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Cultural Revolution (1966–1976)

Mao's "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" (1966–1976): Red Guards, armed factional warfare, mass persecution. Officially the "ten years of catastrophe"; death estimates range from the hundreds of thousands to several million depending on methodology, archives still partly closed.

Time

May 1966 – October 1976 (Mao's death; Gang of Four arrested)

Place

Nationwide; worst in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangxi, Guangdong, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang

Decision-makers

Mao Zedong (initiator); Lin Biao, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan (Cultural Revolution Group); Zhou Enlai (moderating)

Background: why Mao launched it

After the 1959 Lushan Conference, Liu Shaoqi ran day-to-day Party work, implementing economic recovery ("readjust, consolidate, replenish, improve"). Mao retreated to the "second line" but saw Liu and Deng's policies as "revisionist" — a "capitalist restoration." At the 1962 Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, Liu called the Great Famine "30% natural disaster, 70% man-made"; Mao felt threatened.

In November 1965, Yao Wenyuan's "Review of the New Historical Play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office" attacked Beijing vice-mayor Wu Han by innuendo — the overture. Mao would use "cultural revolution" to retake Party and state power from Liu and Deng, purging "those in power taking the capitalist road."

Deeper motives were power and fear: Khrushchev's 1956 secret speech denouncing Stalin made Mao dread posthumous repudiation; perpetual revolution would secure his cult and line. The Cultural Revolution was both power struggle and ideological frenzy.

Who decided

Mao Zedong was the supreme decision-maker. Key decisions:

• November 10, 1965: Yao Wenyuan's "On the New Historical Play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office" in Shanghai's Wen Hui Bao, at Mao's instigation — the overture.
• May 16, 1966: the Politburo's "May 16 Notification" denouncing the "February Outline" — the Cultural Revolution formally began.
• May 28, 1966: the Central Cultural Revolution Group was established (Chen Boda, Kang Sheng, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao…), effectively replacing the Politburo.
• August 5, 1966: Mao's "Bombard the Headquarters — My Big-Character Poster" (251 characters) targeted Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping; August 8 the 11th Plenum passed the "Sixteen Articles"; Lin Biao was named sole vice-chairman.
• From August 18, 1966: Mao and Lin received 10 million Red Guards in eight Tiananmen rallies, igniting the nationwide Red Guard movement.
• January 1967: Mao backed Shanghai's "January Storm" power seizure; the PLA's "support the left" order brought the army in.

Core executors: Lin Biao (deputy commander, 1966–1971), Jiang Qing and the Cultural Revolution Group.

How it was launched: the May 16 Notice, "Bombard the Headquarters," the Sixteen Articles, eight receptions

The May 16 Notice (May 16, 1966). Passed at an enlarged Politburo meeting (May 4–26), it denounced the "February Outline" drawn up under Peng Zhen, dissolved the Five-Person Cultural Revolution Group, and created a new Central Cultural Revolution Group (Chen Boda as head, Kang Sheng as adviser, Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao as deputies). Its core claims: "bourgeois representatives" had infiltrated the Party, government, army and cultural circles; "the focus of this movement is those in power taking the capitalist road"; beware Khrushchev-like figures "sleeping beside us." Circulated as an internal document and only published in May 1967, it turned the campaign's guns from academics to the Party's top ranks — the formal mobilization order for the Cultural Revolution.

"Bombard the Headquarters — My Big-Character Poster" (August 5, 1966). During the 11th Plenum of the 8th Central Committee (August 1–12), Mao scribbled this sub-300-character poster in a newspaper margin; it was circulated to the plenum on August 7 and published in full in People's Daily on August 5, 1967. Without naming names, it accused "certain leading comrades, from the center down to the localities" of standing "on the reactionary bourgeois stand" and "exercising bourgeois dictatorship" for over fifty days to suppress the Cultural Revolution, declaring that a "bourgeois headquarters" existed inside the Central Committee. Deng Xiaoping later admitted the bombardment targeted his and Liu Shaoqi's "headquarters." The fallout was written into the plenum's personnel decisions: Liu Shaoqi dropped from No. 2 to No. 8 in Party rank; Lin Biao rose from No. 6 to No. 2 and became the sole vice-chairman.

