China Calls Mao’s Cultural Revolution a “Huge Disaster”

Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China had left millions of people dead.

Vendors unfurl a banner from 1969 depicting former Chinese leader Mao Zedong as he “inspects the great army of the Cultural Revolution”. (Photo: AP)

Breaking its silence on the 50th anniversary of Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China, China’s official media Global Times, on Tuesday called the movement a “huge disaster” and “decade of calamity”.

In the report, Global Times said such an event will never be repeated as modern China has “no place for it”.

(Left) Religious sculptures ripped from their pedestals by Red Guards and (right) a buddha statue is covered with signs reading “Destroy the old world,” and “Establish a new world,”. (Photo: AP/Altered by The Quint)

Discussions over China’s Cultural Revolution have been emerging on the Internet. The decade-long internal chaos was a huge disaster. It is thus normal to hear people talking about it on the 50th anniversary of this movement... Entirely denying the values of the Cultural Revolution will help Chinese society remain vigilant against the danger of all kinds of disorder... Over the past few years, many developing countries have experienced civil strife, but not China. A significant reason is that the lessons the Cultural Revolution taught us has given the nation a certain immunity. Nobody fears turmoil, and desires stability more than us. 

Excerpt from <i><a href="http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/983375.shtml">Global Times</a></i> report

Mao Zedong waves at the beginning of China’s Cultural Revolution. (Photo: AP)

Five decades ago, on 16 May the Communist Party of China headed by Mao – a communist revolutionary and the founding father of People’s Republic of China, issued a top directive calling on its people to rid society of “members of the bourgeoisie threatening to seize political power from the proletariat”, marking the start of a decade-long violent class struggle.

Youths at a rally during the height of the Red Guard upheaval waving copies of the collected writings of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, often referred to as Mao’s Little Red Book and carrying a poster of Karl Marx. (Photo: AP)

For ten tumultuous years from 1966, the country underwent massive socio-political upheavals that saw countless politicians and intellectuals driven to their deaths, civilians killed in armed conflicts, and cultural relics and artefacts destroyed.

Cultural Revolution, the brain child of Mao, which also radically impacted the communist movements all around the world including India, died along with him in 1976.

Moderates headed by Deng Xiaoping seized power from the “gang of four” CPC officials headed by Mao’s widow and liberalised the Marxian ideology with economic reforms which made China the world’s second largest economy in about three decades.

(With inputs from PTI)