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1966

China Launches the Cultural Revolution

中國發動文化大革命

Source: Half a Century of the Cultural Revolution: Fifty Years Ago Today — China’s Cultural Revolution Begins
From: Storm Media
Date: May 16, 2016Author: Hua Chih-hao

On May 16, 1966, the enlarged session of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party passed the “Circular of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party” (known as the “May 16th Circular”) — drafted under the direction of Chen Boda, head of the “Central Cultural Revolution Group,” and revised by Mao Zedong. A key passage of this document, which Red Flag magazine at the time called “a great historical document,” read: “The whole party must follow Comrade Mao Zedong’s instructions, hold high the banner of the proletarian Cultural Revolution, thoroughly expose those anti-party, anti-socialist so-called ‘academic authorities’ with their bourgeois reactionary stance, thoroughly criticize the bourgeois reactionary thinking in academic, educational, journalistic, literary, artistic, and publishing circles, and seize the leadership in these cultural domains. To achieve this, it is necessary to simultaneously criticize the bourgeois representatives who have sneaked into the party, government, army, and cultural circles, purge these people, and in some cases reassign them.” The Circular accused the party of harboring a bourgeoisie within it, demanding that the entire party raise the banner of the proletarian Cultural Revolution and criticize academic authorities. This document marked the official beginning of a decade-long bloody catastrophe that shattered all moral boundaries — the “Ten-Year Cultural Revolution.”

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China Launches the Cultural Revolution
Political propaganda slogans in red characters on the walls of Fudan University, Shanghai, spring 1976 (source: Wikipedia)
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