Cultural Revolution/Cultural Rectification Is the Answer to Our Country’s Woes? To the Filipino Youth, RISE UP, STAND UP! In 1966, after spending years studying political economy and the classics of Chinese history, Mao was ready to act. Mao was disillusioned with the revisionist direction that the Communist Party was taking in the Soviet Union and saw China probably heading in the same direction. He gathered a bloc of radicals to aid him in his attack on the leadership of the Communist Party. Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in August of 1966 at a Plenum of the Central Committee when he called for Red Guards to challenge Communist Party officials for their bourgeoisies and lack of revolutionary zeal and for nurturing corruption within the bureaucracy. Articles in Party newspapers preceding this official launching introduced the concept of the Cultural Revolution. Schools were closed to free students to join the Red Guards. The movement escalated but it also splintered into factions, all claiming fervent devotion to Chairman Mao. Mao promoted, or at least sanctioned, a personality cult that exceeded that created for Joseph Stalin. Lin Biao was a major influence in the creation of the personality cult for Mao. Mao felt that he could no longer depend on the formal party organization, convinced that it had been permeated with the capitalist and bourgeois obstructionists. He turned to Lin Biao and the PLA to counteract the influence of those who were allegedly `left in form but `right in essence. The PLA was widely extolled as a great school for the training of a new generation of revolutionary fighters and leaders. Maoists also turned to middle-school students for political demonstrations on their behalf. These students, joined also by some university students, came to be known as the Red Guards. Millions of Red Guards were encouraged by the Cultural Revolution group to become a shock force and to bombard with criticism both the regular party headquarters in Beijing and those at the regional and provincial levels. Red Guard activities were promoted as a reflection of Maos policy of rekindling revolutionary enthusiasm and destroying outdated, counterrevolutionary symbols and values. Maos ideas, popularized in the Quotations from Chairman Mao, became the standard by which all revolutionary efforts were to be judged. The four big rights--speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates, and writing big-character posters --became an important factor in encouraging Maos youthful followers to criticize his intraparty rivals. The four big rights became such a major feature during the period that they were later institutionalized in the state constitution of 1975. The result of the unfettered criticism of established organs of control by Chinas exuberant youth was massive civil disorder, punctuated also by clashes among rival Red Guard gangs and between the gangs and local security authorities. The party organization was shattered from top to bottom. (The Central Committees Secretariat ceased functioning in late 1966). The resources of the public security organs were severely strained. Faced with imminent anarchy, the PLA--the only organization whose ranks for the most part had not been radicalized by Red Guard-style activities--emerged as the principal guarantor of law and order and the de facto political authority. And although the PLA was under Maos rallying call to support the left, PLA regional military commanders ordered their forces to restrain the leftist radicals, thus restoring order throughout much of China. The PLA also was responsible for the appearance in early 1967 of the revolutionary committees, a new form of local control that replaced local party committees and administrative bodies. The revolutionary committees were staffed with Cultural Revolution activists, trusted cadres, and military commanders, the latter frequently holding the greatest power. The Student Based Purge Propaganda The Cultural Revolution (文化大革命, Wenhua Dageming, 1966-1976) was a mass campaign of enormous dimensions participated on by the studentry. Aside from the general revolutionary high-tide that swept China, the period was marked by a large number of sub-campaigns. Indeed, whenever the situation called for a shift in orientation within the larger framework of the Cultural Revolution, this was engineered by setting in motion a new campaign. Some 1.5 million mostly corrupt government officials were purged and humiliated during the Cultural Revolution, including friends, co-revolutionaries and top brass like Liu Shaoqi who dressed more like a fashion model and his wife Wang Guangmei, Peng Duhei, Deng Xiao Peng who was denounced by his own daughter Deng Rong for engaging excessive life style, abusive factory and commune managers, even those who initially supported the rectification but were tempted to grab power like Lin Biao, and millions of others suffered imprisonment, seizure of property, torture or general humiliation by the Red Guards composed of young students age 12 – 21 years old. Later on, Mao Zedong denounced his wife Jiang Qing in favour of Deng Xiao Peng who was rehabilitated. Jiang Qing who was indirectly purged by Mao Zedong committed suicide in jail in 1991 with an original death penalty sentence, but commuted to life imprisonment. China was turned topsy-turvy by the students for ten years that cleansed the government hierarchy of corrupt and revolutionary railroaders. The Cultural Revolution’s short-term effects may have been felt mainly in China’s cities, but its long-term effects would impact the entire country for decades to come. Mao’s large-scale attack on the party and system he had created would eventually produce a result that strengthened China’s foundation as a Nation and as a Super Power as it is today. Mao Zedong waged a Cultural Rectificatory Revolution, if I may say, that he practiced with truthfulness, so that he died a poor man without properties nor wealth – he did not owned a house, a car, jewellery, vast track of lands, Frank Sinatra phonographic records, wristwatches and never used western toothpaste and toiletries in his life time. The leadership of Deng Xiaoping continued until his death in 1997 even when he held no formal office in the Chinese government. Mao Zedong waged a revolution that he practiced with truthfulness, so that he died a poor man without properties nor wealth – he didn’t owned a house, a car, jewellery, vast track of lands, Frank Sinatra phonographic records, wristwatches and never used western toothpaste and toiletries in his life time. Dr. Delmar Topinio Taclibon, Bt., DKR, KRSS, BSCE, MBA, PhD.D.A. References: San Jose University Department of Economics, USA Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic, Maurice Meiser, Copyright 1977 and 1986, The Free Press, Macmillan Publishing Co.., Inc., USA The Private Life of Chairman Mao,, Zhisui Li, Copyright 1994 Mao for Beginners, Eduardo del Rio, Copyright 1980 Eldest Son – Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China, Han Suyin, 1994 edition, PIMLICO, London Powerhouse Museum Chinaposters
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 23:28:47 +0000
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