The Cultural Revolution Benefited China And The World.

1. Deaths and Murders Many people who were targets of 'struggle' could no longer bear the stress and committed suicide. In August and September 1966, there were 1,772 people murdered in Beijing alone. In Shanghai there were 704 suicides and 534 deaths related to the Cultural Revolution in September. In Wuhan there were 62 suicides and 32 murders during the same period.1 According to "Mao: The Unknown Story", an estimated 100,000 people died in one of the worst factional struggles in Guangxi in January"April 1968, Zheng Yi, in his controversial book "Scarlet Memorial: Tales Of Cannibalism In Modern China", alleged the "systematic killing and cannibalization of individuals in the name of political revolution and 'class struggle'" among the Zhuang people in Wuxuan County, Guangxi, during that period.2, 3, 4 In Mao's Last Revolution (2006), Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals assert that in rural China alone some 36 million people were persecuted, of whom between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed, with roughly the same number permanently injured. In Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday claim that as many as 3 million people died in the violence of the Cultural Revolution. Sociologist Daniel Chirot claims that around 100 million people suffered and at least one million people, and perhaps as many as 20 million, died in the Cultural Revolution.5, 6, 7 2. Elimination of Knowledge As Mao became more powerful, he wished to suppress knowledge and understanding. In the process, he wiped out almost all education, and forcibly moved young people to the countryside, where they were forced to abandon all knowledge in the face of Mao"s teachings. This had an extremely negative effect on China for many reasons. Agriculture declined, factories closed, and all things that required complex skills were basically abandoned. This was disastrous.8 It was because of the fact that almost everyone became manipulated with the Ideology of Maoism that led to making wrong judgments such as denouncing and accusing people in a wrong way. People actually started to turn against each other for no particular reason. China eventually turned into mass chaos that whirled much out of control, people were persecuted, churches, mosques, temples, books, and ancient scrolls were burned down. This Cultural Revolution almost made the Chinese Culture and traditions disappear altogether.9 3. The Effect on the World A depressed China had effects for the rest of the world as well. If China was stronger during this time, the world may have been in a better place with a stronger China. Works Cited: 1 MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2006. pp. 124. 2 Steven Bela Vardy and Agnes Huszar Vardy. Cannibalism in Stalin's Russia and Mao's China. Duquesne University, East European Quarterly, XLI, No.2, 2007. 3 Yue, Gang (1999). The Mouth That Begs: Hunger, Cannibalism, and the Politics of Eating in Modern China. Duke University Press. pp. 228"230. 4 Chen, Xiaomei (2002). Acting the Right Part: Political Theatre and Popular Drama in Contemporary China. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 30"31. 5 MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, pp. 262. 6 Chang, Jung and Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. pp.569. 7 Daniel Chirot. Modern tyrants: the power and prevalence of evil in our age. Princeton University Press, 1996. pp 198. 8 Harding, Harry. [1987] (1987). China's Second Revolution: Reform after Mao. Brookings Institution Press. 9 http://historyday.crf-usa.org... http://en.wikipedia.org...