In order to eliminate his rivals within the CCP and in schools, factories, and government institutions, Mao charged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society with the aim of restoring capitalism. Launching the movement in May 1966 with the help of the Cultural Revolution Group, Mao soon called on young people to ' bombard the headquarters', and proclaimed that 'to rebel is justified'. The Revolution marked Mao's return to the central position of power in China after a period of less radical leadership to recover from the failures of the Great Leap Forward, which caused the Great Chinese Famine only five years prior. Launched by Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), its stated goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Mao Zedong Thought (known outside China as Maoism) as the dominant ideology in the PRC. The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until Mao Zedong's death in 1976. Mou 4-caan 2 gaai 1-kap 1 man 4-faa 3 daai 6 gaak 3-ming 6 Vu 平tshae 上cia 平cih 入 ven 平ho 去 du 去 keh 入min 去 Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen arrested aftermath. Hundreds of thousands to millions of civilian, Red Guards and military deaths (exact number not known)Ĭemetery of Confucius, Temple of Heaven, Ming Tombs Preserve communism by purging capitalist and traditional elements.Įconomic activity halted, historical and cultural material destroyed. The caption reads, 'The Chinese People's Liberation Army is the great school of Mao Zedong Thought.'

It depicts Mao Zedong, above a group of soldiers from the People's Liberation Army.

Power of corruption wow