Bob Schwartz

The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a sociopolitical campaign launched by Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong aimed at preserving “true” Communist ideology and purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society.

Key features included:

• Mass mobilization of urban youth (“Red Guards”) to attack political enemies
• Widespread persecution of intellectuals and officials deemed “counter-revolutionary”
• Destruction of historical artifacts, temples, and cultural sites
• Public humiliation and violence against “class enemies”
• Forced relocation of urban intellectuals to rural areas for “re-education”
• Significant economic disruption and educational collapse

The movement resulted in millions of deaths, destroyed countless cultural artifacts, and severely damaged China’s economy and education system. It ended shortly after Mao’s death in 1976, with Deng Xiaoping later implementing reforms that moved China away from radical Maoism.

Claude

Mao’s Cultural Revolution was a brutal setback for China, one that took them decades to recover from. As the name says, it was much more than a political initiative. Every aspect of life in China—social, cultural, educational, economic—was to be upended, so that communism could prevail eternally and so that every remnant of Western and capitalist “wrong thinking” could be eliminated—along with those who carried the infection.

For a while, American analysts have understandably focused on the political, governmental and legal aspects of the current administration. But there are elements so obviously social and cultural that the centrality of those aspects is unavoidable. Among these, there have been express demands that universities tow the line on issues far beyond DEI and antisemitism—or else.

An American Cultural Revolution is underway. Will it look anything like Mao’s version, with “wrong thinkers” killed, imprisoned, re-educated or otherwise isolated, punished and corrected? Will it succeed here, in whole or in part?

Yesterday, the long-serving Librarian of Congress was summarily dismissed without warning or reason, apparently for making one of the world’s great cultural repositories too “woke”. What do you think?