The Cultural Revolution - Motives

Learning Objectives: Explain the motives and objectives of Mao instigating the Cultural Revolution

Key Terms, Events, Names: Red Guards, Bourgeois, Revisionist, Lin Biao, The Four Olds

Starter: China from 1945 - 1963

In no more than 75 words write a summary of what has taken place in

China between 1949-63.

LO: Explain the motives and objectives of Mao instigating the Cultural Revolution

• Mao resigned as President of China in 1959. He remained as Chairman of the CCP. China was now controlled by three leading Communists:– President, Liu Shaoqi– Prime Minister, Zhou Enlai– The CCP General Secretary, Deng

Xiaoping• All three solved the problems created by

the Great Leap Forward by re-introducing some central control of the economy and planning by ‘bureaucrats’.

Changes after the GLF

Why would these changes to the economy worry Mao?

Cultural Revolution Overview

Create a table on the cultural revolution with the three headings listed below. You will add to this table over the next few lessons. Under each you must provide evidence and examples of why you think this.

• Mao’s Motives• Key Features• Impacts on China & Mao

LO: Explain the motives and objectives of Mao instigating the Cultural Revolution

Revolution Declared

• By mid 1960s Mao was becoming concerned about the direction of China under Liu Shaoqi & Deng Xiaoping.

• Middle-class experts and townspeople again seemed to be getting wealthy at the expense of the peasants.

• In 1966 he summoned the young people of China to Tiananmen Square and told them that the revolution was in danger from leaders of the CCP.

Considering how committed Mao

was to Communist

ideology, do you think he would

agree with Deng’s

statement?

“It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white; so long as it catches the mouse,

it is a good cat”

Deng Xiaoping, June 1962

LO: Explain the motives and objectives of Mao instigating the Cultural Revolution

Revolution Declared

• These ‘Red Guards’ were told that they had the task of saving the revolution.

• Mao called for young people to rise up and rid China of the anti-Communist elements within the Party, schools, universities and society.

• The events which followed became known as the ‘Cultural Revolution’.

LO: Explain the motives and objectives of Mao instigating the Cultural Revolution

Mao had several motives for carrying out the Cultural Revolution:

1.) Power Struggle – After the GLF, Mao’s own political position was weakened and his economic policies rejected. He wanted to

defeat his opponents and regain political supremacy.

2.) Purify Communism – Mao hated the development of a new CCP middle class which he saw as corrupt. He also labelled the

economic reforms of moderates as ‘capitalist’ or ‘Revisionist’. Chinese culture also had to change.

3.) Education & Culture – Education was attacked as it produced this ‘bureaucratic class’. It needed to be more

revolutionary, less academic. Traditional Chinese culture was seen as ‘Bourgeois’.

4.) Mao’s Comeback – Mao was confident enough to launch the Cultural Revolution as from 1965 he gained the support of Lin

Biao and the PLA. He created the ‘Red Guards’ and used propaganda to ensure support.

Revolution DeclaredLO: Explain the motives and objectives of Mao instigating the Cultural Revolution

Extend Your Knowledge

Review the below link and then build on what you have written in your table.

www.johndclare.net/China9.htm

LO: Explain the motives and objectives of Mao instigating the Cultural Revolution

Revolution DeclaredRead the following passage by 'Ken Ling' (a Red Guard who fled China to the West at the end of the 1960s).

'Ken Ling', Red Guard, 1972 On the Athletic field, I saw rows of teachers, about 40 or 50 in all, with black ink poured over their heads and faces...  Hanging on their necks were placards with such words as 'reactionary academic authority so-and-so', class enemy so-and-so' ...  They all wore dunce caps ...  Hanging from their necks were pails filled with rocks.  I saw the principal, the pail round his neck was so heavy that the wire had cut deep into his neck and he was staggering.  All were barefoot, hitting broken gongs ... as they walked round the field and begged Mao Zedong to 'pardon their crimes' ...Beatings and torture followed ... eating nightsoil and insects; being subjected to electric shocks; forced to kneel in broken glass.

How useful is this source to an historian who wants to understand the Cultural Revolution?

LO: Explain the motives and objectives of Mao instigating the Cultural Revolution