Topic 14 - Short and Long-Term Consequences of Political Radicalism Flashcards
When was the Cultural Revolution?
1966-76
What did the Cultural Revolution represent?
The Cultural Revolution represented a radical sometimes violent and chaotic assault on the status-quo or the existing bureaucratic infrastructure
What are the differences in terms of effects upon human capital between The Great Leap Famine and the Cultural Revolution?
The Great Leap Famine had far more deaths but the persecution that individuals faced during The Cultural Revolution was far more damaging and long-lasting.
What is the caveat in the argument that schooling improved during the Communist period?
Schooling had begun to improve before the Communist period
How exactly did education change during the Communist period?
- Promotion of educational equality (between rural and urban & male and female)
- Moving away from exams and focusing on practical things
- Down to the Countryside movement (1968)
Why were some of Mao’s policies quickly reversed after his death?
Destruction was part of Mao’s legacy. He repeatedly assaulted the status quo and there were few allies after his death. This also made his succession a problem.
Why could it be argued that the Mao era was not long enough to distort some of the historical tradition in China?
2 things didn’t really change:
1) Private property rights
2) Reverence for education
Education was made more accessible for rural households but who was deprived of education during the Mao era?
The counter-revolutionaries
Who is Deng Xiaoping?
He was the leader of the People’s Republic of China from 1978 to 1989
How did China change politically during the Mao era?
- After Mao China was left with a socialist market economy as a result of the blind pursuit of an egalitarian society
- Some Maoist institutional structures and policies increased the sympathy within China for some “Western values”
Who or which group designed and led the Cultural Revolution? Who participated? Who or which groups were the targets of the movement?
- Designer:
Mao, Lin Biao, Gang of Four (Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan)
- Participants: Red Guards (Guardians of Chairman Mao), the whole population.
- Targets:
Intellectuals (anti-elitism), capitalists, people in power,
and ‘revisionist group’: Liu, Zhou, Chen Yun, Peng Zhen: other
What was the ‘Down to the Countryside Movement’? What was the aim?
Urban youth were sent to rural areas to be re-educated (1968). Universities were shut, secondary and primary school education were distorted as students and teachers participated in the ‘Red Guard’ activities. The aim was:
1) To ruralize the population and to provide unskilled labour
2) To ease the burden of unemployment in urban area
3) To divert the increasingly dangerous urban violence
Why was the Cultural Revolution neither cultural nor revolutionary?
Because it was more of a movement by a personal cult that aimed to remove other ideology
How did the Cultural Revolution eventually come to an end?
Mao died without an heir
Mao achieve equality but what did he achieve in reality?
An equally poor population
