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Chinese Cultural Revolution
Some view history in terms of specific events, however misunderstood; some view it as a progressive evolution, however painful; and still others see it as one ever-expanding catastrophe. China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (CR) is susceptible to all three views. Commonly described as being in its first and last instance a scheme aimed at restoring and sustaining Mao Zedong’s preeminence as China’s paramount leader following his disastrous Great Leap Forward policies (1958–61), its targets were feudal, capitalist, and revisionist counterrevolutionary elements in the party and state apparatuses as well as society at large. Many then and now view the CR as the damning conclusion of Maoism and a complete unmasking of a self-aggrandizing, suppressive, and exploitative tyranny at the heart of Mao Zedong Thought, if ...
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