The Sixteen Articles (August 8, 1966). The 11th Plenum passed the "Decision of the Central Committee on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," the movement's charter. Key points: its aim was to "knock down those in power taking the capitalist road" and criticize "reactionary bourgeois academic 'authorities'"; "use reasoning, not coercion"; big-character posters and great debates were "a new form of carrying out socialist revolution"; policy lines separated contradictions among the people from contradictions with the enemy. The document legalized mass mobilization — and turned "capitalist-roader" into a catch-all charge.

Eight receptions of the Red Guards (August 18 – November 26, 1966). Mao received Red Guards and students eight times at Tiananmen, over 11 million person-times in total. At the first, on August 18 — about a million people — Lin Biao called for toppling "those in power taking the capitalist road, and all ghosts and monsters"; Song Binbin of the Girls' Middle School attached to Beijing Normal University pinned a Red Guard armband on Mao, who, learning her name, said "be militant, then." On September 5 the State Council made student travel free with state-paid lodging and meals, and the Great Link-Up swept China. The receptions pushed the Red Guard movement to its peak — and on the very day the first began, Beijing's "Red August" killings started.

Smashing the Four Olds

"Smashing the Four Olds" meant destroying old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits, while "establishing the four news." On the night of August 18, 1966 — the first Red Guard reception — Beijing's Red Guards took to the streets; People's Daily editorials ("Excellent," August 23; "Salute to Our Red Guards," August 29) openly cheered the smashing and looting, and the campaign spread nationwide.

House raids were its most common form. Contemporary statistics: 33,695 households raided in Beijing in August–September 1966, with 1,772 people beaten to death by Red Guards (the 1980 official figure; a 1985 Beijing official count put deaths at 10,275 — the two figures coexist with different methodologies); about 85,000 people were expelled from Beijing within forty days. In Shanghai, 157,700 households were raided between August 23 and September 25 — 6.5% of the city's households; in Wuhan, 21,000. Red Guards also issued orders expelling "four-category elements" (landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements) from Beijing by September 10.

Documented cases of cultural destruction: in August 1966, Beijing Red Guards removed the remains of the Ming Wanli Emperor and his two empresses from the Dingling underground palace and burned them outside the tomb gate; in November 1966, Tan Houlan of Beijing Normal University led Red Guards to Qufu, Shandong, to "denounce Confucius" — leveling Confucius's tomb, smashing the "Great Sage and Teacher" stele, and destroying temple statues; Beijing street names were changed (Dongjiaominxiang became "Anti-Imperialism Road"). One near-miss: on the night of August 18, Red Guards threatened to storm the Forbidden City, and Zhou Enlai immediately ordered it closed and garrisoned by troops — sparing it.

Detailed timeline: four phases

Phase 1: Red Guard frenzy (May 1966 – early 1967). The May 16 Notification launched the Cultural Revolution. In August, Mao received the Red Guards, donning their armband; "Smash the Four Olds" swept China. In late August, the Daxing massacre killed 325 (mostly "black category" families). January 1967's Shanghai "January Storm" saw rebels seize power.

Phase 2: Armed factional warfare (1967–1968). Rebel factions split and fought with artillery — "all-out civil war." The July 20, 1967 Wuhan Incident pitted Chen Zaidao's troops against rebels. Mass killings ravaged Guangxi and Guangdong in 1968. On July 28, Mao told Red Guard leaders to go to the countryside; tens of millions of educated youth were rusticated; the Red Guard movement ended.

Phase 3: The Lin Biao affair and regrouping (1969–1973). The 1969 9th Congress named Lin Biao successor. On September 13, 1971, Lin died fleeing in a plane crash in Mongolia — shattering Mao's prestige. Nixon visited in 1972. Deng Xiaoping returned in 1973.

Phase 4: "Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius" and the Gang's fall (1974–1976). The 1974 campaign targeted Zhou Enlai by innuendo. Deng led a 1975 rectification. Zhou died in January 1976; the April 5 Tiananmen mourning-turned-protest was crushed; Mao died September 9; on October 6, Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying and others arrested the "Gang of Four" (Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, Wang Hongwen) — the end.

