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[[Image:Cultrev.jpg|right|thumb|300px|A Cultural Revolution poster.]]
[[Image:Cultrev.jpg|right|thumb|300px|A Cultural Revolution poster.]]
The '''Cultural Revolution''' was a disastrous [[leftwing]] attempt to reform the economics, education, and politics of Communist China, which led to the deaths of tens of millions of people. The upheaval began in August 1966 by [[Chinese Communist Party]] Chairman [[Mao Zedong]].
The '''Cultural Revolution''' was a disastrous [[leftwing]] attempt to reform the economics, education, and politics of Communist China, which led to the deaths of tens of millions of people. The upheaval began in August 1966 by [[Chinese Communist Party]] Chairman [[Mao Zedong]].
In the early 1960s, State President Liu Shaoqi and his protégé, Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's revolutionary vision. Dissatisfied with China's new direction and his own reduced authority, Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu, Deng, and other pragmatists in the spring of 1966. The new movement, the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," was unprecedented in communist history. For the first time, a section of the Chinese communist leadership sought to rally popular opposition against another leadership group. China was set on a course of political and social anarchy that lasted the better part of a decade.
In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao and his "closest comrade in arms," National Defense Minister Lin Biao, charged Liu, Deng, and other top party leaders with dragging China back toward capitalism. Radical youth organizations, called Red Guards, attacked party and state organizations at all levels, seeking out leaders who would not bend to the radical wind.
Mao's objective was to replace leaders with people who would think like him and be supportive of him as Chairmen, make the Chinese Communist Party function the way he wanted, give the Chinese youth a revolutionary experience, and make changes so that education, health care, and cultural systems would be for the entirety of China and not just for the elite. In order to do this, he began to establish a cult towards himself. His party would be forced to support him as he had little patience for opponents during what he believed to be the pinnacle point of China's future as a communist state. He quickly began a system of purges to cleanse of any unwanted opposition toward him or to the gang of four, especially after he was embarrassed with the part rejecting his great leap forward policies<ref>http://asianhistory.about.com/od/modernchina/f/What-Was-The-Cultural-Revolution.htm</ref>
Mao's objective was to replace leaders with people who would think like him and be supportive of him as Chairmen, make the Chinese Communist Party function the way he wanted, give the Chinese youth a revolutionary experience, and make changes so that education, health care, and cultural systems would be for the entirety of China and not just for the elite. In order to do this, he began to establish a cult towards himself. His party would be forced to support him as he had little patience for opponents during what he believed to be the pinnacle point of China's future as a communist state. He quickly began a system of purges to cleanse of any unwanted opposition toward him or to the gang of four, especially after he was embarrassed with the part rejecting his great leap forward policies<ref>http://asianhistory.about.com/od/modernchina/f/What-Was-The-Cultural-Revolution.htm</ref>