Chinese Cultural Revolution

Question 1

How long was the Chinese Cultural Revolution?

Answer 1

The Chinese Cultural Revolution lasted from 1966 to 1976, a period of ten years.

Question 2

What was the Chinese Cultural Revolution?

Answer 2

The Chinese Cultural Revolution, or better put resolution, was a resolution under the auspices of Chairman Mao ZeDong to eliminate and identify bureaucratic elites who were anti-communist as well as ordinary people. Principal actors were triangular: The bureaucratic clique, Chairman Mao, and the people of the PRC.

Question 3

How has the Chinese Government distorted the history of the “ten years of chaos?”

Answer 3

Well, in 1981, the 6th plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party passed its “Resolution Regarding Certain Historical Issues Since the Founding of Our Country”, which sought to reevaluate Communist China’s history and alter its presentation in a pragmatic way, thereby violating history, increasing legitimacy of the sort of new Regime, and changing history so that the Cultural Revolution seemed like a simple blunder.

Question 4

What exactly did the Resolution of 1981 change or alter in Chinese History?

Answer 4

Well, they tried to make the adverse effects of the cultural revolution the fault of a erroneously paranoid leader and an irritating counterrevolutionary force under the guidance of Lin Biao, and Jiang Qing in the “Gang of Four,

Question 5

What is the truth of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing?

Answer 5

Both were actually good supporters of Mao who took advantage of the opportunities created by the Cultural Revolution to eliminate competition within the party. The Gang of Four did not exist until 1973 anyway so wtf. And if there was a Lin Biao clique, it lasted only from 1969 to 1971.

Question 6

What about Zhou Enlai?

Answer 6

Well, the Chinese governemtn is quite fond of Zhou Enlai, characterizing him as a man with principles against the cultural Revolution. Why? Because he was part of that Chinese Bureaucratic Clique which took control of China after the death of Mao in 1976. In reality, Zhou Enlai was a loyal little dog. He was long time prime minister.

Question 7

How many people were adversely affected by the Chinese Cultural Revolution?

Answer 7

Approximately a 100 million people. That is, 1/8 of the population of China at the time.

Question 8

Why would Mao be resentful of Liu Shaoqui, more specifically, what did Shaoqi do to gain a presence in Communist China?

Answer 8

Lui Shaoqi gained notoriety for having ended the Great Famina after Mao’s five year plan which resulted in overproduction of industrial goods to cathc up with the Soviet unions and become another world superpower.

Question 9

What occurred in 1957 China regarding intellectuals and criticism?

Answer 9

After public strikes and demonstration in 1956, the CCP launched a rectification campaign, encouraging voices of discontent among intellectuals

Question 10

When was the Great Leap Forward, how many people died?

Answer 10

About thirty million people died between 1958 and 1962 in the industrial boom called the Great Leap Forward.

Question 11

How did the Chinese government react to the lessons of the Great Famine?

Answer 11

They actually disputed a lot and did not settle on what exactly was the lesson to be learned.

Question 12

How did Mao in particular react to the Great Leap Forward Famine?

Answer 12

He was highly critical of those who tried their best to undo the effects of the famine, particularly , Mao targeted Liu Shaoqi.

Question 13

What occured in 1949 in the Soviet Union which agitated Mao ZeDong?

Answer 13

Nickita Khrushchev criticized Stalin in his secret speech in 1949 at the Twentieth National Congress of the Soviet Communist Party.

Question 14

Who was Wu Han? What did he contribute to the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 14

Wu Han was a historian within the CCP who used a Marxist lens to interpret history and used history as a politically charged allusion to the present. He wrote several essays under collusion with mad meowing Mao. He also wrote the script for a play called Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. He was then criticized for purportedly proposing, or implicitly purporting, a piecing up of property and agricultural quota restoring.

Question 15

Who is Peng Duhai?

Answer 15

Peng Duhai was a Chinese Communist Party member who came under hard criticism by Mao ZeDong for being revisionist. His main position was being Defense Minister from 1954 to 1959. He fought with the KMT, Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist party that fought the CCP in a struggle for control of China.

Question 16

What is the Kuomintang?

Answer 16

The Kuomintang, previously known as the Chinese Nationalist party, was the party which fought for control of China in a struggle against the CCP. They retreated into Taiwan and founded what they called the Republic of China.

Question 17

Who was Peng Zhen?

Answer 17

Peng Zhen, at the time of 1965, was a Politburo member and a secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat, as well as being First Party Secretary and mayor of Beiging.As sSecretariat, he was in charge of the National People’s Congress standing committee, public security, and political and legal work. In 1966 he was denounced at the enlarged Politburo meeting in April 1966 for going against Mao’s views of the role of literature in the state. Specifically, he was cut down for supprting Wu Han’s Hai Rui is dismissed from Office.

Question 18

What was Peng Zhen’s relationship with Lin Shaoqi?

Answer 18

Peng Zhen was a mainstay of Lin Shaoqi’s political stronghold.

