Cultural Revolution

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The **Cultural Revolution**, formally known as the **Great Zamapean Cultural Revolution**, was a sociopolitical movement in the Zamapean Republic (ZR) launched by Farai Shaw in 1979 and lasting until 1989. Its stated goal was to preserve the Zamapean Revolution by purging counterrevolutionary and neocolonial elements from Zamapean society. The Cultural Revolution marked what is now called the "New Era" for Zamape.

## Cultural Revolution

 Cultural Revolution propaganda poster. It depicts Zamapo volunteers defending the country. The artwork is accompanied with the statement "The revolutionary peasantry will struggle against imperialism and ideology."

### Duration

1979 April 8 - 1989 September 13 (10 years, 5 months, 5 days)

### Motive

**Preserving the Zamapean Revolution:*** Securing victory in the Zamapo-Mesambiti Border War
* Combatting urbanism
* Purging corruption & reducing bureaucracy
* Preserving Zamapean traditionalism against neocolonial elements
* Elevating class consciousness among the peasantry
* Implementing the Four Pillars of the Cultural Revolution

### Outcome

* Victory against Mesambitu
* Relative cultural isolation
* Peasant-influenced culture
* Cult of personality around Farai Shaw
* Militarization of peasant-communes
* Widespread anti-urban sentiment
* Slowed industrialization

### Death toll

50,000-1,000,000

Following the proclamation of the Zamapean Republic, opposition parties were banned while elements of legal parties hostile to political domination by the Zamapean Peasants' Party were purged entirely. This drove the opposition *underground*. It wasn't uncommon for professors and academics to openly speak out against the ZPP, encouraging student protests and general unrest. While much of the former Communist Party elite fled, loyalists of the CPNG started a short-lived insurgency in 1976 that only lasted a few months and was relegated to the north.

Farai Shaw became suspicious of many people in the ZPP, especially some higher-ranking members. Worried of a plot to overthrow his government, he used the Cultural Revolution to purge several figures who were deemed "counterrevolutionaries". He was also worried that Zamape was on a "trajectory for social collapse" unless he implemented the Cultural Revolution, pointing to the USKR and other existing communist countries at the time. He argued that bourgeois culture was rampantly "chipping away at society" and claimed that social imperialism and revisionism had destroyed the majority of socialist experiments across the world.

Tensions with neighboring Mesambitu began to escalate rapidly as Mesambiti forces made their way to the disputed Tongare Region. He announced the Cultural Revolution in 1979 during a speech in Chibongu, a day after Zamape officially declared war on Mesambitu.

### Early stage & victory against invasion (1979-1981)

During the first few months of the conflict, there was minimal bloodshed limited mostly to the countryside. However, as conflict spilled into nearby towns, both sides began accusing one another of slaughtering villagers. After about another month of Mesambiti presence in the region, Zamape began driving the invading army back to Mesambitu. In 1980, the Zamapean Peasants' Army crossed the border into Mesambitu, capturing the city of Dobaju. This caused Mesambitu to fall into political crisis and they were forced to negotiate peace with Zamape as their country slipped into chaos.

In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, the Zamapo's membership quadrupled due to an influx of graduating Youth Power members and urbanite revolutionaries who wished to serve the cause of the peasants (this usually happened because the urbanites were ethnic Chenga and thus felt inclined to support the interests of their group). Membership also grew in universities, which Zamapo used to intimidate dissident academics and urban intellectuals. During this period of the Cultural Revolution, cities and towns were renamed to traditional alternatives. Mass rallies were held weekly in most communes and towns. Europan attire was completely banned and non-revolutionary music was frowned upon. Much of Araucanían vocabulary was also Zamapocized.

### Implementing the Four Principles (1981-1989)

#### Implementing "revolutionary traditionalism"

In 1981, the ZPP declared that the de-colonization process in Zamape had been completed. Farai Shaw announced that socialist construction would 'truly begin' with the second phase of the Cultural Revolution. Shaw sought to "first slow the decay of culture, then reverse it". He argued that the adaptation of traditions to socialist society in addition with the abandonment of reactionary practices was necessary for a positive feedback loop between society and socialist construction. Unlike the People's Republic of New Guinea, which actively sought abolition of arranged marriage, the ZPP pushed for "marriage reforms" while not advocating for the practice nor discouraging it. Concise laws were established surrounding legal age ranges for marriage in order to prevent "degenerate relationships" from forming. This also led to a rise in homophobic sentiment, with "Eradicate homobourgeois culture" making its way into the vernacular of the revolutionaries.

