On This Day in History: May 16
The Cultural Revolution in China
Just like those professing to “Make America Great Again” didn’t, the “Great Leap Forward,” wasn’t. That’s because cults of personality rarely end well, and Mao Zedong was one of the biggest cult leaders in history, directing China toward economic devastation, starvation, and death.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: May 16, 1966--
In 1958 Chairman Mao, communist ruler and founder of the People’s Republic of China, launched his plan to transform China into a modern industrialized state. And for some fucked-up reason he thought establishing “people’s communes” in the countryside, focused mostly on producing steel, would be a good way to go about it. Yeah, let’s take a bunch of folks who only know farming and get them to leave their fields to become steelworkers. That will work out well and 30 million people totally won’t starve to death.
Oops.
And some in government learned that lesson. Moderates reversed the dumbfuckery of the Great Leap Forward in the early 60s, cutting Mao out of economic decision making. And, being Mao, he seethed, because he saw his political prestige declining, and so he began planning his resurgence/revenge with even more dumbfuckery.
It began with Mao purging those of questionable loyalty from powerful positions, replacing them with sycophants, which is also reminiscent of MAGA bullshit. Then, on May 16, 1966, there was a “notification.” A tremendous, beautiful, YOOGE notification.
Mao declared the beginning of the “Cultural Revolution.” He said the not-totally-bugshit moderate approaches that followed the catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward were bad, and that the Communist Party of China had to reimpose Maoism. Bigly.
Upgrade to paid. Bigly.
He called on his cult followers to rise up in violent class struggle, proclaiming “to rebel is justified.” Jesus Muppet-Fucking Christ this shit sounds familiar. Anyway, instead of Twitter, he had a “Little Red Book,” a collection of his sayings for his followers to fawn over.
Once again, Mao’s big plan was a big failure. Countless people were persecuted, massacres were abundant, and millions more died. Oh, and because you need lots of stupid people to power such a cult following, intellectuals were maligned, and schools were closed. They went so far as to send 17 million young, urban intellectuals to the countryside to work as farmers as punishment for their pro-bourgeois thinking. All in all, it was another massive setback for the country.
In the early 20th century Spanish philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Yeah. That.
Get the book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.
💯 this!