jan 1, 1966 - Cultural Revolution
Description:
As Mao's power weakened in his party after the failure of the Great Leap Forward, Mao decided to try to enforce a unified ideology in China known as "Maoism". To do this, Mao tried to weaken the divisions between classes and genders. This included propaganda encouraging women to work and forcing educated youth to spend time in the countryside to work. Young people dubbed the "Red Guard" were trained to weed out the right-wing capitalists who were supposedly infiltrating the country. Mao's Little Red Books, a collection of speeches and writings by Mao, were also widely distributed in this time period. The revolution spread to all parts of China including the military and government, where officials like Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi were purged. Violent conflict due to class struggled worsened and became publicly displayed in many cases. The remnants of the cultural revolution lasted beyond Mao's lifetime until Deng Xiaoping's rule, although it officially ended in 1969.
Sources:
https://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/graph/9wenge.htm
Added to timeline:
China Timeline - Andrew Li and Justin Li
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