The Chinese Cultural Revolution

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The Chinese Cultural Revolution

The Chinese Cultural Revolution was one of the most difficult times in Chinese history. It was a radical Communist movement started by Mao Zedong. Lasting from 1966 to 1977, an estimate of half a million people died, more were wrongly accused, many of which were scholars and elderly people. Many important historical artifacts were destroyed, including works of Confucius. The Chinese Communist Party was torn into pieces and the harm caused took a long time to repair. The more forceful and violent form of the Chinese Cultural Revolution lasted for two years. The effects of those two years lingered on for another year and a half, and then finally, in 1977, the Chinese Cultural Revolution was officially declared over (http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/curriculum).

The definite cause of the Cultural Revolution is not known by anyone, but there is a lot of framework that established the Cultural Revolution. All throughout China, communist ideas were weakening among the people.

By the mid - 1960's groups opposing Mao and many communist ideas were starting to appear in the Chinese military and even in the Chinese Communist Party. These groups were getting stronger and threatening the Chinese Communist Party. In addition, due to the constant failure of many economic and educational policies Mao had previously declared, members of the Chinese Communist Party wanted to have better policies even if having them meant turning away from communist ideas. Mao was enraged by these problems, and worried that the communist system established in 1949 would weaken. Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in October, 1966 (http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/curriculum).

There were four main objectives Mao was trying to reach by launching the Cultural Revolution. One goal was to make the educational, health, and cultural systems targeted towards everyone instead of selected members of the society. Another goal...