1966 China's cultural revolution: seventeen years after the Communist takeover, Mao Zedong launched another revolution that led to the deaths of thousands of people and the persecution of millions more.

By the afternoon of May 25, 1966, a group of radical professors at Peking University had finally finished drafting a large political poster. They took it to a campus commons area, hung it outside, and waited for a reaction. It would not take long.

The poster was a blistering attack against university administrators for failing to obey a new political campaign by China's paramount leader, Mao Zedong.

Mao was ordering a new revolution in China--one targeting the "bourgeoisie," capitalists, and authority figures in general--and he expected the masses to revolt. The poster at Peking University became the spark Mao was hoping for. Masses of students began protesting on campus in support of the revolution.

Mao ordered that the poster's message be broadcast nationally on the radio and published in newspapers. Soon the whole country was swept up in the furor.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, as the government called it, plunged China into a decade of chaos that brought the nation of 750 million people close to anarchy and civil war.

This period was so bloody and controversial that the Communist Party has barely acknowledged the Cultural Revolution's 40th anniversary this year and has banned most discussions of it in the Chinese media, and even in history textbooks (see p. 14).

It's no wonder: Students attacked teachers and teenagers attacked their parents in the name of heeding Mao's revolutionary call. People hung posters denouncing their neighbors. College and high school students across China formed groups called Red Guards that became the shock troops of the movement.

"To rebel is justified!" declared a famous slogan of the era.

Mao held massive rallies of Red Guards and called on students to destroy the so-called Four Olds: old culture, old customs, old ideas, and old habits. It was a rallying cry that unleashed the young against the old.

The Red Guards burned books and ransacked temples. Teachers, government officials, and almost anyone in authority were beaten and paraded in public wearing dunce caps. Untold thousands of people died, many killed by mobs, and millions more lost their jobs and were left destitute.

In the central Chinese city of Chongqing, Xi Qingsheng was only 15 when rival Red Guard units waged open warfare in the streets. His mother was shot and killed by a sniper as she tried to take her children away from the fighting.

"The guy who shot my mother was just shooting at anyone who came into sight," Xi, now 54, told The Times earlier this year. He tore off his shirt to sop up his mother's blood. "I was waving my white shirt, but they wouldn't stop shooting," he said. "When it finally quieted down, I climbed over to see my mother, but she was already dead."

Why did the Cultural Revolution happen? And what was Mao thinking?

Mao and the Communists had taken control of China in 1949. For the previous century, China had been dominated by foreign powers and badly weakened. Before and during World War II, Japan had occupied much of China and slaughtered many thousands of Chinese in a massacre that became known as the Rape of Nanjing.

* 'WHO LOST CHINA?'

Under Mao, the Communist Red Army helped defeat Japan and then won a civil war by forcing the army of China's Nationalist Party to flee the mainland for the island of Taiwan. Mao became a military and revolutionary hero who pledged to transform China into a utopian socialist state that would dominate the capitalist West.

His victory blindsided the United States and the question "Who Lost China?" fueled a Red Scare and the Communist witch hunts of McCarthyism, as America faced off with the Soviet Union and China in the Cold War.

But Mao's effort to turn his Communist vision into reality ultimately proved disastrous. Eager to impose his socialist ideas on China's economy, Mao ordered an end to family farming and private land ownership. Farmers were organized into communes where people lived and worked together. The Great Leap Forward, as it was known, was a tragic failure of bad planning and miscalculation. Farm production plunged, and the famines that resulted eventually caused an estimated 30 million deaths. By the early 1960s, Mao had largely turned over control of the economy to deputies like Deng Xiaoping (dung shyao-ping) and Liu Shaoqi (lyoo shou-chee).

* THE CULT OF MAO

If his power seemed to be receding, though, Mao's revolutionary ambitions were not. He had grown disenchanted with the Soviet Union for what he considered its "revisionism" in abandoning the tenets of Communism, and worried that China's own revolutionary spirit was being diluted. Privately, he also became increasingly paranoid that he would be sidelined and forgotten.

