The Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square 1966–1989

The Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square 1966–1989 is one of six Change in the Modern World options in Section IV. This section has one question in three or four parts (no choice of alternatives), and one part is worth 10–15 marks. Smaller parts usually ask you to outline, describe or explain, often using a source; the big part asks for a judgement. The syllabus key features are the idea of permanent revolution and competing visions of Marxism, the role of leadership, modernisation, social change, the causes of the Tiananmen Square protests and the Chinese Communist Party's response.

• Survey: the legacy of 1949 and the Great Leap Forward; Sino-Soviet relations; tensions between Mao and other party leaders.
• The Cultural Revolution: Mao's aims and methods; the Gang of Four and the Red Guards; the purge of Deng Xiaoping and others; the impact on society, the economy, education and culture.
• Deng and modernisation: reactions to Zhou Enlai's death; Mao's death; Hua Guofeng and the arrest of the Gang of Four; Deng's return and economic reforms.
• Tiananmen Square 1989: demands for reform; the build-up to 4 June; the military response; the rise of Jiang Zemin; China's international position.

A note on sources and figures

Many figures for this period are estimates, and some are politically sensitive. Give ranges (for example, deaths in the Great Leap famine or on 4 June 1989) and say they are estimates. Chinese names are written surname first: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping.

• The People's Republic was founded on 1 October 1949. Land reform, the first Five-Year Plan (1953–57) and collectivisation followed.
• The Hundred Flowers campaign (1956–57) invited criticism, then turned into the Anti-Rightist Campaign against critics.
• The Great Leap Forward (1958–62): people's communes, backyard furnaces, unrealistic targets and false reports. The famine of 1959–61 killed an estimated 15–45 million people (most estimates are around 30 million).
• Lushan (1959): Marshal Peng Dehuai criticised the Leap and was purged.
• Mao stepped back; Liu Shaoqi (head of state from 1959) and Deng Xiaoping used pragmatic policies (private plots, markets) to restore the economy.
• The Sino-Soviet split (from about 1960): ideological rivalry; Mao feared Soviet-style ‘revisionism’ and a new privileged class in the party.
• Competing Marxisms: Mao's permanent (continuous) revolution — constant class struggle and mass mobilisation — versus the planners' emphasis on stability, expertise and economic growth.

Mao's aims and methods

• To reassert his authority, remove rivals (‘capitalist roaders’ such as Liu and Deng), renew revolutionary spirit in a new generation and destroy the ‘Four Olds’ (old customs, culture, habits and ideas).
• Methods: the May 1966 circular; Mao's ‘Bombard the Headquarters’ poster (August 1966); the Red Guards; the personality cult and the Little Red Book; mass rallies in Tiananmen Square (from 18 August 1966).
• Key allies: Lin Biao (Defence Minister) and the Cultural Revolution Group, including Jiang Qing (Mao's wife).

Course

Impact

• People: struggle sessions, imprisonment, suicides, killings; estimates of deaths range from several hundred thousand to two million or more. Minorities suffered (Tibet, Inner Mongolia).
• Youth and education: schools and universities closed; a ‘lost generation’; university entrance exams restored only in 1977.
• Culture: Jiang Qing's model works; destruction of temples, books and artefacts; persecution of writers and artists.
• Party and state: mass purges; revolutionary committees; the army's political role grew.
• Economy: disruption in 1967–68, then recovery; stagnant living standards; some gains in rural health care (‘barefoot doctors’) and rural schooling.
• Long-term: disillusionment with radical Maoism, which helped Deng's reforms. The party's 1981 Resolution blamed Mao for the Cultural Revolution while upholding his overall historical role.

Deng's rise

• Hua Guofeng, Mao's chosen successor, arrested the Gang of Four with Ye Jianying and Wang Dongxing. His ‘two whatevers’ (uphold whatever Mao decided and instructed) limited change.
• Deng returned in 1977, backed by party veterans and the army; the 1978 debate on ‘practice is the sole criterion of truth’.
• Third Plenum (December 1978): the party's priority became economic modernisation. Hua lost his posts by 1980–81. The Gang of Four were tried in 1980–81.

