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The 1959–1961 Great Famine killed tens of millions; Mao was forced into the "second line" while Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping ran the "Eight-Character" readjustment, tacitly allowing household-responsibility reforms like the "Three Freedoms and One Guarantee." At the January 1962 Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, Liu openly blamed "30% natural disaster, 70% human error." Mao offered self-criticism but nursed resentment. The rift over the Great Leap Forward's errors foreshadowed the Mao-Liu split.

At the September 1962 10th Plenum of the 8th Central Committee, Mao revived "never forget class struggle" — to be talked about "every year, every month, every day" — and proposed a nationwide socialist education movement. His strategic aim was "anti-revisionism": preventing a Khrushchev-style revisionism in China and guarding against "peaceful evolution." To Mao, post-famine rural problems — cadre corruption, speculation, embezzlement of collective property — were not mere economic issues but new forms of class struggle; over a third of rural grassroots regimes, he believed, had been usurped by "counterrevolutionary double-dealers."

The campaign had deep roots: Mao had called for rural socialist education since the 1957 Anti-Rightist Campaign; the 1959 Lushan "anti-right opportunism" drive, the 1960 "Three Antis" and rectification, and the 1961 directive on rural socialist education were all preludes. In spring-summer 1963, the Four Cleanups formally began.

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

• September 1962, 10th Plenum: Mao's "never forget class struggle" — class struggle should be talked about "every year, every month, every day" — the starting point.
• February 1963: Liu Shaoqi chaired the central meeting pushing the movement: "not the old bourgeoisie, but the new bourgeoisie — the bourgeoisie among Communist Party and state cadres."
• May 1963, Hangzhou: Mao chaired the meeting producing the "First Ten Articles."
• September 1963: the "Second Ten Articles" (drafted by Deng Xiaoping, Tan Zhenlin, Tian Jiaying); Liu chaired the October revision. Liu Shaoqi participated in and chaired the drafting of both documents.
• August 1964: Liu Shaoqi was put in overall command of the movement.
• January 14, 1965: the "23 Articles" — focus on "party persons in power taking the capitalist road"; urban "five-anti" abolished; "four cleanups" (politics, economics, organization, ideology) nationwide.

February 1963 Central Work Conference launched a nationwide production-austerity and "Five Antis" campaign (anti-corruption, anti-speculation, anti-waste, anti-decentralism, anti-bureaucratism) — but only above county level. The conference focused on rural socialist education; Mao interjected: "Whether revisionism emerges in our country — two possibilities… Only socialist education can prevent revisionism."

April 4, 1963: The Baoding Prefectural Committee's report to Hebei first coined "Four Cleanups": cleaning accounts, warehouses, finances, and work points. Mao seized on it, assigning Peng Zhen and Chen Boda to draft the Central decision.

May 2–12, 1963 Hangzhou Conference: Mao summoned regional Party secretaries and some Politburo members to revise the "Decision on Current Rural Work (Draft)." Mao declared: "'Five Antis' in the cities, 'Four Cleanups' in the countryside — this digs out the bourgeoisie's social base, the roots of capitalism, the roots of revisionism." On May 20, the Politburo passed the decision (later the "Former Ten Points"), defining the Four Cleanups as cleaning accounts, warehouses, property, and work points — the "Lesser Four Cleanups," aimed mainly at grassroots cadres' economic misconduct.

Autumn 1963: Pilot programs spread, but violence spiraled. In Macheng County, Hubei, 331 people were struggled against — 21 beaten, 65 bound, 3 hanged, 42 forced to kneel. In Hunan, 76 suicides from struggle sessions by late February. The Center was forced to issue a notice strictly forbidding beatings in the campaign.

After the September 6–27, 1963 work conference, on October 25 the Center issued "Some Concrete Policy Provisions on Rural Socialist Education (Draft)" (the "Later Ten Points"), stressing reliance on grassroots organizations and cadres and distinguishing contradictions among the people from contradictions with the enemy.