Question 19

Who is Wang Ming?

Answer 19

Wang Ming was a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party.

Question 20

Who is Wang Ming?

Answer 20

Wang Ming was a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party. He was a great political rival of Mao ZeDong during the 1930s. Having been one of the masterminds behind the 28 Bolshevick, a group of Communist intelligensia based in Moscow but originally from China. He was greatly opposed to Mao’s nationalist deviation from the Comintern and orthodox Marxist-Leninist ideology. On the other hand, Mao criticized him greatly for being too caught up in the Soviet intelligensia and advocating dogmatic views which Mao thought needded to be improved upon.

Question 21

What was a major tenet of Maoist ideology?

Answer 21

The idea of two forms of class struggle, one which was ideological and one that was material. Elaborated, Mao advocated for perpetual class struggle despite having already seized all of the means of production for the people. This was different from Stalin’s admittance that once the material means of production were seized fully, there would be no more need for class struggle. Also, Mao was very fond of the idea of balancing anarchy and bureaucracy through this perpetual class conflict, not because he wanted to uphold the bureaucratic order, but because he found it necessary to have some form of control against complete anarchy, being the complete opposite of his state planning totalitarianism. Which by the way went so far as to not want to give individual households quotas for agricultural production because that meant the parceling out of land amongst the people. something he viewed as fervently anti-communist. Furthermore, Mao was against any sort of ideological rift, no matter how singular, nuanced, or sublime. Yes he led to the suicide of three philosophers and the complete purging of one intellectual who purported that everything has in itself some contradiction. Mao going against this inadvertently goes against Marxist ideology to an extent, because he doesnt seem to see the Hegelian inspiration Marx derived from studying rhe idea of Dialektics.

Question 22

What was the February outline?

Answer 22

Insisting that Hai Rui Dismissed From Office was an academic matter rather than a political one, Peng Zhen looked to undermine the politicalness of cultural criticism and insisted on staying with the given facts and not read too much into matters. “Equal before the truth”. This showed that Peng Zhen was against the scaldingly political essay advocated by Mao, written by Yao Wenyuan. Peng went so far as to not look for Mao’s approval on the February outline and willingly lied saying that the essay had been approved by the Central Committee.

Question 23

Who are the group of five?

Answer 23

The Group of Five were established in 1954 by Mao as an effort to begin the cultural revolution by conducting a mass criticism on the public sector. it consisted of Peng Zhen, Lu Dingyi (director of Propoganda department), Kang Sheng (chairman of the Central Committee’s Theoretical Committee), Zhou Yang (vice-director of the propoganda department), and Wu Lengxi (director of the Xinhua News Agency and publisher of Peoples Daily.

Question 24

How did Mao respond to the February outline?

Answer 24

Mao complained to Kang Sheng, Zhaou Yimin, Wei Wenbo, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, and others saying that the February outline blurred class lines and muddled up right from wrong if applied.

Question 25

How did Mao respond to the February outline?

Answer 25

Mao complained to Kang Sheng, Zhaou Yimin, Wei Wenbo, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, and others saying that the February outline blurred class lines and muddled up right from wrong if applied. He also called in a meeting in 1966 of the Politburo Standing Committee in Hangzhou which consisted of criticisms of Peng Zhen, the disbanding of the group of five, and the creation of the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group.

Question 26

What was the February summary?

Answer 26

Unlike the February outline, the February summary was written by Jiang Qing, this was diametrically opposed to the reveisionism of the outline. No, this was the document that outlinedhow much art and culture had beener ted, how much was inadvertently or implicity against communism. This piece was thoroughly and greedily examined by Chairman Mao

Question 27

Who were Yang Shangkun and Luo Ruiqing? What happened to them at the onset of the cultural revolution?

Answer 27

Ynag Shangkun was the head of the Central Committee General Office (he would be in charge of Central Guard Regiment which served Mao’s everyday needs) before being removed (replaced by Wang Dongxing) from his post in 1965, moved to Guandong as a Secretary but was actually being investigated. On the other hand, Luo Ruiqing was one fo the ten Senior Generals of the People’s Liberation Army. He had been appointed minister of public security, secretary of the Central Military Commission, secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat, vice premier of the State Council, vice-minister of defense, and head of the defense ministry office.

Question 28

Who was Lin Biao

Answer 28

Lin Biao began his career as a marshall of the PLA, helping conquer Beijing. Going into politics, he rose into the highest ranks, being positioned as vice premier and as Mao’d successor. He did not want this nomination but Zhou Enlai skillfully got himself out of the nomination, whereas Lin Biao had no choice. Lin biao was an extremely introverted man, possibly suffering from some sort of social disorder, having been under so much and such harsh pressure under Mao. Lin Biao helped Mao Tse Tung conduct the cultural revolution, pushing Maoist Thought to its limits and eventually to its breaking point. In the middle of the Cultural Revolution, Lin Biao publicly withdrew and lagged behind in his work as Vice Chairman because of all the suffering he was seeing. But again, he was not innocent of what he did. He tried to make the PLA a radical ideological school, leading to the prosecution of fellow generals, veterans, and cadres. Lin Biao’s consistent efforts to maintain his own power and protect himself made Mao suspicious, as Lin Biao surrounded himself with his own supporters. When he died in the plane crash, it was suspected that he was fleeing to the soviet union and was trying to start a coup d’etat.