His answer was the Cultural Revolution. After orchestrating a purge of powerful party officials in Beijing, he formally announced the revolution at a meeting of party leaders. His wife, Jiang Qing, and a handful of other radicals, together known as the "Gang of Four," became the movement's henchmen.

At the same time, Mao promoted his own cult of personality. About 900 million copies of his Little Red Book were published, and all Chinese were expected to carry it at all times so they could study the Chairman's writings.

High schools and universities around the country were closed for years and an entire generation robbed of their educations so that young people could dedicate their time to the revolution.

Families accused of "bourgeois tendencies" were savagely tormented. One man, Liang Qiang, told The Times how Red Guards attacked him because of his family's middle-class background. Students smashed Liang's radio; when they noticed he owned a clock made in Canada, they accused him of worshipping "foreign enemies."

The harassment so rattled Liang's parents in Shanghai that his mother tossed the family's few heirlooms into a sewer while his father collected his paintings and books and handed them over to Red Guard units.

No one, save Mao, was safe from persecution: Liu Shaoqi, China's President and Mao's chosen successor, was stripped of power, repeatedly humiliated in public and later died in prison. Deng Xiaoping, who had helped save the economy after the famines, was exiled to work on a farm.

* SENT TO THE COUNTRY

After a time, Red Guard units began to fight each other, each claiming to represent the true ideals of Chairman Mao. It became so chaotic that a new phase of the Cultural Revolution was launched in 1969. Army units subdued the Red Guards and took control of many government functions, as urban officials and "intellectuals" were sent to the countryside to work and study Maoist philosophy and "class struggle."

Teenagers in the cities also were ordered to leave their families for the countryside so that they could learn from peasants, and many of them lived apart from their parents for years. Every facet of Chinese life was touched: Even literature and the arts were expected to pay homage to Mao and his revolution.

* NEW CAPITALISM

The most radical and violent period was over by 1970, but the Cultural Revolution ended only when Mao died in 1976. The country was exhausted but also angry. Trying to restore its legitimacy with the people of China, Communist Party leaders arrested the Gang of Four. Mao himself was formally rebuked after his death.

In one of the ironies of the revolution, Deng Xiaoping, once exiled to the countryside, emerged as China's new leader. He opened the country to the outside world and encouraged a brand of capitalism that would have been unthinkable a few years before, though he kept a tight lid on personal freedoms.

Today, China still has a nondemocratic government and the Cultural Revolution is largely taboo as a political subject. But China has become one of the most important economies and manufacturing centers in the world.

And at flea markets in Beijing, not far from where Mao once rallied the Red Guards, peddlers now sell copies of old posters from the Cultural Revolution. It turns out they are popular with tourists.

Jim Yardley is a correspondent in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times.

CHINA'S TUMULTUOUS CENTURY

1912

EMPERORS' END

China becomes a republic after the overthrow of the last emperor of the Qing dynasty. Sun Yat-sen (above), head of the Nationalist Party, is named President, but years of instability follow.

1925

CHIANG KAI-SHEK

The Nationalists' military commander, Chiang Kai-shek, takes power. Clashes with the Communists begin soon after.

1937

JAPANESE OCCUPATION

Japan invades and occupies much of northern and eastern China. Many atrocities are committed by Japanese troops, including the Rape of Nanjing in December.

1945

CIVIL WAR

Japan withdraws after its defeat in World War II, and China plunges into civil war between the Nationalists and Mao Zedong's Communists.

1949

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

In October, Mao proclaims the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists flee to the island of Taiwan.

1966

CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Mao orders a new revolution to reinvigorate Chinese Communism. Untold thousands die and millions more are persecuted over the next decade.

1972

NIXON IN CHINA

A year after the U.N. admits China in place of Taiwan, President Richard Nixon visits Beijing in an effort to improve relations.