November 1963: Liu Shaoqi's wife Wang Guangmei led a work team to Taoyuan Brigade in Funing County, Hebei, producing the "Taoyuan Experience" — secret investigation, "taking root and linking up," and the "Yan Fei" punishment posture (later the Cultural Revolution's infamous "jet-plane" position). On September 1, 1964, Liu — with Mao, Zhou, and Deng's approval — circulated Wang's report nationwide. The Taoyuan Experience expanded the Four Cleanups from economic auditing to "four uncleans" in politics, economics, thought, and organization — the prototype of the "Greater Four Cleanups."

June–August 1964: Liu toured fourteen provinces, declaring the Later Ten Points' "unite 95% of cadres" inappropriate; the Four Cleanups must cover all four domains; campaigns should "concentrate forces to fight annihilation battles." On August 5 the Center created a "Four Cleanups"/"Five Antis" command headed by Liu Shaoqi; from August 16 Liu pushed replacing prefectural and county committees with "Four Cleanups work corps," vastly expanding work-team power. Beijing sent 11,695 work-team members to "fight an annihilation battle in Tong County"; in one Qinghai commune, 47% of cadres were marked for removal; in suburban Tong County, work teams beat people in 110 incidents with over 70 suicides.

September 18, 1964: The Center issued the "Revised Draft of Later Ten Points," formally introducing the concept of "counterrevolutionary two-faced regimes," calling the movement "a mass movement broader, more complex and more profound than land reform," and decreeing "the entire movement shall be led by work teams." Suddenly the whole country hunted for "little Taiwans" — even tiny units like Wuhan University's philosophy department nearly got labeled a "counterrevolutionary two-faced regime."

Mid-December 1964–January 14, 1965 Central Work Conference: the Mao-Liu split went fully public (see below). On January 14, 1965, the Center issued "Some Current Problems in the Rural Socialist Education Movement" (the "23 Articles"), decreeing all urban and rural socialist education movements be called "Four Cleanups" (politics, economics, organization, thought), abolishing the "Five Antis" name.

First half of 1965: 649 counties had completed the Four Cleanups — 32% of the total. In the second half Mao largely abandoned the campaign, turning to plan the Cultural Revolution; after it began, local Four Cleanups faded from history.

The evolution of the "Four Cleanups" concept is key to understanding the campaign's escalation:

Lesser Four Cleanups (May 1963 "Former Ten Points"): cleaning accounts, warehouses, property, and work points. Aimed at grassroots cadres' economic misconduct — corruption, privilege, murky books. Still essentially an economic audit; Mao even cautioned, "don't rush, keep it steady, don't hurt too many people."

Greater Four Cleanups (September 1964 "Revised Later Ten Points"–January 1965 "23 Articles"): cleaning politics, economics, organization, and thought. Everything "unfavorable to socialism" had to be cleaned. In June 1964 Liu Shaoqi declared "peaceful evolution has reached certain people in high organs"; the Four Cleanups escalated from rectifying grassroots cadres to rectifying "capitalist roaders in power within the Party" — a formulation Mao later turned into the weapon that destroyed Liu himself.

Scholars note Liu's expansion of "lesser" to "greater" Four Cleanups was his "important主張 (advocacy)," yet Mao had earlier approved and promoted many of Liu's methods, only to later denounce Liu as "left in form, right in essence." At his December 26, 1964 birthday banquet Mao publicly berated Liu; on December 28 Mao brandished the Party constitution in one hand and the state constitution in the other: "One won't let me attend meetings (Deng Xiaoping), one won't let me speak (Liu Shaoqi). Why strip me of the rights the constitutions grant me?" The power struggle was fully public.

Execution chain: Central Committee → the "five-anti/four-cleanups" headquarters (Liu Shaoqi in command) → party committees → work teams → poor and lower-middle peasant class ranks.

• "Lesser" to "Greater" cleanups: from auditing work points, accounts, property and warehouses to "clean politics, economics, organization, ideology."
• About: the 23 Articles prescribed "concentrate forces, fight annihilation battles"; "take root and link up among the poor and lower-middle peasants"; "those rotten to the core — seize power: struggle first, then remove."
• "Large-corps warfare": work groups of 10,000+ bypassed local party organizations, "leaving grassroots cadres in fear for themselves."
• Wang Guangmei's "Taoyuan Experience": November 1963, Liu Shaoqi's wife went undercover to a Hebei brigade; 39 of 46 brigade cadres (85%) were struggled against; the experience was circulated nationwide September 1964 as "of universal significance." Bo Yibo later judged it "an important step that pushed the rural socialist education movement sharply leftward and seriously widened the targets."