Question 29

How were the army power bases organized in the PLA?

Answer 29

There was the First Front Red Army, created in the 1927 Nanchang uprising and subsequently led alongside Lin Bao, the Second Front Red Army led by He Long, and the Fourth Front Red Army led by Chang Guatao and Xu Xianqian. Chang Guatao was purged during the Yan’an period. These army bases were subsequently led under one establishment called the Eight Route Army, LED BY LIN BIAO, HE LONG, AND LIU BOCHENG, AND THE NEW FOURTH ARMY COMMANED BY CHEN YI.

Question 30

How did these army power bases relate to the rupture between Luo Riquing and Lin Biao?

Answer 30

Well the two just moved away from eachother because of lin Bao’s previously mentioned anti-social attitude and often laziness. He Long became the closest ally of Luo Riquing, and Lin Biao was upset because he was still Chief of General Staff but was not being sufficiently in contact with his inferior Lu Riquing. These military power bases, the First Front, Second Front, Third, adn Fourth were parceled out after a CMC reorganization in 1959. He Long inhereted the Third Front from Peng Duhai and Xu Haidong, and so He Long now owned the Second and Third Front. His friendship with Deng Xiaoping led to further power struggles. In 1965 Luo Riquing held thirteen key positions in the government, and all the papers he had to deal with demanded that he have four secretaries. While Luo held all these positions of power, other governemtn officials had barely anything to do.

Question 31

What was Ye Jian-ying’s job in 1965?

Answer 31

Jian-ying was in charge of military training, not having the general oversight of Luo Riquing.

Question 32

What was Nie Ronghzen’s job in 1965?

Answer 32

Nie Ronghzen was in charge of defense research.

Question 33

What did Liu Shaoqi do to further Luo’ position of power?

Answer 33

In the Third National People’s Congress in January 1965, Liu Shaoqi appointed luo as vice-chairman of the National Defense Council, and Liu promised that Luo would succeed the ailing Lin Biao.

Question 34

BRO WHAT IS FUNNY AND FUCKED UP AS FUCK?

Answer 34

Den Xiaoping said Luo Ruiqing fell like a popsicle after he tried to commit suicide and fell on his legs.

Question 35

Where did everybody denounce Luo Riquing?

Answer 35

In the Shanghai Conference of 1965, attended by 61 people, which included 34 high ranking military officials. Lui Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping ran the meeting, along with Xiao Hua Liu Zhijian. Once the conference was over, Luo Riqing was stripped of his chief of staff title.

Question 36

When did the Cultural Revolution Officially Start?

Answer 36

It officially began in 1966, during what is known as the May Conference, where 76 members attended from across the bureaucratic board of Communist china. In this meeting, other than denouncing Lu Dingyi, Peng Zhen, Luo Riquing, and Yang Shunkun, the Cultural Revolution Small Group was Founded and passed the May 16th Circular, officially beginning the Cultural Revolution. Barely 5000 words long, this document laid out the different discontents Mao had with the members of the CCP. It critically denounced any sort of idea of “equality before the truth” coming before socialist revolution. Months later, it would be understood that the paper was alluding to Lin Shaoqi’s viewpoints but at the time people thought it was targeting Peng Zhen. The May 16th circular was made public in May 16th, 1967.

Question 37

What were Mao’s 7 goals in his utopian blueprint?

Answer 37

(1) Eliminate the social division of labor, eliminate teh difference between manual and mental labor, and implement “comprehensive development of the individual” (2) Eliminate the production and trade of commodities and establish a self-suffecient natural economy, thereby eradiciation exploitation and achieve social equality (3) implement a rationing system and eliminate scaled wages, and in distribution, oppose material incentives and maintain politics in command (4) do not separate the party from the government, and combine legislative, judicial, and executive powers (5) choose commune representatives through general elections and make them subject to recall at any time (6) eliminate the standard army and replace it with civilians (7) impolement local self-government

Question 38

Why were Mao’s seven points flawed?

Answer 38

Firstly, the trend of civilization is that division labor becomes naturally finer; commodity exchange is necessary in any country with finely divded labor so that everyone can meet their needs; he wanted equal distribution without any distributive incentive other than poltics, which is barely enough to persuade someone living their day to day lives under the all to human circumstance of ignorance; there is no balance of power in this; having security forces be armed and manned by everyday people leads to mass persecution and lawlessness.

Question 39

Who was Lu Dingyi?

Answer 39

He was an alternate politburo member, a secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat, director of the Central Committee Propoganda Department, State Council vice-premier, and minister of culture.