Ten Years Of Chaos Analysis

The term is fitting. A decade when the only true authority in China was fear, the Ten Years of Chaos (better known as the Cultural Revolution) found its victims in millions of people, creating a dark and bitter age that continues to live in infamy. However idealistic the goals of the Cultural Revolution were, there was no firm plan for its execution. Terrifying purges, torture and brutality were simply enacted on the whims of the Chinese communist dictator, Mao Zedong, and the brainwashed youth organized as Red Guards. The powerful move that Mao enacted to implement his vision of a fully communist state stemmed largely from his insecurities and a power struggle involving Lui Shaoqi. But the effect was much larger than destruction of politicians: …show more content…
The Chinese were so disillusioned with Mao that politicians he had attacked during the Cultural Revolution were quickly able to consolidate power after his death. Stories tell of torture done to teachers, such as a band of Red Guards forcing a teacher to swallow an enormous amount of garlic and shoe polish together. Bian Zhongyun, the principal of Beijing high school, was another who was “tormented, beaten, and left to die”—his name only known because of the apology made by Song Binbin (daughter of a formerly prominent communist politician) on her blog. Clearly, the public view of the Cultural Revolution differed greatly from the government’s stance on the campaign. We can see, furthermore, from the appalling effects of the Cultural Revolution, that not only is the large divide between the two groups in interpreting the revolution, but that the Chinese government was wrong and the public right in their opinions and interpretations of the