Economic reform

• Agriculture: the household responsibility system (from 1978; communes gone by about 1984); rising rural incomes; township and village enterprises.
• Opening up: Special Economic Zones (1980: Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Xiamen); 14 coastal cities opened (1984); foreign investment and trade.
• Results: growth of roughly 9–10% a year; consumer goods; but inflation (about 18% in 1988), corruption and official profiteering, inequality between coast and interior.
• ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’.

Social change

• More personal freedom in work, travel and consumption; Western ideas and culture; study abroad.
• The one-child policy (from 1979–80), enforced harshly in some places.

Political limits

• The Four Cardinal Principles (1979): socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat (later rendered as the ‘people's democratic dictatorship’), party leadership, Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought.
• Democracy Wall (1978–79): Wei Jingsheng called for democracy as the ‘Fifth Modernisation’ and was jailed for 15 years.
• Campaigns against ‘spiritual pollution’ (1983) and ‘bourgeois liberalisation’ (1987); student protests (1986) and the forced resignation of Hu Yaobang (January 1987).

• Demands: dialogue with leaders, freedom of the press, action against corruption, recognition of the movement as patriotic. Workers formed an autonomous federation; protests spread to many cities.
• Deaths: unknown; estimates range from several hundred to several thousand.
• Aftermath: arrests and executions (especially of workers); Zhao removed and kept under house arrest until his death (2005); Jiang Zemin became General Secretary (June 1989); Western arms embargoes and sanctions; strict control of discussion of 4 June inside China; economic reform resumed after Deng's Southern Tour (1992).

Worked example (not a bank question).

• _(a) Outline the role of Zhou Enlai during the Cultural Revolution. (4 marks)_ — Premier throughout; protected some officials and sites; promoted the Four Modernisations; his death sparked the April 1976 Tiananmen Incident.
• _(b) Using a source, explain the significance of the Tiananmen Incident of April 1976. (6 marks)_ — Use the source's details; add own knowledge (mourning for Zhou as protest against the Gang of Four, the crowds dispersed, Deng blamed and purged, later reversed); explain why it mattered.
• _(c) Assess the role of Mao Zedong in the Cultural Revolution. (15 marks)_ — A thesis on Mao as initiator and arbiter, weighed against the roles of Lin Biao, the Gang of Four, the Red Guards and local factions.

The three parts total 25 marks, the value of Section IV. Spend your time in proportion to the marks: the paper gives 180 minutes for 100 marks, so roughly 1.8 minutes per mark (about 45 minutes for this section).

• Confusing the two Tiananmen events (April 1976 and April–June 1989).
• Confusing Hua Guofeng (Mao's successor, 1976) and Hu Yaobang (reformer, died 1989).
• Saying Deng held the top party title; his power came from authority and support.
• Giving exact death tolls as facts.
• Treating 1989 as only a student movement.

• Use precise terms: permanent revolution, revisionism, capitalist roaders, Red Guards, struggle session, the Four Olds, the Four Modernisations, household responsibility system, Special Economic Zones, socialism with Chinese characteristics, martial law.
• Show change and continuity: radical mobilisation (1966–76) gave way to economic pragmatism (1978–89), but one-party rule continued throughout.
• In source parts, quote briefly, explain, and add your own knowledge.
• In the 10–15 mark part, make a judgement in your first sentence and return to it at the end of every paragraph.

• China 1927–1949 explains how the Communist Party came to power.
• The Cold War 1945–1991 covers the Sino-Soviet split and Nixon's visit.
• The Changing World Order 1945–2011 covers China's rise as a new centre of power.
• The Pro-democracy Movement in Burma 1945–2010: another democracy movement crushed by force (1988).