The Four Cleanups' deepest legacy was inventing and institutionalizing a technology of "mass dictatorship" — precisely the "mass dictatorship before the Cultural Revolution" the user identified:

Work-team seizure of power. After August 1964, "Four Cleanups work corps" replaced prefectural and county committees; existing Party-state organs were hollowed out. Work teams answered only upward — "the entire movement shall be led by work teams." This model of campaign organs replacing permanent government was replicated by the Cultural Revolution's "revolutionary committees."

The "jet-plane" position. Wang Guangmei's "Taoyuan Experience" featured the "swallow-flying" punishment — arms thrust back like a swallow's wings — which evolved into the Cultural Revolution's infamous "jet-plane" struggle posture: arms yanked up behind, head forced down. Torture techniques invented in the Four Cleanups were perfected in the Cultural Revolution.

Everyone "passes the test," mutual denunciation. The campaign demanded "fully mobilizing the masses"; everyone wrote confessions and denounced each other. Liu Shaoqi himself admitted in 1964: "When mass movements go too far… some in the masses disapprove but dare not speak; the atmosphere is such that they fear being called rightist." Under terror, no one dared tell the truth — a rehearsal for the Cultural Revolution's universal fear.

The "counterrevolutionary two-faced regime" label. The Revised Later Ten Points branded entire grassroots regimes as "counterrevolutionary two-faced regimes," providing the theory for wholesale power seizure. The Cultural Revolution's logic of "smashing the public security organs" and "seizing power" descends directly from this.

Normalization of deaths and suicides. Over 2,000 died around Hubei's first pilot rollout; 74 died in Xiangyang in 25 days; over 70 suicides in Tong County. Death was no longer treated as a campaign "deviation" but as a tacitly accepted price. The Cultural Revolution's far greater death toll merely pushed this logic to its extreme.

This is why scholars widely call the Four Cleanups "the rehearsal for the Cultural Revolution": work teams became work groups, "Four Cleanups" became "struggle-criticism-transformation," and the "capitalist roader" hat moved from grassroots cadres onto the head of the head of state.

The Central Work Conference of mid-December 1964–January 14, 1965 was the Four Cleanups' turning point and the breaking point of the Mao-Liu relationship. The two clashed openly on three questions:

The movement's nature. Mao held the principal contradiction was socialism versus capitalism — a contradiction with the enemy — and the focus must be "rectifying capitalist roaders in power within the Party," "mobilizing the masses to rectify our Party." Liu argued for "seeking truth from facts: whatever contradiction exists, solve that contradiction," seeing an interweaving of contradictions among the people and with the enemy — "don't elevate everything to contradictions with the enemy."

Whom to rely on. Mao wanted to unleash the masses to rectify the Party; Liu wanted to rely on work teams and grassroots organizations. The former aimed upward, the latter downward.

Assessment of cadres. Mao claimed "a third of state power is no longer in our hands"; Liu believed the vast majority of cadres were good or remediable.

On December 26, 1964, Mao berated Central leaders at his birthday banquet in the Great Hall of the People; on December 28 he erupted in fury; around year's end he told Liu to his face: "What makes you so great? I can crush you with one little finger." On January 3, 1965 — the day the NPC re-elected Liu as head of state — Mao used an expanded Politburo Standing Committee meeting to denounce Liu by innuendo for "taking root and linking up, mystification" and "opposing others' rightism only to fall into rightism yourself." On January 13, at Zhu De's urging, Liu convened a Party life meeting and, before a dozen-plus Central leaders, confessed "insufficient respect for the Chairman." Mao replied: "This is not about respect. It is Marxism versus revisionism. On matters of principle, I never yield."

January 14, 1965: the conference distilled Mao's remarks into "Some Current Problems in the Rural Socialist Education Movement," expanded from 17 to 23 articles and issued Party-wide. It defined the movement's focus as "rectifying capitalist roaders in power within the Party." In December 1970, when American journalist Edgar Snow asked Mao when he decided to politically destroy Liu Shaoqi, Mao answered: "When the 23 Articles were issued."

