As a result of
the failure on the Great
Leap Forward,
Mao
Zedong
retired from the post of chairman of the People's Republic of China.
However, he returned to power in 1966 when with Lin
Biao he
initiated the Cultural
Revolution.
On 3rd September, 1966, Lin Biao made a speech where he urged pupils
in schools and colleges to criticize those party officials who had
been influenced by the ideas of Nikita
Khrushchev.
Mao was concerned
by those party leaders such as Liu Shaoqi,
the State Chairman of China, who favoured the
introduction of piecework, greater wage differentials and measures
that sought to undermine collective farms and factories.
In an attempt
to dislodge those in power who favoured the Soviet model of communism,
Mao galvanized students and young workers as his Red Guards to attack
revisionists in the party. Mao
told them the revolution was in danger and that they must do all they
could to stop the emergence of a privileged class in China. He argued
this is what had happened in the Soviet Union under Joseph
Stalin and Nikita
Khrushchev.
Named after the
army units organized by Mao
Zedong in
1927, the Red Guards eventually numbered several million people. As
well as revisionists the Red Guards criticised all Western influence
in China.
Lin
Biao compiled some of Mao's writings into the handbook, The
Quotations of Chairman Mao, and arranged for a copy of
what became known as the Little Red Book,
to every Chinese citizen.
Zhou
Enlai
at first gave his support to the campaign but became concerned when
fighting broke out between the Red Guards
and the revisionists. In order to achieve peace at the end of 1966
he called for an end to these attacks on party officials. Mao remained
in control of the Cultural Revolution and with the support of the
army was able to oust the revisionists.
The Cultural
Revolution came to an end when Liu Shaoqi
resigned from all his posts on 13th October 1968. Lin
Biao now
became Mao's designated successor.
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