Why Did Mao Launch the Cultural Revolution? (Edexcel A Level History: Route E: Communist states in the twentieth century): Revision Note

Summary

• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) became divided between those who wanted to take a cautious, pragmatic approach and those who wanted a return to radical revolution

• Mao led the calls for a more radical approach and claimed the bureaucracy of the state had become lazy and decadent

  • He wanted those in authority to be replaced by new, enthusiastic and more radical communists

  • This became known as the Cultural Revolution

• Some historians have argued that this was simply an attempt by Mao to regain control

  • Others have argued that it was an attempt to create a uniquely Chinese form of Communism that was not influenced by the Soviet Union

Ideologues vs Pragmatists: Divisions within the CCP before 1966

• The Great Leap Forward (opens in a new tab) and the subsequent Great Famine had caused Mao to take a step back from leading the country

  • In his absence, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping took steps to rectify some of the damage caused by the Communes and the Second Five-Year Plan

Note: Please insert the image of Deng factory visit here

• This led to a division opening up within the CCP over the future direction of the country

  • Some, like Liu and Deng, favoured a more pragmatic and careful introduction of reforms

  • Others, like Mao, felt that this was a betrayal of the revolution and its ideals

Permanent revolution and Mao's attacks on the CCP bureaucracy

• In Mao's view, revolutions quickly became stale, and the struggles they required were quickly forgotten

• According to Mao, bureaucrats quickly became more interested in improving their own personal situation than working to create the revolutionary state

  • Bureaucrats, as seen by Mao, were destined to become the 'mandarins' they had replaced and become obsessed with personal luxuries

• For that reason, Mao called for a permanent revolution, where those in power would be replaced by more dedicated communists before bourgeois habits could develop

• Mao feared that the revolution would become stagnant, as he believed it had in the Soviet Union

  • He demanded that the bourgeois bureaucracy be purged and replaced with new people

  • He likened this to a body exhaling carbon dioxide and inhaling fresh oxygen

  • This was to become known as the Cultural Revolution

Supporters and opponents of Mao's policies within the CCP

How far was the Cultural Revolution caused by Mao's desire to reassert personal power?

• Historians have argued about the motives for the Cultural Revolution

  • Some, such as Kerry Brown,  have argued that it was simply down to Mao's attempt to wrestle back control after the disaster of the Great Famine

  • Others, like Roderick MacFarquhar, argue it was an attempt to apply Marxist theories in a Chinese context

Mao's Power Grab

• Mao wanted to regain control after stepping back due to the failures of the Great Leap Forward

Key historians

For all its complexity, the Cultural Revolution on one level was simply an intra-elite power struggle. At its heart, it was a move by Mao for an even more dominant role within the country and a return to front-line political control. Without him, what happened from 1965 onwards makes little sense. It was his frustration with the failure to come to full fruition of the revolution he believed he had nurtured, brought to power and embedded in China that precipitated the opening of the Cultural Revolution, and then energised it over the coming decade through its various iterations.

Kerry Brown, Mao: Power and Contradiction, 2026

An Attempt to Create a Chinese Form of Communism

• Mao knew Marxist theory had to be adapted to the uniquely Chinese circumstances

Key historians

But by the late 1950s, Mao had tired of aping foreigners. The GLF was his first attempt to find a distinctive Chinese road. By the mid-1960s, he could justify his distaste for the Soviet model with the spectre of revisionism. The Cultural Revolution was declaredly Mao’s attempt to vaccinate his people against the Soviet disease. But more importantly, it was his last best effort to define and perpetuate a distinct Chinese essence in the modern world. His was truly the last stand of Chinese conservatism.

Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, 2008