After the 23 Articles, Liu Shaoqi's political life entered its countdown. When the Cultural Revolution erupted in 1966, Liu was branded the "top capitalist roader in the Party," expelled in 1968, and died miserably in Kaifeng in 1969.

The Four Cleanups' "opposition" is unique — Liu Shaoqi was both the movement's commander-in-chief and the main dissenter from Mao's line.

• Mao: the principal contradiction was socialism vs. capitalism, an antagonistic contradiction; the focus was "party persons in power taking the capitalist road."
• Liu Shaoqi: "solve whatever contradictions exist; don't elevate everything to antagonistic contradictions" — a mix of contradictions among the people and antagonistic ones; his "four-clean vs. four-unclean" formulation.
• Mao denounced Liu's formulation as "not Marxism-Leninism." When Liu questioned the "capitalist-roader" label — "which minister of coal or metallurgy takes the capitalist road?" — Mao shot back: "How is there none? Zhang Linzhi does." (Zhang was coal minister.) Liu fell silent.
• Public rebukes: December 26, 1964 (Mao's 71st birthday banquet) — "someone builds an independent kingdom, tail wagging high!"; December 28 Mao brought the party constitution to the meeting: "one won't let me convene meetings (Deng), one won't let me speak (Liu). Why strip me of my constitutional rights?" January 1965: unnamed criticism of Liu's "mystification" and "sea-of-people tactics."
• The Taoyuan reversal: in 1965 Mao mocked the Hebei operation — "280,000 people and you send 15,000 to 'take root' — what taking root! Cold and deserted!" In September 1967 the Taoyuan Experience was denounced as "fake four-cleanups, real restoration" directed by "the biggest capitalist-roader in the party." All Taoyuan punishments were revoked after 1978.
• December 1970: when Edgar Snow asked Mao when he decided to topple Liu politically, Mao answered: "When the 23 Articles were issued."

Unlike zhenfan, the anti-rightist drive and land reform — where no one questioned the goal itself — the Four Cleanups' opponent was the number-two leader himself, who was toppled in the Cultural Revolution.

Direct rehearsal for the Cultural Revolution. The Four Cleanups invented a complete toolkit — work-team power seizure, "jet-plane" struggle sessions, everyone "passing the test," the "two-faced regime" label, normalized deaths — inherited wholesale and amplified in the 1966 Cultural Revolution. Scholarly consensus: without the Four Cleanups, the Cultural Revolution's operating model would not exist.

The Mao-Liu split and Liu Shaoqi's death. The 23 Articles marked the start of Mao's destruction of Liu Shaoqi. In the Cultural Revolution Liu was branded "traitor, spy, scab," dying miserably in Kaifeng, Henan on November 12, 1969 — body ulcerated, wrapped in a sheet. The CCP rehabilitated Liu in 1980, but the millions of ordinary cadres and masses persecuted in the Four Cleanups never received systematic redress.

Birth of the "capitalist roader" discourse. The concept of "capitalist roaders in power within the Party" took shape late in the Four Cleanups and became the Cultural Revolution's core target. From "rectifying grassroots cadres" to "rectifying Party power-holders," the target expanded from villages to the entire Party-state-military elite.

Devastation of rural grassroots organizations. Work teams "fought annihilation battles"; huge numbers of grassroots cadres were removed, struggled, driven to death. In one Qinghai commune, 47% of cadres were marked for removal. Paralyzed grassroots regimes foreshadowed the Cultural Revolution's "power seizures."

Limits of the official verdict. The 1981 "Resolution on Certain Historical Questions" admitted the Four Cleanups "subjected many grassroots cadres to undeserved blows," "wrongly defined the focus as rectifying so-called 'capitalist roaders in power within the Party,'" and served as "the fuse of the Cultural Revolution." But it named no death toll and offered no systematic accounting to victims.

• Cultural Revolution image category — Wikimedia Commons (includes 1960s Chinese political campaign photos)
• Liu Shaoqi image category — Wikimedia Commons (key figure who broke with Mao late in the Four Cleanups)