstor.org, March 1979. https://www.jstor.org/stable/653089?seq=2.

This source is an article from JStor that discusses the four main strategies implemented by Mao during the Cultural Revolution. I was able to understand the strategies of manipulation of the symbols, manipulation of discontent social groups, manipulation of other contradictions, and control and demobilization of the masses. I was also able to see a different perspective as to why the Cultural Revolution, as stated in this article, was because Yao Wenyuan attacked Beijing’s vice mayor through an article.  This source is useful for my paper because it explains Mao’s strategies in detail by relating them to events and connecting them to Mao’s ideologies of the government. It also elaborates on which groups of people are involved in each event. However, the limitation of this source is that it does not assess whether these strategies separate or unify the people and it does not provide much context for some strategies. 

Li, Xing. “The Chinese Cultural Revolution Revisited on JSTOR.” Jstor.org, 2001. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23461931?searchText=strategies+of+mao+during+cultural+revolution&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dstrategies%2Bof%2Bmao%2Bduring%2Bcultural%2Brevolution%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A6bfe385462f765741b0de553a4992780&seq=4.

This source is a scholarly article from JStor that breaks down Mao’s motivations for starting the Cultural Revolution by looking at Mao’s ideologies about social reforms and the problems that China faces that are preventing its growth as a socialist society. I learned that China faced problems such as the re-emergence of capitalist practices, localism, and bureaucracy after the socialist transformation in the 1950s and that Mao’s ideology was to revolutionize and transform the Chinese people in order to build a stronger and more efficient society, aligning with his idea of “Gong(共)” and removing “Si(私)”. This source is useful for my paper because it discusses the problems that Mao confronted in reforming China and how he planned to address his problems, which became part of his ideologies during the Cultural Revolution. However, this source does not explain and give concrete examples of how he addressed each of these problems. 

Sterba, James P. “China Says Its Rising Juvenile Crime Stems from Cultural Revolution: Three-Stage Program Adopted - ProQuest.” ProQuest, December 26, 1979. https://doi.org/%22,.

This source is a newspaper from The New York Times and it provides insight into the consequences of Mao’s reformed education system, specifically focusing on the increased juvenile delinquency. From this source, I learned that China has experienced an approximate 10 times increase in youth crime over the 20 years in the time where this newspaper was published in 1979.  The Cultural Revolution is held responsible for this cause by promoting actions of crime to young people by recognizing it as a revolutionary action. I also learned that the government has created a three-program system to help juveniles depending on the severity of the crime they have committed. This source is useful for that it is a primary source that addresses an issue that is a product of the Cultural Revolution, which can be used to support the thesis that Mao’s strategies weakened the future generations. This source will act as evidence in one of the body paragraphs. 

Szczepanski, Kallie. “China’s Red Guards?” ThoughtCo, October 22, 2019. https://www.thoughtco.com/who-were-chinas-red-guards-195412.

This source is an encyclopedia-type source that provides general information on who the Red Guards were and the actions they took during the Cultural Revolution. From this source, I learned that the Red Guards groups are mainly made up of young students, workers, and peasants and that they are dedicated to removing the “4 Olds” (old customs, culture, habits, and ideas) from the Chinese society by taking action. The Red Guards have humiliated and attacked intellectuals such as teachers and the bourgeoise such as former landowners. They have also destroyed valuable Chinese heritage such as ancient texts from Buddhist temples. This source is useful for that it gives many examples in which the Red Guards have taken action to criticize and attack the “4 Olds”. However, it does not mention in specific in which they have also blamed younger generations as well if they do not seem dedicated to the revolution. This source will be used as evidence in the section on how the creation of Red Guards separated the young from the old. 

Williams, Sue. “China: A Century of Revolution (1949-1976).” Ambrica. Released in 1989. YouTube video, 1:54:05. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJyoX_vrlns&t=114s 

This source is a documentary that records the events in China after 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was created, until 1976, when Mao passed away. This source provides an overview of the major events that happened during but not limited to the Cultural Revolution along with interviews from people who have participated in or witnessed them. From this source, I learned that Mao decided to promote collectivization after cooperatives gained success among the peasants. They did not like this idea because they had to give up everything they had, such as their animals, tools, and land. but party officials and neighbors pressured them to join. However, the peasants are pressured by party officials and neighbors to join. The income of one peasant whom Zhang Chaoke, a village party official, had urged to join in collectivization claimed that his income decreased and he was unhappy with it. This source is useful for that it gathers people who were a part of the Cultural Revolution and gives their personal opinions or experiences on certain events they were involved in. This can help me determine whether or not people liked Mao’s strategies.