Key Events and Figures During the Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) was one of the most destructive political movements in modern Chinese history. Mao Zedong launched it to reassert his authority over the Communist Party after the failures of the Great Leap Forward had weakened his standing. What followed was a decade of political purges, social chaos, and cultural destruction that affected virtually every level of Chinese society.
Key Events and Campaigns
Launching the Cultural Revolution (1966)
By the mid-1960s, Mao had grown convinced that the Communist Party was drifting toward "revisionism" and away from revolutionary ideals. In May 1966, he issued the "May 16 Notification" (also called the May 16 Circular), which accused party leaders of harboring bourgeois sympathizers and called for their removal. That summer, he mobilized students into paramilitary groups called the Red Guards, giving them broad authority to root out so-called class enemies. Schools and universities shut down as millions of young people took to the streets.
Mao's first big-character poster, "Bombard the Headquarters," posted in August 1966, signaled that even the highest ranks of the party were fair targets. Mass rallies in Tiananmen Square that autumn drew over a million Red Guards at a time, with Mao personally reviewing them to show his endorsement.
Destruction of the "Four Olds"
One of the earliest campaigns targeted the Four Olds: old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. Red Guards ransacked temples, burned books, smashed historical artifacts, and defaced cultural sites across the country. Libraries, religious buildings, and private homes containing anything deemed "feudal" or "bourgeois" were destroyed. The Confucian temple complex at Qufu, for example, was severely damaged, and countless family genealogies and classical texts were burned. This campaign wiped out irreplaceable pieces of China's cultural heritage in a matter of months.
Revolutionary Committees
Existing government structures at every level were dismantled and replaced by revolutionary committees. These committees drew members from three sources (sometimes called the "three-in-one combination"):
- The People's Liberation Army (PLA)
- Communist Party cadres loyal to Mao
- Representatives of "the masses" (workers, peasants, soldiers)
Their purpose was to enforce Mao's ideology and implement his directives, but in practice they often became tools for local power grabs and factional infighting. By 1968, revolutionary committees had been established in every province, effectively replacing the old party-state bureaucracy.
Power Struggles and Purges
The Cultural Revolution was, at its core, a power struggle within the Communist Party. Mao used the movement to sideline rivals and reassert dominance over the party apparatus.
- Liu Shaoqi, the President of the People's Republic and once Mao's designated successor, became the primary target. He was accused of being a "capitalist roader" and a traitor to the revolution. Red Guards subjected him to brutal public "struggle sessions," where he was denounced, beaten, and humiliated. Denied medical treatment while in custody, Liu died in 1969 under horrific conditions. He was not officially rehabilitated until 1980.
- Deng Xiaoping, then General Secretary of the party, was also labeled a "capitalist roader." He was stripped of all his positions and sent to work in a tractor factory in Jiangxi province. Deng survived the Cultural Revolution and was rehabilitated after Mao's death, eventually becoming China's paramount leader in the late 1970s and steering the country toward economic reform.
- Lin Biao, the Defense Minister, initially rose as Mao's closest ally during the Cultural Revolution. He compiled the "Little Red Book" (Quoterta of Chairman Mao Zedong) and was formally named Mao's successor in the 1969 party constitution. However, the two fell out by 1971. Lin allegedly plotted a coup against Mao, and when the plot was discovered, he fled by plane toward the Soviet Union. The aircraft crashed in Mongolia on September 13, 1971, killing everyone on board. The Lin Biao incident shook public faith in the revolution, since the man Mao had personally chosen as his successor had turned out to be a "traitor."
These purges extended far beyond top leaders. Thousands of party officials at provincial and local levels were removed, publicly humiliated, or imprisoned.
Experiences of Intellectuals and Citizens
Intellectuals and "Struggle Sessions"
Intellectuals, teachers, artists, and anyone with foreign education or "bourgeois" connections became prime targets. They were labeled "bourgeois elements" or members of the "stinking ninth category" (a derogatory classification that placed intellectuals below landlords and other class enemies in a hierarchy of political undesirables). Many were subjected to struggle sessions, public events where victims were forced to stand before crowds, wear humiliating placards around their necks, and endure verbal and physical abuse. Thousands were sent to labor camps or rural areas for "re-education through labor." Some were tortured to death; others took their own lives.
Ordinary Citizens
Daily life for ordinary people was consumed by political activity. Workplaces and neighborhoods organized mandatory study sessions on Mao's writings, particularly the Little Red Book. Citizens were pressured to denounce colleagues, neighbors, and even family members. Refusing to participate could make you a target yourself. Violence between rival Red Guard factions broke out in cities across China, and in some regions (such as Guangxi province) the factional fighting escalated into armed conflict with military weapons. Many people lost their homes, possessions, and livelihoods.
The "Sent-Down Youth" Movement
Beginning in late 1968, Mao ordered millions of urban young people to relocate to the countryside to "learn from the peasants." This sent-down youth (or zhiqing) movement served multiple purposes: it dispersed the increasingly uncontrollable Red Guard factions, reduced urban unemployment, and spread Maoist ideology to rural areas. An estimated 16 million youth were relocated over the following years. Many endured grueling manual labor, poor living conditions, and separation from their families. When some were eventually allowed to return to cities in the late 1970s, they had lost years of education and carried deep disillusionment with the party. This generation is sometimes called China's "lost generation."
Key Figures
Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's fourth wife, became one of the most powerful figures of the Cultural Revolution. A former actress, she took control of China's cultural and propaganda apparatus, dictating which art, music, and theater were politically acceptable. She championed the "model operas" (yangbanxi), a small set of approved revolutionary performances that became virtually the only entertainment permitted in China for years. She promoted Mao's cult of personality and actively encouraged Red Guard violence against perceived enemies.
Jiang Qing was part of the Gang of Four, a radical faction that wielded enormous influence during the final years of the Cultural Revolution. The group consisted of:
- Jiang Qing (Mao's wife, cultural and propaganda leader)
- Zhang Chunqiao (political theorist and Shanghai leader)
- Yao Wenyuan (propaganda chief, whose 1965 article attacking the play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office helped spark the Cultural Revolution)
- Wang Hongwen (youngest member, a factory worker turned party leader)
Together, they controlled media and propaganda, orchestrated purges of moderate officials, and pushed radical policies. After Mao's death on September 9, 1976, the Gang of Four was arrested within a month by a coalition led by Hua Guofeng (Mao's chosen successor) and military leaders. Their arrest on October 6, 1976, effectively ended the Cultural Revolution. All four were tried in 1980–1981 and convicted of persecuting hundreds of thousands of people. Jiang Qing received a death sentence that was later commuted to life imprisonment; she died in 1991.
The fall of the Gang of Four opened the door for Deng Xiaoping's return to power and the sweeping economic reforms that would transform China in the decades that followed.