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The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976 - Paperback | Diverse Reads

The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

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The concluding volume—following Mao's Great Famine and The Tragedy of Liberation—in Frank Dikötter's award-winning trilogy chronicling the Communist revolution in China.

After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward that claimed tens of millions of lives from 1958–1962, an aging Mao Zedong launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate those he viewed as a threat to his legacy. The Cultural Revolution's goal was to purge the country of bourgeois, capitalistic elements he claimed were threatening genuine communist ideology. Young students formed the Red Guards, vowing to defend the Chairman to the death, but soon rival factions started fighting each other in the streets with semiautomatic weapons in the name of revolutionary purity. As the country descended into chaos, the military intervened, turning China into a garrison state marked by bloody purges that crushed as many as one in fifty people.

The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962–1976 draws for the first time on hundreds of previously classified party documents, from secret police reports to unexpurgated versions of leadership speeches. After the army itself fell victim to the Cultural Revolution, ordinary people used the political chaos to resurrect the market and hollow out the party's ideology. By showing how economic reform from below was an unintended consequence of a decade of violent purges and entrenched fear, The Cultural Revolution casts China's most tumultuous era in a wholly new light.

ISBN-13: 9781632864239

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Publication Date: 06-06-2017

Pages: 432

Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.30(d)

Frank Dikötter is chair professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong. Before moving to Asia in 2006, he was professor of the modern history of China at the University of London. He has published ten books about the history of China, including Mao's Great Famine, which won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2011, and The Tragedy of Liberation, which was short-listed for the George Orwell Prize. He lives in Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Chronology xxi

Map xxviii

Part 1 The Early Years (1962-1966)

1 Two Dictators 3

2 Never Forget Class Struggle 15

3 War on the Cultural Front 27

4 Clique of Four 42

Part 2 The Red Years (1966-1968)

5 Poster Wars 53

6 Red August 66

7 Destroying the Old World 80

8 Mao Cult 94

9 Linking Up 101

10 Rebels and Royalists 115

11 Enter the Army 128

12 The Arms Race 147

13 Quenching the Fires 163

Part 3 The Black Years (1968-1971)

14 Cleansing the Ranks 183

15 Up the Mountains, Down to the Village 192

16 Preparing for War 206

17 Learning from Dazhai 219

18 More Purges 232

19 Fall of an Heir 242

Part 4 The Grey Years (1971-1976)

20 Recovery 255

21 The Silent Revolution 270

22 The Second Society 285

23 Reversals 301

24 Aftermath 312

Notes 323

Select Bibliography 361

Acknowledgements 381

Index 383