Why The Cultural Revolution Was A Good Thing
Why The Cultural Revolution Was A Good Thing
All over the western world you hear about how horrible it was for Mao to destroy traditional Chinese culture and ways of thinking that existed for thousands of years. However I have to ask, did this traditional culture help them in establishing socialism? It definitely did not help them or work in a neutral way either. The people of China saw that their ways of life were anti-proletarian and dealt with them accordingly. The cultural revolution was something that should be emulated across the entire western world where old ways of thinking and cultural attitudes that do not serve the working class need to be forcefully destroyed. This was done not only through the destruction of statues, books, and other media put out by class enemies. There were also more peaceful ways of culture change such as changing street names or the names of establishments and buildings. During this time, rightism was absolutely demolished and many class enemies fled to America during this time.
When I hear people say things about China being wrong for the cultural revolution, it shows me that they do not know or do not care how oppressive social norms and class society in Asia can be. In India which the liberals see as such a spiritual and holy place, they literally practice a caste system. In Tibet they had Slavery until Mao came and freed them. Even in South Korea and Japan today the bourgeoisie have a social power and control that echoes feudalism. If you think I am insane, go and research how the Chaebol kids in Korea behave in their society and how every person in Korea is expected to bend over backwards to accommodate the tantrums of rich and entitled children because their families literally own the nation’s economy. When you compare the conditions of China to the other countries in Asia, you begin to realize they would also be a lot better off if they destroyed bourgeois culture, ideologies, and struck absolute terror into the hearts of their oppressors.
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I'm not sure you understand the Cultural Revolution nor traditional Chinese culture, Mao Zedong didn't want to "destroy traditional culture", that wasn't the goal of the Cultural Revolution, that was the goal of "破四旧" ("Eliminate the four old“) movement orchestrated by the ultra-lefts. "Eliminate the four old“ targeted mainly feudal values and not capitalist values, it turned out to be more anarchist than scientific as with the rest of the actions of the ultra-lefts.
From a DeepL translation of "A Concise History of the Communist Party of China" (2021) page 205:
In May 1966, the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee adopted the "May 16th Circular", pointing out that: "The bourgeois representatives who have infiltrated the Party, the government, the army and all kinds of cultural circles are a group of counter-revolutionary revisionists, who, once the time is ripe, will want to seize power and change from the dictatorship of the proletariat to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." In August, the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party adopted the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which proposed that "the focus of this campaign is to straighten out those in power within the Party who have taken the capitalist road." The convening of these two meetings marked the launching of the Cultural Revolution. Since then, the Red Guard Movement has been rapidly emerging. From January 1967 onwards, the Cultural Revolution entered the stage of "total seizure of power" and soon developed into a serious situation of "overthrowing everything" and even "total civil war".
(Note that there is an official English translation of this book but I can't find a readable copy online yet, so above is the the DeepL translation of the Chinese text instead, with some minor corrections)
On traditional Chinese culture, we apply "取其精华、弃其糟粕", that means we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, just because traditional Chinese values have bad aspects doesn't mean we can't learn from the good aspects. Maybe you have not heard of the Confucian phrases "天下为公" and "天下大同".
On July 1st 2021, in his speech at a ceremony marking the centenary of the CPC, Xi Jinping proposed "两个结合" ("Two Adapts"), that is:
We must continue to adapt the basic tenets of Marxism to China's specific realities and its fine traditional culture.
Xi stresses the importance of inheriting the fine parts of traditional Chinese culture, as opposed to liberals who decry all of it. Both socialists and liberals have reasons to criticize traditional Chinese culture. Socialists apply a scientific approach that is to inherit the good parts and throw out the feudal aspects. Liberals are against socialism so they attack traditional Chinese culture without any reservations.
"Attack" on traditional Chinese culture wasn't a new thing, during the May Fourth Movement of 1919 there was a slogan called "打倒孔家店，救出孔夫子". During the Cultural Revolution the slogan was "破四旧" as I mentioned at the beginning, and after Lin Biao's coup failed there was the "批林批孔" (criticize Lin Biao and Confucius) movement that Mao endorsed initially but didn't anymore after finding out the "Gang of Four"'s intentions.