Tensions between CCP and Mao/Aims and methods of Mao/ Role of GoF and Red Guards

Aim of regaining power after the GLF

Aim of regaining power after the GLF

• Mao encouraged students to make propaganda posters that denounced Deng and Liu Shaoqi while praising Mao

• Mao publicly denounced Liu and Deng for capitalist tendencies

• Mao swims across the Yangtze river at 72yrs old which is heavily propagandised and showed his power even in old age

Aim of re-imposing Maoism

• Mao encouraged the people to study of his writings

• The Little Red Book, which highlighted Mao’s ideological beliefs about socialism and the purging of the ‘Four Olds’

• Useful way of indoctrination and establishing cult of personality

Aim of purging capitalist and traditional elements

• Encouraged students to name opponents of the regime

• Red Guard attacked and killed millions without evidence

• Public posters continued to repent the ‘four olds’ and were very effective

Gang of Four

• Comprised of Jiang Qinq, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen.

• Purpose was to organise and carry out the Cultural Revolution

• Yao criticised “Hai Rui…”, Jiang staged revolutionary operas, Zhang and Wang spoke in Shanghai and encouraged students

• Influenced education, school structures and party polices on intellectuals

• Controlled media and used propaganda outlets

• Targeted Deng and Liu; able to get Deng exiled for conspiring against Mao

Red Guards

• Student Led paramilitary groups mobilised by Mao to diminish the Four Olds and purge capitalism

• Used violence, accused intellectuals and teachers of capitalism and bashed/killed those who criticcised Mao

• E.g. At a girl’s school in Beijing, the Red Guards decided to rid to school of bourgeois elements. They accused the members of forming a ‘Black Gang’ (gangs who opposed Maoist Thought), and as such, they splashed the girls with black ink and then bashed them with nail-studded clubs. Vice principle Bian was murdered.

Four Olds

• Old Customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas

• Red Guards attacked anything traditional, even hairstyles or shoes

• Imposed their view on the population through violence and terror