The Cultural Revolution
Mao mobilises young Red Guards against "bourgeois" enemies in the Party and society, unleashing a decade of persecution, violence and chaos that ends only with his death.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
- The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 — Tsering Shakya, Columbia University Press (1999)
In May 1966 Mao Zedong launched a “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” to purge the Party of what he called capitalist roaders and to keep revolution alive. He turned to the young. Students formed Red Guard units, waved the Little Red Book of his quotations and, at huge rallies in Tiananmen Square in 1966, saw Mao as a living god.
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
Violence
Red Guards attacked the “Four Olds”, old customs, culture, habits and ideas. Temples, churches, books and family heirlooms were smashed or burned. Teachers, writers, officials and anyone with a “bad” class background were humiliated in “struggle sessions”, beaten and sometimes killed; many took their own lives. Head of state Liu Shaoqi died in custody in 1969. Deng Xiaoping was purged and his son paralysed after a fall from a window during Red Guard persecution.
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
Red Guard factions fought each other with weapons, sometimes army weapons, and in 1968 Mao sent millions of urban youths “up to the mountains and down to the countryside” to learn from peasants. Many lost their education and spent years in remote villages. In 1971 Mao’s designated successor Lin Biao died in a plane crash fleeing to the Soviet Union.
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
The end
Mao died in September 1976. Within a month his widow Jiang Qing and three allies, the “Gang of Four”, were arrested. Estimates of deaths range from several hundred thousand to two million, and tens of millions were persecuted.
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China — Ezra F. Vogel, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011)
In Tibet, Red Guards ransacked the Jokhang temple in Lhasa in August 1966, and over the following years most of the monasteries that had survived the early 1960s were destroyed, often with local Tibetans forced or recruited to take part. Religion was banned outright until the late 1970s.
- The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 — Tsering Shakya, Columbia University Press (1999)
- The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama — Melvyn C. Goldstein, University of California Press (1997)
An assault on Tibetan civilisation itself: monasteries razed, monks and nuns forced to marry or labour, lamas paraded in struggle sessions and even private prayer forbidden. Many Tibetans see it as part of a longer campaign against their religion and identity, not a nationwide aberration.
- The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 — Tsering Shakya, Columbia University Press (1999)
- The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama — Melvyn C. Goldstein, University of California Press (1997)
The 1981 resolution calls it a "catastrophe" that was "initiated and led" by Mao and exploited by the counter-revolutionary cliques of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four. It brought "the most severe setback and the heaviest losses" since 1949. The matter is treated as settled.
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
Mao's own role was central. Victims numbered in the millions; estimates of deaths range from several hundred thousand to about two million, with MacFarquhar and Schoenhals citing 750,000 to 1.5 million in rural China alone. Many perpetrators were also victims, and accountability was limited.
- Mao's Last Revolution — Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
A time when being Muslim and Uyghur was itself treated as backward and suspect. Religious life was driven underground, Uyghur intellectuals and cadres were purged as "local nationalists", and Red Guards, many of them Han but also Uyghur, attacked shrines and traditions.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
Why it matters today
Today's leaders, including Xi Jinping, whose father was purged and who was sent to the countryside as a teenager, belong to the generation shaped by these years. The memory of chaos feeds a deep preference for order, but public discussion is tightly limited, and many families still carry unspoken stories of betrayal, violence or loss.
For Uyghurs the Cultural Revolution was an assault on religion and culture as well as politics: mosques were closed or turned into warehouses, Qurans burned, imams paraded and beaten, and Uyghur customs denounced as "feudal". Older Uyghurs who lived through it often compare the post-2017 campaign to those years, and some say the present is worse.
For Tibetans the Cultural Revolution completed the destruction that began after 1959. Red Guards, Tibetan as well as Han, ransacked the Jokhang, and by its end the great majority of Tibet's monasteries had been demolished or emptied, and religious practice was banned. Rebuilt monasteries stand on the ruins, and older Tibetans still remember the smashing of statues and burning of texts.