The Consequences Of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution

“It will be like that until someone decides to change it. All of it. But how did you change an entire culture? Revolutions were about politics, not perceptions, weren 't they?” (“A Quote from Infidel”). I believe this quote really defines what the Cultural Revolution was all about because the Cultural Revolution started with one man with a vision to shape China’s future, and that man was Mao Zedong. He wanted to spread his ideologies across China and impose his beliefs. He paved the way for the Cultural Revolution and changed the way the people in China lived for an entire decade. There were many consequences caused by the Cultural Revolution which affected China for years to come, two of which are: it severely damaged the educational system …show more content…
Previously he started with the “Great Leap Forward” which was started to modernize China. Mao began making factories to promote technology and collectivized farms. What he didn’t know was that the workers didn’t know how to use the factories and the equipment so the things that were produced were of very bad quality and not up to par (“China’s Cultural Revolution Begins: May 1966”). Because farmland was used to build factories on, the production of crops started to decline which resulted into the Great Chinese Famine. After the failure of that, Mao gathered a group of people including his wife Jiang Qing and defense minister Lin Biao in order to take back control and spread his ideologies. He then properly launched the Cultural Revolution at the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee in August 1966(Lieberthal). He then ordered to shut down all of China’s schools which resulted in the formation of the Red Guards. The Red guards comprised mostly of students with a main goal to get rid of any old culture or tradition …show more content…
During Cultural Revolution, every single financial activity was stopped. The political exercises of the Red Guards interfered with the farming and non-farming based production (“China’s Cultural Revolution begins: May 1966”). The production lines at factories were heavily influenced by the severe lack of materials and the little amount of work they produced. As a result, the production of rice and cotton decreased which increased the rarity and the price of it (“Cultural Revolution”). Many residents lost their possessions in the Cultural Revolution, Legislators and other wealthy people lost their employments and all of their money (“Exploring Chinese History”). More and more people became laborers in homesteads, keeping in mind the end goal to manage the cost of their families’ living (“Cultural Revolution”). China’s economy had suffered badly and was on the verge of being