The Power Of Revisionism

“Revisionism,” A policy first put forward in the 1890s by Edward Bernstein (1850-1932) advocating the introduction of socialism through evolution rather than revolution, in opposition to the orthodox view of Marxists. People who follow revisionism are often called revisionist and this is what Nikita Khrushchev was referred to as by communist such as Mao Zedong. After the death of Joseph Stalin, Khrushchev took power of the Soviet Union to change the whole economic plan of Russia from the Marxist-Leninism principles to Capitalist principles. Mao and the Stalin supporters of the Communist Party of China did not support the changes that were made in because it could affect the movement in the communist direction that Mao was headed in with the
Mao’s belief that China was the center of the world revolution comprised of his ideological disagreement with the soviets and constituted an essential underpinning of his efforts to win the support of other communist parties. The Sino-Soviet split created an “anti-revisionist” movement, which makes me believe that the Cultural Revolution was partially a struggle between Mao’s vision of socialist China and Revisionism because Mao took his international fear of capitalism and brought it towards the his own country and created a need to oust revisionist from their society. The rise to power of revisionism means the rise to power of the bourgeoisie. – Mao Tse Tung.[ii] Revisionism is only the partial struggle because China also had other interior issues like having enemies between social classes, and political beefs that were also factors in the struggle of the Cultural
“About 36 million people were persecuted and anywhere from 750,000 to 1.5 million killed.”[] There is no possible way that killing 1.5 million of a countries people could ever be a good thing to the society. “The Cultural Revolution followed the failed Great Leap Forward and the ensuing Great Famine, when Mao and the Communist Party were on the defensive, looking for ways to rekindle revolutionary spirit. Instead of reshaping Chinese society and thought--its purported intention--the Cultural Revolution thrust much of China into social, political and economic chaos.”[iv] The group of people that were hurt most by the Cultural Revolution was the intellectuals. The simple fact that Mao saw anyone with knowledge as a threat caused him to immediately turn against the intellectuals of china because they stood out from the crowd of workers and peasants. Since they were neither, they were looked upon as the Bourgeoisie/revisionist and were hounded by the Red Guard they were the most vulnerable people even “were paraded through streets with dunce caps”[iv] for acts of rebellion. They were vulnerable because they had no political power. This period of catastrophe cause many aspects of the society to be paralyzed. Science and technology was damaged and institutes ceased because of political fear and