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Thursday, July 05, 2007

Map of the Cultural Revolution


Praising Mao and his glorious anti-capitalist revolution. From Catholicgauze's personal map library. Gift from Lady of TDAXP.

In 1958 Mao Zedong started the Great Leap Forward. The GLF was intended to advance agricultural China to an industrial nation with a new culture. Two years and up to forty million dead later the GLF was ended.

The disaster hurt Mao greatly. Many in the Communist Party of China wanted him out. So Mao came up with a new plan. The Cultural Revolution was Mao's war on the party. Anti-Mao members were killed and local parities were reconstructed. The party became even more of a personality cult.

The first province to be purged was Heilongjiang in the very northeast of China. The bulk of the southeastern province experienced the revolution in early 1968. Xinjiang and Tibet in the far west of China were the last two provinces. There time came in early September of 1968.

Culture was once again attacked. Churches, temples, and schools were destroyed. Anything which would interfere with Mao becoming a secular god-king was viewed as old and needing to be destroyed.

The revolution ended along with Mao's life in 1976. It would take Deng Xiaoping to institute his own revolutionary ideals to make China into the power that it is today.

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