Launching the Cultural Revolution 1966-69
Why Did Mao Launch the Cultural Revolution?
By the early 1960s, Mao’s authority had been damaged by the Great Leap Forward disaster. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping had steered a pragmatic recovery that restored food production but undermined Maoist ideological orthodoxy — allowing markets, private plots, and material incentives that Mao regarded as “capitalist.” Mao feared the revolution was being betrayed from within by a bureaucratic elite he labelled “revisionists.” He also faced the example of the Soviet Union, where he believed Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation had allowed the revolution to decay. In May 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution.
In August 1966, the Destroy the Four Olds Campaign was launched. Red Guards attacked temples, churches, libraries, and private homes, destroying artefacts, books, and cultural objects deemed “feudal” or “bourgeois.”
Red Guards and the Mobilisation of Youth
Red Guards were largely secondary school and university students who formed the shock troops of the Cultural Revolution. In August 1966, Mao reviewed a mass rally of approximately one million Red Guards in Tiananmen Square — a moment deliberately designed to invest the movement with his personal authority. The Little Red Book of Mao’s quotations became the essential accessory; waving it at rallies signalled ideological loyalty. Red Guards travelled across China in free rail journeys (“revolutionary tourism”) spreading the campaign and conducting criticism sessions in schools, universities, and workplaces.
The movement involved genuine conviction as well as coercion. Many young people embraced the Cultural Revolution as an opportunity to challenge entrenched authority figures — teachers, parents, local officials — who had previously been untouchable. However, the movement rapidly spiralled into factional violence between competing Red Guard groups, each claiming greater revolutionary purity than the others. Thousands died in inter-factional battles, particularly in 1967.
Big-character posters were pasted onto university and school walls, naming colleagues, teachers, and administrators as counter-revolutionaries or bourgeois elements. Within weeks of the campaign beginning, virtually every educational institution in China had been occupied by Red Guards, and regular teaching had stopped. Senior academics, scientists, and artists were subjected to struggle sessions — public humiliation rituals where accused individuals were forced to confess to political crimes while crowds hurled insults and sometimes physical violence. Many were made to perform degrading acts or wear dunce caps labelling their alleged crimes. Thousands of intellectuals committed suicide rather than endure further sessions; others were beaten to death.
Purging Party Leaders
The Cultural Revolution’s primary political target was within the Party itself. Liu Shaoqi, China’s Head of State, was labelled “China’s Khrushchev” — a synonym for revisionist betrayal. He was subjected to multiple struggle sessions, denied medical treatment, and died in detention in November 1969. Deng Xiaoping, expelled from all offices, was sent for internal exile and labour. The Central Cultural Revolution Group, dominated by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, effectively supplanted the Party structures it was supposed to be renewing.
Liu Shaoqi (Head of State) and Deng Xiaoping were both purged in 1966–67. Liu Shaoqi died in detention in 1969, denied medical treatment. This illustrated how the Cultural Revolution turned the coercive machinery of the state against the Party’s own leaders.
By 1968, Mao had achieved his primary political goals: Liu Shaoqi and Deng had been purged, the old Party apparatus was broken, and the army under Lin Biao had been used to restore order after Red Guard factionalism had destabilised many provinces. The next step was to remove the Red Guards from the cities before their violence became a direct political threat to Mao himself. The Down to the Countryside Movement began in 1968: millions of urban young people, including former Red Guards, were dispatched to live and work in rural areas. An estimated sixteen million “sent-down youth” spent years in the countryside. For many it was a deeply disillusioning experience that eventually contributed to later pressure for reform.
Disruption to Education and Culture
The Cultural Revolution caused enormous damage to Chinese intellectual and cultural life. Universities were closed from 1966 and did not fully reopen until 1977. The university entrance examination was abolished. Educated professionals — doctors, engineers, scientists, and teachers — were subjected to struggle sessions or sent to rural labour camps for “re-education.” Libraries were ransacked and books deemed bourgeois or foreign were destroyed. The arts were subordinated entirely to political propaganda: only eight model revolutionary operas, approved by the Central Cultural Revolution Group, were permitted to be performed publicly for much of the Cultural Revolution decade.
The human cost was vast and is difficult to quantify precisely. Estimates of those who died directly as a result of Cultural Revolution violence — including struggle session beatings, factional warfare, and execution — range from hundreds of thousands to over a million. Millions more were imprisoned, sent to labour camps, or consigned to internal exile. Almost every educated Chinese family was affected. The generation educated during the Cultural Revolution years lost a decade of normal schooling, with consequences for China’s skilled workforce that persisted into the reform era.