Who executed

Execution by phase:

• Red Guard phase (1966–1968): big-character posters, "smash the four olds," house raids, struggle sessions. "Red August" killed at least 1,772 in Beijing; Bian Zhongyun beaten to death (Aug 5); Lao She drowned himself (Aug 24); Fu Lei and wife hanged themselves (Sep 3).
• Cultural Revolution Group: toppled cadres in the name of mass movement; the 1967 "catch traitors" drive accused 100,000+ party cadres.
• PLA intervention — "three supports, two militaries" (1967–1968): the army backed conservative factions and supplied arms; rebels raided armories. Revolutionary committees in all 29 provinces by September 1968 concentrated party-state power.
• "Cleansing the class ranks" and rural massacres (1968–1971): Walder & Su's core finding — the great majority of deaths came in 1968–1971, after mass rebellion ended and new power organs were built, not during Red Guard factional peak. Daoxian, Hunan (7,696 killed and 1,397 driven to suicide per the official reinvestigation; 9,000+ per Tan Hecheng's Blood Myth); Guangxi (89,700 named abnormal deaths per the official reinvestigation); Inner Mongolia "Neirendang" (hundreds of thousands implicated, tens of thousands dead). Song Yongyi: the killings were "mostly acts of the state apparatus — direct killing of citizens by the regime."

Armed factional warfare: 1967–1968

Wudou — armed factional warfare — was the Cultural Revolution's civil war between mass factions. The December 1966 "Kangping Road incident" in Shanghai is often seen as the start of large-scale armed clashes; after Jiang Qing's July 22, 1967 "attack with words, defend with weapons" speech, fighting escalated nationwide into "all-out civil war." Weapons came from raiding military armories, sometimes with the army's quiet backing. Researchers estimate 300,000–500,000 dead in factional warfare nationwide; a figure attributed to internal CCP documents claims 237,000 dead and 7.03 million injured or disabled (single source, unverified).

Chongqing (June 1967 – October 1968). Two giant factions — the "August 15" faction (built around Chongqing University's August 15 Combat Corps) and the "Smash-to-the-Bottom" faction — fought for a year and a half, until both dissolved their headquarters on October 15, 1968. They used rifles, artillery, tanks, gunboats and homemade weapons; official materials record 31 armed clashes and 24 uses of military hardware between summer 1967 and summer 1968. Death tolls diverge: 645 per official materials; 1,737 "killed after capture" per the Chronicle of Chongqing Public Security; over 3,000 dead and 10,000 wounded per Yang Jisheng; about 1,700 at the peak per researcher He Shu. The Cultural Revolution cemetery in Shaping Park holds some 400 "August 15" dead; listed as a Chongqing protected heritage site in 2009, it is the mainland's only largely intact burial ground of Cultural Revolution factional victims.

Guangxi (1967–1968). Fighting between the "United Command" and the "April 22" faction degenerated into mass killing of "four-category elements." The 1980s official reinvestigation put named, abnormal Cultural Revolution deaths in Guangxi at 89,700 (cited by Zheng Yi in Scarlet Memorial from the Guangxi "Cultural Revolution" Archival Materials). Cannibalism was reported in Wuxuan and elsewhere — Zheng Yi's Scarlet Memorial records dozens of investigated cases (exact figures hotly disputed, unverified). In July 1968, Guangxi military commander Ou Zhifu brought troops into Wuxuan and stopped the killing (Scarlet Memorial).

Daoxian (August 13 – October 17, 1967). In over ten counties of Hunan's Lingling region, rumors of a "Black Killing Team" drove "poor-peasant supreme courts" to summon and murder "black categories" and their children. The official reinvestigation: 7,696 killed, 1,397 driven to suicide, 2,146 maimed across 11 counties and cities — 4,519 in Dao County itself; among the dead, 3,576 "black-category" adults and 4,057 of their children, including 826 minors, the youngest 10 days old; over 14,000 people took part in the killing. Tan Hecheng's Blood Myth puts the toll above 9,000. On August 29 the Central Committee and Hunan sent the 47th Field Army to stop the slaughter. Later classified a "wrongful case," it was handled under a "leniency" policy — only 11 people in Dao County faced criminal prosecution.

Emblematic massacres and wrongful cases

Daxing massacre (Aug–Sep 1966). In Beijing's Daxing County, Red Guards killed 325 people — 22 households wiped out — mostly landlords, rich peasants and families, in the name of "sweeping away cow-demons."

Daoxian massacre (Aug–Oct 1967). In Hunan's Dao County, "poor-peasant supreme courts" summoned and murdered "black categories" and their children. Official reinvestigation: 7,696 killed and 1,397 driven to suicide across 11 counties and cities; Tan Hecheng's Blood Myth claims 9,000+ — the highest single-county toll of the Cultural Revolution (see "Armed factional warfare").

