The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Essay

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution or the Cultural Revolution (1966 -1976) was one of the most dramatic and bleakest periods in the history of the People’s Republic of China. The roots of the Cultural Revolution date back to the late 1950s to the early 1960s when the Great Leap Forward ended in catastrophe. The leader, Mao Zedong lost a lot of his influence among his revolutionary comrades, supporters and eventually, he was removed from actual powers by the members of the party. During his eradication, Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi came to power. They introduced China to “economic reforms based on individual incentives where families are allowed to cultivate their own plots of land - as an attempt to revive the crippled economy. Mao detested such policies, believing that the CCP was becoming too bureaucratic and the Party officials shied away from the values of Communism and revolution.” (Spence, 1990)
(Schoenhals, 1996) The campaign called on the nation’s youth to get rid of these negative elements of Chinese society and restore the revolutionary spirit by forming Red Guards groups to insult or punish counter-revolutionist around the country. The movement expanded throughout the society and even the Communist Party leadership itself. As a result, it created a nationwide factional struggles in all walks of life. On top of that, it led to a mass purge of senior officials, most notably Liu and Deng. (Guo, et.al, 2006)

The Cultural Revolution’s influence was felt throughout the nation, below this essay will discuss the impacts of the Cultural Revolution using from societal and political perspectives namely impacts on education, Communism and government as well as