China's Culture Revolution, which takes place from May 1966 to October 1976, is one of the most turbulent times in Chinese history. The consequence and damage of this event is so large, it is beyond normal calculation. No one can accurately describe exactly what is the impact of the Culture Revolution on China, people are still horrified by it even today. The official figure of the Culture Revolution death is 400,000, but it is widely believed that an estimated one million people was killed during the Culture revolution (Meisner, 354). The Chinese Communist Party openly admitted it was a mistake after Deng XiaoPing came to power. The Culture Revolution also sacrificed an entire generation of young intellectuals because Mao ZeDong called on them to leave the cities and reform their thinking in villages doing hard labor. (Wong, 120) These same young intellectuals today are being dismissed from their jobs in state-owned corporations a couple years ago due to the new reform.
English: Roadside billboard of Deng Xiaoping in fr...
English: Roadside billboard of Deng Xiaoping in Du...
English: Roadside billboard of Deng Xiaoping in Li...Most of them cannot find a new job because they do not even have a high school diploma; their youth were spent on farms not in school. They are probably the most unfortunate generation after the CCP came to power.
There are a lot of negative opinions about the Culture Revolution. But it is not all bad. If one can ignore the fact that it destroyed an entire generation and killed a million people, then we can see it paved the road for China's modernization. During the Culture Revolution, almost half of the high-ranking officials was brought down and beaten by the red guards. This broke the traditional thinking in every Chinese's mind, officials are no longer untouchable. Chinese begin to view officials in a new way; officials are same as ordinary people. They can be openly criticized and...