1976

FROM MAO TO DENG

Mao dies and moderates, led by Deng Xiaoping (above), take control and begin to modernize the economy.

1989

TIANANMEN SQUARE

University students peacefully protest for greater democracy with large demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The military crushes the protest, kilting hundreds.

2006

BOOMING ECONOMY

The government continues to loosen its control, of the economy, and China has become an economic powerhouse. But there's been little progress on political freedom and human rights.

BACKGROUND

In the 1960s, Mao Zedong believed China was following the Soviet Union, which he saw as a bloated bureaucracy no longer adhering to true Communism. Mao's response was the Cultural Revolution, a 10-year upheaval of society that included purges of anyone suspected of shunning Communist ideals.

CRITICAL THINKING 1

* Intellectuals, including teachers, were a particular target of the Cultural Revolution. Ask students to discuss: Why would Mao target such people and others in positions of authority?

* You might discuss with students what the consequences to society might be if a whole generation of leaders or potential leaders is wiped out.

* What evidence does the article provide that Mao was primarily interested in protecting his position and power?

CRITICAL THINKING 2

* Remind students that Mao appealed to young people--not to the educated or politically powerful--to carry out his Cultural Revolution. Why do you think he focused on young people?

* Are young people the most eager to rebel against tradition and authority?

DISCUSSION QUESTION

* China's 3,000-year-old culture has always taught the young to respect the educated and older people. How was Mao able to turn this ancient cultural phenomenon upside down?

FAST FACT

* In October 1976, weeks after Mao's death, his widow, Chiang Qing, was arrested for her role in the Cultural Revolution and sentenced to death, later commuted to Life in prison. In 1991, she hanged herself in a hospital bathroom.

WEB WATCH

http://kaladarshan.arts .ohio-state.edu/exhib /poster/exhibintro.html

A collection of 18 color propaganda posters displayed by China's Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution. Click on "online exhibition" to go to the posters. Click on copy below posters to enlarge them and see additional text.

1. The main targets of the Cultural Revolution were

a capitalists and authority figures.

b foreigners and visitors.

c students and workers.

d members of China's military.

2. Young people across China joined revolutionary organizations called

a Mao Zedong's Majority.

b Revolutionary Workers.

c The Solidarity March.

d Red Guards.

3. Mao called on his followers to destroy the Four Olds: old culture, old customs, old ideas, and old

a language.

b military strategies.

c habits.

d friendships.

4. China's principal enemy during World War II was

a Russia.

b Korea.

c Germany.

d Japan.

5. Briefly describe Mao Zedong's goal as he launched the Great Leap Forward.--

6. In 1989, Beijng's Tiananmen Square was the focus of world attention after

a Chinese leaders admitted in a speech there that Mao had been wrong about nearly everything.

b it was used as a venue for Olympic Games.

c the military killed hundreds of students who were protesting for democracy.

d Mao Zedong was interred there.

IN-DEPTH QUESTIONS

1. A new generation of Chinese has grown up since the Cultural Revolution. New Chinese textbooks make no mention of that time of cruelty and chaos. What value do you think there would be in making students aware of the events of that time?

2. Why do you think so many of China's young people got swept up in the furor of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution?

1. [a] capitalists and authority figures.

2. [d] Red Guards.

3. [c] habits.

4. [d] Japan

5. Mao wanted to increase farm production by putting farmers into communes. It was a disaster. [Similar wording is acceptable.]

6. [c] the military killed hundreds of students who were protesting for democracy.

STATEMENTS TO READ                               CORRECT RESPONSE

CHINA'S CULTURAL REVOLUTION

6.  China's major enemy during World War II.     What is Japan?
7.  The blank olds.                              What is Four?
8.  The year Mao Zedong took control in China.   What is 1949?
9.  Country where politicians asked. "Who lost   What is the United
    China?"                                      States?
10. Great Blank Forward.                         What is Leap?