China's Cultural Revolution

• The Cultural Revolution was launched in China in 1966 by Mao Zedong to reassert authority over the Chinese government.
• Mao believed current Communist leaders were leading China in the wrong direction.
• Mao called on the nation's youth to purge "impure" elements and revive revolutionary spirit.
• The Cultural Revolution continued until Mao's death in 1976 and its effects would be felt for decades.

Cultural Revolution Origins

• In the 1960s, Mao felt the party leadership was moving toward revisionism, emphasizing expertise over ideology.
• Mao's position was weakened after the failure of the "Great Leap Forward" from 1958-60 and the economic crisis that followed.
• To regain authority, Mao gathered radical supporters, including his wife Jiang Qing and defense minister Lin Biao.
• Lin Biao promoted a personality cult around Mao.
• Lin Biao ensured the "Little Red Book" of Mao's quotations was printed and distributed widely.

Launch of the Revolution

• Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in August 1966, shutting down schools and mobilizing youth against bourgeois values.
• Students formed paramilitary groups called the Red Guards and attacked elderly and intellectuals.
• A personality cult around Mao developed, with factions claiming true interpretation of Maoist thought.
• The population was urged to eliminate the "Four Olds": old customs, culture, habits, and ideas.
• During the early phase of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1968, President Liu Shaoqi and other Communist leaders were removed from power.
• Many Chinese cities neared anarchy by September 1967, leading Mao to deploy army troops to restore order.
• Economic production plummeted, with industrial production dropping 12% below the 1966 level by 1968.
• Lin was designated Mao's successor in 1969 and wanted to institute martial law using border clashes with the Soviet Union.
• Mao maneuvered against Lin with Zhou Enlai's help, splitting the ranks of power atop the Chinese government.
• Lin died in an airplane crash in Mongolia in September 1971 while trying to escape to the Soviet Union.
• Lin's high military command were purged, and Zhou gained greater control.
• Lin's end led to disillusionment over Mao's "revolution."

End of Revolution

• Zhou stabilized China by reviving education and restoring former officials.
• Mao had a stroke and Zhou learned that he had cancer in 1972.
• Both leaders supported Deng Xiaoping, who had been purged earlier.
• Jiang and her allies (the Gang of Four) opposed Deng.
• The radicals convinced Mao to purge Deng in April 1976.
• After Mao's death in September 1976, a coalition pushed out the Gang of Four.
• Deng regained power in 1977 and controlled the government for the next 20 years.

Effects of Revolution

• Approximately 1.5 million people were killed, and millions suffered other violence during the Cultural Revolution.
• The revolution's long-term effects impacted China for decades.
• Mao's attack on the party led to loss of faith in the government.

Deng's Four Modernizations

• In 1978, Deng launched the Four Modernizations to reform China while retaining overall control.
• Communes were replaced by individual family farms.
• Families could lease government land and sell excess to the market.
• The "responsibility system" led to surpluses, and some aspects of capitalism increased while the communist system remained.
• Deng accepted some decrease in "top down" control.
• Planning decentralized from the central government in Beijing to local provinvial governments.
• Consumer goods development became the priority.
• Factory managers could choose what to sell if they made a profit.
• "Special economic zones" attracted foreign firms through reduced state regulation and tax rates.
• Production and managerial skills increased overall, while pollution, population, crime in cities, and the divide between rich and poor all increased.
• National defense reforms focused on a more professionalized, better-armed military and modernizing weapons and military technology.
• There was an effort to promote dual use, military and civilian synergy deemed ideal.

Science and Technology

• Deng promoted education and training and sending students overseas to increase trade and investment.
• China worked with the United Nations Development Programme to promote market-based principles, training, and education.
• There were over 800,000 researchers in areas like energy production, computers, optics, space technology, physics, and genetics were trained.

Fifth Modernization?

• There was hope that the four modernizations would lead to political reforms, democracy, and freedom of speech.
• The promotion of education overseas and welcoming foreigners into China led to hopes of a more open policy.
• Human rights activist Wei Jingsheng, who wrote an essay entitled "The Fifth Modernization” and advocated democracy, was imprisoned.
• Student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 continued to show the government of China stopped at four.
• Activism, including promoting the rights of women, continues today.
• The four modernizations helped China become a major world economic power while retaining its self-reliance.
• Reforms mixed economic reforms while retaining communist control, leading to concerns regarding corruption and weak democratic institutions.

Deng Xiaoping

• Born in 1904, Deng Xiaoping (d. 1997) was one of the first generation of Chinese Communist Party leaders.
• He held prominent positions in the government in the 1950s and 1960s but was removed from office and imprisoned during the years of the Cultural Revolution, 1966-76.
• Deng Xiaoping reemerged as China's paramount leader shortly after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.
• Deng set the course of reform by dismantling the communes set up under Mao and replaced them with the Household Responsibility System (HRS).
• Deng encouraged farmers to engage in private entrepreneurship and sideline businesses.
• Deng believed by experimenting with alternative forms of production and entrepreneurial activity would China find the best path for economic development.
• Deng wanted to set up an arrangement whereby leadership succession would take place according to legal guidelines rather than personality struggles.
• Deng ordered the miltary to move in and clear Tiananmen Square in 1989.
• Pro-reform leaders like Zhao Ziyang were removed from office.

Tiananmen Square Protests

• In 1989 Tiananmen Square became the site of large-scale protests that were crushed by China's Communist rulers.
• The events remain a sensitive topic in China and one of the few remaining public memorials in Hong Kong has now been removed.

Origins

• In the 1980s, China started allowing some private companies and foreign investment.
• Deng Xiaoping hoped to boost the economy and raise living standards.
• However, the move brought with it corruption, while at the same time raising hopes for greater political openness.
• The Communist Party was divided between those urging more rapid change and hardliners wanting to maintain strict state control
• In the mid-1980s, student-led protests started by those who had lived abroad.
• Protests occurred in Spring 1989 and grew, with demands for greater political freedom.
• Protesters were spurred on by the death of a leading politician, Hu Yaobang.
• Tens of thousands gathered on the day of Hu's funeral, in April, calling for greater freedom of speech and less censorship.
• In the following weeks, protesters gathered in Tiananmen Square, with numbers estimated to be up to one million at their largest.

Government Response

• Initially, the government took no direct action against the protesters.
• Party officials disagreed on how to respond, some backing concessions, others wanting to take a harder line.
• Martial law was declared in Beijing in the last two weeks of May.
• Troops moved towards Tiananmen Square on June 3-4, opening fire, crushing and arresting protesters to regain control.
• Posts relating to the massacres are regularly removed from the internet, tightly controlled by the government.
• So, for a younger generation who didn't live through the protests, there is little awareness about what happened.

Tank Man

• On June 5, a man faced down a line of tanks leaving the square and was filmed walking to block the tanks.
• It is not known what happened to him and he's become the defining image of the protests.

Deaths

• No-one knows for sure how many people were killed.
• The Chinese government said 200 civilians and several dozen security personnel had died.
• Other estimates have ranged from hundreds to many thousands.
• Newly released UK documents in 2017 revealed that a diplomatic cable from the British Ambassador to China estimated 10,000 had died.
• Discussion of the events that took place in Tiananmen Square is highly sensitive in China.