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It was a new means of defining a control over the cultural aspects of the society. Mao had envisaged a cultural background that would rise from the middle class, the social level on which the Communist Party based its electoral and strength. Given the tight control exercised by the communist party through all its regional, local, and national mechanisms, a new sense of fear and submission affected the society. This however represented a traditional means through which all communist parties ensured their control over the population. Through different institutions at the disposal of the state, the population was soon "re-educated." This in turn determined an annihilation of any potential dissidents or opposition that would at one point challenge the rule of the Communist party.
After severe limitations and terror moments, the population was entrenched in a different mentality that had been inoculated by the Communist party. This is one of the reasons for which family members often...
As Chinese writer Jung Chang points out in one of her books, "Wild Swans" when discussing the issue of the death of Mao, "People had been acting for so long they confused it with their true feelings. I wondered how many of the tears were genuine" (Chang, )
The Cultural Revolution as promoted by Mao Zedong mutilated a nation in the sense that it appealed to the national traditions and cultural symbols of the Chinese nation but used them to ensure a more intense control over the population by inflicting a sense of terror and artificial commitment to the precepts of the Communist Party. However, the Cultural Revolution changed the way in which the Chinese society developed and affected tens of generations that still recall the Revolution and its outcome.
Bibliography
Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. Simon and Schuster, London, 1991.
Heng, Liang. Son of the Revolution. Vintage Books, New York, 1983.
Bibliography
Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. Simon and Schuster, London, 1991.
Heng, Liang. Son of the Revolution. Vintage Books, New York, 1983.
Chinese Cultural Revolution, which was started by Mao Tse-tung in 1966 and did not conclude until after his death in 1976, is referred to officially by the current government of China as haojie; as GAO Mobo notes that "haojie is ambiguous because it can be a modern term for 'holocaust' or a traditional term to mean 'great calamity' or 'catastrophe'." (Gao 15). To some extent, those who lived through the
Chinese Cultural Revolution, which began in the early 1960's and endured until the death of Mao Tse-tung, drastically altered the cultural arena of China from an agrarian system to one of modernity and acceptance by Western nations. Yet the Cultural Revolution was in effect based on communist principles which affected its ability to transcend the needs of the majority at the expense of the needs of the individual, meaning
In the course of the Cultural Revolution, the communist leader Mao Zedong proclaimed particular cultural requirements for both art and writings in China. This was a period that was filled with violence and harsh realisms for the people within the society. Authors such as Bei Dao, Gu Cheng and Yu Hua can be considered to be misty poets, whose works endeavored to shift from an inactive response to active formation.
This also shows how women became more active in the national political process, no matter their stance or beliefs. While the more traditional facts about communist China under Mao Zedong are explicated, there are some less horrific details about communist life of which the average American may not be aware. Sexual equality did grow. Food was distributed fairly. These are not the typical details of communist China we learn
Unknown Cultural Revolution In most of the literature, China's Cultural Revolution gets a bad rap. It is considered a time of social turmoil that eventually led to an economic disaster for the country. There are accounts of intellectuals being persecuted as well as violence in many communities. However, the author, Dongping Han, gives a different account of this period. In many cases, history is written by the winners. Therefore, the capitalistic
Chinese History Compare and contrast Mao's ideal of China to the variety sought by Deng Xiaoping. What advantages and disadvantages did the Maoist system have? What advantages did the Dengist system have? Chairman Mao and Deng Xiaoping were two of the most influential leaders of modern Chinese history. Both men believed that they were acting in the best interest of their citizens but had vastly different ways of pursuing this goal.