Cultural Revolution

By leu1909

  • Setting the stage for the Cultural Revolution

    Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, writes a critique on Chinese literature and art because of the anti-socialist and anti-party tendencies. Mao starts to replace people in his government and gave positions to only those he trusted.

  • Unofficial Beginning of the Cultural Revolution

    Mao calls on the Red Guards to hunt for revolutionists. Students from all over China started to rise up against the school authorities. Schools shut down, and students started to attend revolutionary activities.

  • First dazibao

    The first dazibao is written by a teacher at Beijing University against some of the other professors who were labelled reactionary academics. Soon, dazibao is written everywhere all throughout China.

  • Red Guards form at Beijing University

    Students all over China joined to become the Red Guards, attacking those who are not loyal to Mao. Ironically, the Red Guards eventually started to attack those who encouraged them to attack in the first place.

  • Mao writes a dazibao

    Mao wrote his own daozibao stating to "bombard the headquarters", giving daozibao an authority.

  • Sixteen Points Directive

    The Sixteen Points is passed by the CCP, allowing Mao and his Red Guards to carry out the revolution. This marks the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

  • First Red Guard Rally in Beijing

    Almost 13 million Red Guards gather at Tiananmen Square to greet Mao. Mao expressed his support for the Red Guards and motivated them to continue their efforts of getting fid of the "Four Olds".

  • Chaos escalates

    Red Guards ransacked over 38,000 homes and beaten around 1,700 people to death. Students also turned on each other for personal feuds, leading to even more chaos. Mao supported the Red Guards, the government started to fall.

  • Short and Long term effects of the Red Guard chaos

    Short: Mao expressed his support to the Red Guards. This would lead to the deaths of thousands of people throughout the revolution.
    Long: The chaos created would ultimately influence the policy-making of the politicians in China up to even now, in order to avoid the huge losses, not only in terms of population but also in terms of the economy and reputation of the country. They would do anything to avoid this kind of chaos and have learnt from Mao to avoid this kind of violence ever again.

  • "Down to the countryside" movement

    Mao sends over 16 million youths down to the countryside to do manual labor, causing them to lose education opportunities, and effectively eliminated the chances of the youths rising against the CCP.

  • Short and Long term effects of the "Down to the countryside" movement

    Short: People who were forced to work in the countrysides were also malnourished as a result of the labor. They also developed physical problems working long hours under the sun at such a young age.
    Long: The lack of education created an education gap between the generation before and after the cultural revolution. This led to this generation mainly using labor as a resort for money and income.

  • Red Guards dismantled

    With thousands of people killed, the economy declining greatly, and over half the members of the government are kicked out, Mao calls off the Red Guards and declares the Revolution as a success. Mao regains control over China.

  • Campaign to promote Mao's cult of personality

    Mao continues to promote his God-like figure and propagandas are posted in every home. Mao loses control over the Red Guards and fears for the foundation of the CCP.

  • Ninth Congress of the CCP

    Lin Biao is promoted to vice-chairman of the CCP and successor to Mao. THe CCP focused more on rebuilding China, including the economy and foreign relations, that were suffering greatly due to the chaos prior. Revolutionary committees are build to restore order and bring leadership.

  • "The Lin Biao affair"

    Tensions in the CCP begin to grow, Mao begins to be suspicious of Lin, dwindling his power. Lin tried to assassinate Mao but ultimately failed. He died in the plane crash while going to the Soviet Union. The people in China begin to doubt the legitimacy of the Cultural Revolution.

  • "Criticize Lin Biao, Criticize Confucius" campaign

    Both campaigns are created to attempt to change the minds of the Chines people towards Lin and Zhou Enlai. However, both campaigns failed. Meanwhile, Deng Xiaoping reenters the political arena with the help of Zhou.

  • Short and Long term effects of the Lin Biao Affair

    Short: This made the Chinese people then doubt even more about the government, leading to the failure of the campaign
    Long: This brought Deng back into the political arena, establishing his era in Chinese history, which brought the Chinese economy to great heights.

  • Events leading to the end of the Cultural Revolution

    After Zhou's death, Mao demotes Deng Xiaoping from his position of vice-premier and replaces Zhou with Han Guofeng. After Mao's death in September of 1975, Hua became the chairman of the CCP, and arrested Jiang Qing and her supporters. Hua put the blame of the Cultural Revolution on Lin and Jiang, and Mao was nearly blameless. The decade of the Cultural Revolution later became known as the "ten lost years"

  • Tiananmen Incident

    Zhou Enlai passed away from cancer, and more people than expected showed up to his memorial at Tiananmen Square. They also used this occasion to criticize Jiang Qing, and when she and her supporters attempted to remove them from the Square, chaos ensued, and the Tiananmen Incident is labeled as a counterrevolutionary by the government, but the label is later removed.