Revolutionary traditionalism was reinforced by the New Zamapean Man archetype as theorized by Farai Shaw.

#### Implementing "self-criticism"

Shaw's self-criticism program resulted in hundreds of thousands of officials resigning across different walks of life: from lawyers to teachers, to party members and doctors. The self-criticism program was an anti-ideological campaign aimed at eradicating social dogma. Many doctors and academics specifically were accused of being "western thinkers" for blindly following the doctrine of western scientific institutions and think tanks. Revolutionaries called on all people across society to reflect on their ideology, pressuring professors and party cadres to engage in class-based analysis regarding all subjects in order to secure any sort of influence.

#### Implementing "socialist science"

The academic void now left by the status-shifting anti-ideological campaign was filled by revolutionary universitarians handpicked by Farai Shaw. Zamapean biology rejected the notion of a primordial unit of heredity, for instance. The ZPP's theory-driven analysis had trickled down to the country's intelligentsia, which to this day plays a huge role in Zamapean academia's sectarian tendencies.

#### Implementing "creative economics"

Shaw's ZPP advocated for "creative economics" which is officially defined as "a science based on the real content of the social economy that seeks to implement reforms to alleviate alienation". Shaw argued that alienation of a laborer from ones' labor gives the labor a spiritual alienating property, expressed via labor by the laborer's subconscious in order to translate the alienation. The labor's spiritual alienating property is felt by all that engage with it in the economy, which creates a culture of alienation among the population that itself is made up of laborers. This, Shaw argued, was a positive feedback loop that had to be reversed. He launched an "informality campaign" that sought to spiritually associate the laborers with their labor. Uniforms for workers was prohibited and they were made to dress "casually like peasants". As a result of creative economics, workers and peasants were encouraged by localities of the state-sponsored People's Art Institute to write poems and illustrate in order to give an outlet to any subconscious frustration, channeling it away from society and into the arts.

## Impact

### Revolutionary Guards during the Cultural Revolution

The Revolutionary Guards were formed during the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, just before the escalation of the conflict with Mesambitu. The Revolutionary Guards functioned as a sort of propaganda brigade, propagating slogans that aligned with the ZPP's line. In an organized fashion, RGs would make critiques of institutional injustices in order to initiate progressive consciousness among the populace. Many propaganda brigades functioned as small paramilitary groups in order to enforce the interests of socialist construction. They served to reinforce the communal systems that resulted from land reform years prior, as several communes fell under the boot of landlordship as a result of corruption.

The Revolutionary Guards were employed to combat urbanism as well. They would travel around cities in the country converting people to Shawist philosophy, attempting to convince them of urbanism's alienating nature. Shawist philosophy was appealing to much of the Chengai urban population because the Cultural Revolution was seen by some as the institutionalization of Chengai culture. RGs gained massive numbers especially in universities and used their numbers to intimidate counterrevolutionaries. Because of the prominence of the New Zamapean Man archetype within the Revolutionary Guards, many brigades would pressure members of their community to seek to have the traits of the New Zamapean Man.

Several tragedies were committed by brigades of the Revolutionary Guards, being condemned by Zamape's central government itself. Other disputed tragedies are labeled "fabricated" according to the ZPP.

### Academics and educational institutions

Farai Shaw declared a "war on science". Revolutionary Guards bombarded counterrevolutionary intellectuals with questions, forcing them to reflect on their ideas openly. All urban intellectuals, who were labeled "urbanites", were forcefully sent to communes for weeks or months at a time to "get a grip of the real world". As opposed to usually being in laboratories and research facilities, researchers are expected to have experience with not only their trade but the trades that surround it. This stems from the hands-on attitude enforced by the state during the Cultural Revolution.

### Slogan and rhetoric

Political slogans became a part of daily life because of the Cultural Revolution, during which slogans were printed on bus tickets, tools, fabrics, and buildings. The effects of this linger in Zamapean society today, with the ZPP often using slogans to summarize its call for social consciousness in a particular manner. Farai Shaw is the originator of all rhetoric during the Cultural Revolution. His analysis was well-regarded, and he would routinely demand that his assertions "receive critique when necessary, like all sayings". Still, people rallied around his slogans.