Why did Mao start the Cultural Revolution, and how much history was lost to it?
Cultural Revolution
Camden Sanchez
Joseph Hill
He was afraid that He might be treated like Stalin after his death.
Wyatt Howard
He had lost his power after the embarrassing Chinese famine in which tens of millions of people died. He wanted to get it back. So he wrestled his authority back by fucking over his own government and destroying China for two decades.
>how much history was lost to it?
Incalculable. There's a reason nobody considers China a historical site to visit for tourism reasons in the same way as places like Egypt or Greece.
Adrian Morgan
>There's a reason nobody considers China a historical site to visit for tourism reasons in the same way as places like Egypt or Greece.
Because the Chinese always made the majority of their buildings out of wood, even the important ones.
Nathaniel Reed
Wait, if he lost power, how was he able to kickstart something like it? Wouldn't people just be like "Lol fuck off" if he lost power?
Ian Scott
china just ended a 300 rule from foreigners on their country, a rebellion occured leaving another 30 million killed just a few decades ago, they just waged a defensive war against Japan. There is a sense of wanting peace even if its horrible I'd imagine
Jordan Davis
Mao moved China closer to real communism.
Stalin wasn't bad but he was never the intellectual Mao was.
Mao's experiment in decentralized popular mass communism is excellent evidence that communism works.
People claim that the cultural revolution was a disaster.
They claim China destroyed history.
False, numerous archaeological sites such as Mawangdui were discovered and preserved and peasants were educated on how to identify historical relics if they were to come across them in the field.
They claim science and learning was destroyed.
False, China sent its first space satellite and created high yield hybrid rice. While building schools in rural areas.
They claim the economy was a disaster.
Yet, growth rates were higher then than in the reform era. Rural areas actually had growth rather than decline as they do now.
Sources:
Mr. Science and Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution : science and technology in modern China / edited by Chunjuan Nancy Wei and Darryl E. Brock.
The battle for China's past : Mao and the Cultural Revolution / Mobo Gao.
The Unknown Cultural Revolution
Life and Change in a Chinese Village / Dongping Han
If you go to rural China you will find it is these people who (according to wealthy Chinese urban elite expatriates and Western scholars who have never been to rural China) are supposedly his victims, who are most supportive of Mao and the cultural revolution and hate the reforms.
Cameron Bailey
The Cultural Revolution was done primarily by frenzied students operating under the implication that they'd be given a good life in the CCP if they complied. It spiraled out of control from there.
The blood on Mao's hands as far as the Cultural Revolution is concerned isn't like that on Stalin's. Stalin willingly chose who to mass murder. Mao bumped off the big wigs and let the students and peasants kill everyone else, occasionally coming down from on high to fan the flames because "lol revolution".
He would have let it continue if he hadn't alienated basically everyone to the point where people outright threatened to murder him if he didn't tell the students to stop.
Nicholas Bell
How many people died in the Cultural Revolutiom?
Ethan Adams
Not that guy, but no one is really sure. Most estimates I've seen are between 1-2 million