Guangxi massacres (1967–1968). Factional warfare between the "United Command" and "April 22" factions brought mass killing of "four-category elements"; the official reinvestigation counted 89,700 named abnormal deaths region-wide (cited by Zheng Yi in Scarlet Memorial). Cannibalism was reported in Wuxuan and elsewhere (per Zheng Yi's Scarlet Memorial; figures hotly disputed, unverified). Binyang and Wuxuan were worst hit (see "Armed factional warfare").

The "Inner Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party" case (1968–1969). The "dig-and-purge" campaign fabricated a treasonous party; 340,000 persecuted, 16,222 dead (1980s official reinvestigation figure).

The Zhao Jianmin case (1968–). Yunnan Party chief Zhao Jianmin was branded a "traitor" by Kang Sheng; the "draw-the-line" campaign killed tens of thousands in Yunnan.

Campus warfare. Tsinghua's "Hundred-Day Armed Struggle" (Apr–Jul 1968) used mortars and armored vehicles; Peking University's factions faced off. Nationwide campus death tolls are unverified.

Individual victims

Bian Zhongyun (1916–1966). Vice-principal and Party branch secretary of the Girls' Middle School attached to Beijing Normal University, a mother of four. On the afternoon of August 5, 1966, her own school's Red Guard students beat her to death with nail-studded clubs at a "struggle session"; her body was hauled away on a garbage cart. She was 50 — the first educator beaten to death in Beijing's Cultural Revolution, killed by her own students. Her husband Wang Jingyao did not dare mourn her openly. Not until 2014 did the student leaders of that day, including Song Binbin, publicly apologize.

Lao She (1899–1966). On August 23, 1966, the writer Lao She was seized and beaten by Red Guards at the Beijing Writers' Association; the next morning he walked alone to Taiping Lake and drowned himself. He was 67. That same day, Li Da, president of Wuhan University and a philosopher, was persecuted to death in Wuhan. Lao She was rehabilitated in 1978; his ashes rest at Babaoshan.

Fu Lei and Zhu Meifu (1908–1966; 1913–1966). The translator Fu Lei and his wife were raided and struggled against in their Shanghai home in late August 1966 on fabricated charges including a hidden "ledger for the restoration." In the early hours of September 3, they hanged themselves together in their Jiangsu Road apartment — he was 58, she 53. Their suicide notes handed their savings to the state and asked for a simple funeral with no ashes kept.

Peng Dehuai (1898–1974). A founding marshal, toppled after the 1959 Lushan Conference. During the Cultural Revolution he was dragged back to Beijing from Sichuan, repeatedly struggled against and imprisoned, denied treatment for cancer. He died in Beijing on November 29, 1974, aged 76. Rehabilitated in December 1978 with a memorial service at which Deng Xiaoping delivered the eulogy.

Liu Shaoqi (1898–1969). "Expelled from the Party forever" in October 1968. In October 1969, gravely ill, he was carried on a stretcher onto a plane and "evacuated" to Kaifeng; he died there on November 12, aged 71, with no relative at his side, cremated under the name "Liu Weihuang." Rehabilitated in 1980.

He Long (1896–1969). A founding marshal, toppled at the start of the Cultural Revolution, held and persecuted for years, his diabetes left untreated. He died in Beijing on June 9, 1969, aged 73. The Central Committee restored his reputation in September 1974 (only partially); full rehabilitation came in October 1982.

Children of the "five black categories." Landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements and rightists — and their children — sat at the very bottom of the persecution ladder. In July 1966 a Red Guard couplet appeared on Beijing streets: "The father's a hero, the son's a good man; the father's a reactionary, the son's a bastard" — bloodline theory made public. Yu Luoke, a young Beijing apprentice worker, published "On Family Background" in the Middle School Cultural Revolution Gazette on January 18, 1967, systematically demolishing bloodline theory; it spread like wildfire. On March 5, 1970, he was executed as a "counterrevolutionary" at 27; rehabilitated in 1979. In the Daxing and Daoxian massacres, killers went household by household, by class label — children were not spared (see "Armed factional warfare").

Sent-down youth

By summer 1968 the Red Guard movement was out of control: universities admitted no one, factories hired no one, and over four million secondary-school graduates of the classes of 1966–68 were stranded in the cities. On July 28, Mao summoned Beijing's Red Guard leaders for a five-hour dressing-down over their divorce from workers and peasants. "Up to the mountains and down to the villages" was revived.

