page_title: Cultural Revolution
section_title: Cleansing the Class Ranks (May–Sept.)
hierarchical_section_title: Cultural Revolution / Early stage: mass movement (1966–68) / Political purges and "Down to the Countryside" (1968) / Cleansing the Class Ranks (May–Sept.)
caption_attribution_description: English: SZ zh:深圳博物館 Shenzhen Museum 深圳改革開放前歷史展廳 Before Reform and Opening-up History Anti-Liu Shaoqi
context_page_description: The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until 1976. Launched by Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Communist Party of China, its stated goal was to preserve Chinese Communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Mao Zedong Thought as the dominant ideology in the CPC. The Revolution marked Mao's return to the central position of power in China after a period of less radical leadership to recover from the failures of the Great Leap Forward, which led to approximately 30 million deaths in the Great Chinese Famine only five years prior.
  Launching the movement in May 1966 with the help of the Cultural Revolution Group, Mao soon called on young people to "bombard the headquarters", and proclaimed that "to rebel is justified". In order to eliminate his rivals within the CPC and in schools, factories, and government institutions, Mao charged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society with the aim of restoring capitalism.
context_section_description: In May 1968, Mao launched the massive "Cleansing the Class Ranks" political purge in mainland China. Many were sent to the countryside to work in reeducation camps.
  On July 27, 1968, the Red Guards' power over the Army was officially ended, and the establishment government sent in units to besiege areas that remained untouched by the Guards. A year later, the Red Guard factions were dismantled entirely; Mao predicted that the chaos might begin running its own agenda and be tempted to turn against revolutionary ideology. Their purpose had been largely fulfilled; Mao and his radical colleagues had largely overturned establishment power.
  Liu was expelled from the Communist Party at the 12th Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee in September 1968, and labelled the "headquarters of the bourgeoisie," seemingly alluding to Mao's Bombard the Headquarters dazibao written two years earlier.
caption: Anti-Liu Shaoqi rally
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