Cultural Changes

Question 1

Why did Mao want to create a new Culture

Answer 1

• create a culture that is accessible to all, not just the educated elite.
• mirrored Stalins creation of a new culture
• culture that serves a political, rather than artistic purpose.
• To control the thoughts of the people.

Question 2

What did Mao do to the old culture?

Answer 2

Swept away!

Question 3

Destruction of village life and land reforms of the 1950s meant for festivals

Answer 3

Lantern festival, New Year, celebration of the seasons lost

Question 4

Reunification campaign affects on cultures?

Answer 4

Tibet - customs of Lamaism lost
XingJiang - Islam also effected

Question 5

What were labeled as backward superstitions?

Answer 5

Confucianism and Ancestor worship

Question 6

How did the communist party try and monitor culture?

Answer 6

• Agitprop tours - to convince abandonment of traditions and joining the communists
• control enhanced by communes in the great leap forward

Question 7

When was the Four Olds campaign launched?

Answer 7

1966

Question 8

What were the Four Olds?

Answer 8

Destroy:
- old ideas
- old culture
- old customs
- old habits

Question 9

What was the result of the implementation of the four olds campaign?

Answer 9

• religious artefacts/temples destroyed
• philosophical books burned
• shrines replaced with shrines to Mao
• traditional roads renamed
• customs like burning incense for the ancestors at festivals were discouraged

Question 10

Was the Four Olds campaign successful

Answer 10

Yes: superficially, removed all physical reminders of old customs and culture

No: culture is something deeply entrenched in every day life, traditions go beyond habits and customs, it’s a way of thinking and the communists would struggle to police thought.

Question 11

Jiang Qing

Answer 11

Mao’s fourth wife, appointed to Central Cultural Revolution Group in 1966

Question 12

Jiang Qing’s ambition

Answer 12

Destroy traditional Chinese culture and replace it with communism.

Question 13

Censorship of art, music and theatre imposed by Jiang Qing:

Answer 13

Banned any performances encouraging old fashioned/fuedal ideas like romance, family respect and aspiring for wealth.

Question 14

Why did Jiang Qing think she was qualified to tackle censorship of arts? What did she do?

Answer 14

She was an actor before marriage.

She rewrote plays with characters and ideals who strongly supported communism and would attend rehearsals to command actors to play communism in a more positive and accurate way.

Question 15

‘Cultural Tsar’

Answer 15

Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife

Question 16

Where did Jiang qings newfound influence lead her?

Answer 16

Becoming one of the most important Chinese leaders - she had little power before this. And was a prominent member of the Gang of Four.

Question 17

What did Jiang Qing use the cultural revolution and her position as ‘cultural tsar’ to do?

Answer 17

• purge anyone who knew about her bourgeois actor past (so they could not come for her power)
• expand her power given to her by her relationship with Mao - he was elderly so hoped she could develop her own political authority after his death
• intimidate her enemies and purge any opposition who may personally intervene with her rise to power

Question 18

Was Jiang Qing liked?

Answer 18

No -

She imposed violence unnecessarily towards people following traditional culture and those who interfered with her own personal power.

She also used her power to quash personal opponents - rivals who knew about her acting past and spread rumours that she slept with directors to get big parts, and her bourgeois life before

Question 19

Madame Mao working purely on Mao’s orders?

Answer 19

‘I was Chairman Mao’s dog, whomever he asked me to bite, i bit’

Carried out maos wishes even when he was sick and elderly.

Question 20

What happened to foreign plays?

Answer 20

BANNED

Question 21

What happened to directors/writers on the foreign/oldfasioned plays?

Answer 21

Fired or black listed.

More extreme = attacked by Red Guards and others committed suicide from the fear of violence

Question 22

How many new ‘model dramas’ were there?

Answer 22

8 - new operas advocating communist ideology

Question 23

Slogan for writing new operas/ballets/plays:

Answer 23

‘Make it revolutionary or ban it’s

Question 24

The Legend of the Red Lantern

Answer 24

Play telling the story of communist agents resisting Japanese invasion

Question 25

‘Taking Tiger Mountain’

Answer 25

Play later adapted into a film about an undercover communist soldier who infiltrated then defeated a group of bandits.
Seen 7.4 billion times by 1974 = 7 times by every Chinese citizen (including rural villagers as propaganda teams traveled with portable projectors to them)

Question 26

China during the cultural revolution :

Answer 26

A ‘cultural desert’ - only 8 new plays allowed! = boring

Question 27

Deng Xiaoping complains about the lack of new entertainment:

Answer 27

‘People want to go to the theatre to relax but instead you find yourself in a battlefield’

Question 28

Why were the Maoist propaganda films so popular?

Answer 28

THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE TO WATCH!!

Question 29

Did the new culture reach all parts of china?

Answer 29

NO.

The government feared too much cultural interference would demotivate or distract peasants from agricultural and industrial development.

When the PLA went to the countryside to help the peasants, many had never heard of the cultural revolution.

Question 30

Conclusion

Answer 30

• Mao’s rule disastrous for culture: failed in destroying old culture completely only severely damaged it, but him and Jiang Qing succeeded in dictating the creation of his own bespoke Chinese Communist culture during the Cultural Revolution AND forbade culture to naturally develop on its own
• most changes ephemeral people have gone back to traditions and superstitions even though they were historically quite damaged, because culture is so entrenched in peoples everyday life!
• pre-revolution books banned, and new songs and art MUST praise Mao and the CCP