On December 22, 1968, People's Daily published Mao's directive: "It is very necessary for educated youth to go to the countryside to be re-educated by the poor and lower-middle peasants." A nationwide mobilization began; the "old three classes" left the cities almost in full. By official count, over 16 million educated youth were sent down during the Cultural Revolution (some sources say 17 million) — roughly a tenth of the urban population; across 25 years from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, the cumulative total reached about 20 million. It was a reverse migration rare in modern history; hardly an urban family was untouched.

Two destinations: most "joined production teams" in remote, impoverished villages; others entered the Production and Construction Corps under quasi-military discipline. From 1969, twelve corps and three land-reclamation divisions were built up in Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Xinjiang and elsewhere. Life was brutal: minus-forty winters in Heilongjiang in dugout shelters, malaria in Yunnan, constant industrial accidents, near-zero cultural life. Female sent-down youth faced sexual assault — the State Council's sent-down-youth office reported over 23,000 cases of youth persecution since 1969, about 70% involving rape; Zhang Guoliang, a company commander in Yunnan's First Division, raped 30 young women before being brought to justice in 1973 after Li Xiannian intervened. No verifiable nationwide casualty count for sent-down youth exists.

On November 12, 1978, Qu Linxian, a Shanghai sent-down youth in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, died in childbirth — the spark. Yunnan farm youth struck and petitioned; delegations went north to Kunming demanding return. In early 1979 the State Council began allowing returns; nearly ten million went back to the cities, and the movement ended.

Scale & methodology

Why do the figures differ so much? Look at three things: time range — some cover the full decade (1966–1976), some only the early years (1966–1969), Rummel runs to 1975; scope — whether direct killing, armed-battle deaths, persecution deaths and suicides are counted changes everything; source base — 1980s official reinvestigation figures, published gazetteers, scholarly sampling — each with different reliability. With archives closed, every figure is an estimate. Read the methodology behind a number, not just the number.

Who opposed

Opposition in three layers:

• Toppled power-holders (targets, not active opponents): Liu Shaoqi — expelled October 1968, died November 12, 1969 in Kaifeng without treatment; rehabilitated 1980. Deng Xiaoping — stripped 1968, returned 1973, led the 1975 readjustment, toppled again April 1976. He Long — persecuted to death June 9, 1969.
• The February Countercurrent (February 11 & 16, 1967) — the only collective open resistance by senior party leaders in the early Cultural Revolution: at Zhou Enlai's Huairentang Politburo meeting, Tan Zhenlin, Chen Yi, Ye Jianying and fellow marshals clashed fiercely with Jiang Qing's group. Tan: "Behead me, jail me, expel me — I will fight you to the end!" Mao raged on February 18; the meetings stopped; the Cultural Revolution Group replaced the Politburo. Vindicated as the "February struggle" in 1979.
• The Lin Biao incident (September 13, 1971): a power implosion, not moral opposition.
• Zhou Enlai: protected cadres via an approved list (August 1966); pushed rehabilitations 1972–75; never publicly repudiated the Cultural Revolution.
• April 5, 1976 Tiananmen incident: mass mourning for Zhou Enlai, suppressed as "counterrevolutionary" (rehabilitated 1978) — the largest spontaneous popular protest of the era.

End: Mao died September 9, 1976; on October 6 Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying and Wang Dongxing arrested the "Gang of Four."

Impact

The "ten years of catastrophe" verdict. The 1981 Resolution labeled the Cultural Revolution "a civil strife caused by a leader's error and exploited by a counterrevolutionary clique, bringing grave disaster to the Party, state and peoples." The verdict stands, yet Mao remains officially a "great leader."

A generation's lost education. University entrance exams halted for a decade; "old three classes" of educated youth were rusticated; higher education collapsed. After exams resumed in 1977, this generation caught up and powered reform — but the knowledge gap left deep scars.

Collapse of law and trust. The Cultural Revolution proved lawless mass movements could destroy every institutional safeguard. The 1980s "bring order out of chaos" tried to rebuild rule of law, but "stability overrides everything" endures.

Unfinished reckoning. Unlike Germany's reckoning with Nazism, China never held systematic truth investigations or perpetrator accountability for the Cultural Revolution. Many former rebels and Red Guard leaders later rose high. Deep discussion remains officially banned; popular memory is fading.

Videos

SLICE documentary: Cultural Revolution footage.

Cultural Revolution historical footage.

Related images (external links)

• Wikimedia Commons: Cultural Revolution
• English Wikipedia: Cultural Revolution