I knew nothing about this revolution before, so all of this information was very new to me. In 1966, the Communist Party leader in China, Mao Zedong, started the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution with the help of his wife, Jiang Qing, and other radicals. He called on the youth of China to rise up against bourgeois society and to help build a better, stronger nation. The students who followed out these orders were called Red Guards, and they were the ones attacking and harassing intellectuals in the country. Anybody who was "privileged," like an educator, doctor, or business owner, was now considered an enemy. The goal here was to create a classless society, to put everyone on equal ground. However, the revolution had a drastically negative impact on the country, not a positive one.
The revolution was marked by chaos. The Red Guards would break into homes and use violence and threats. Anyone could be considered an enemy if they were not careful. Everyone was required to carry around a small red book of Mao's quotes, and it became a crime to criticize him or speak against the government. The Revolution took a huge toll on the economy as stores shut down because of empty shelves, and industrial production fell by 12% in two years. The Red Guards would also fight amongst themselves, adding further trouble. The population's postal service was disrupted, making it harder for people to communicate.
After Mao died in 1976, the Cultural Revolution was officially over, although the effects lasted for years. It's estimated that over a million people were killed (the numbers varied depending on what site I was looking at), and an entire generation was left without formal education because schools were shut down for all ten years of the revolution. Families were separated as anyone with an education had been sent to be "re-educated" among the agricultural class. Many people were sent to work camps and died there. Also, many of China's cultural artifacts were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in the attempt to get rid of anything that symbolized "old" China.
I had no idea this had happened in China, mostly because I have never had an opportunity where I really needed to learn about Chinese history, apart from learning about their art and pottery (the Terracotta Army, for example). It's scary to hear about one person having such a strong influence on an entire country, especially for so many years.
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