China's Cultural Revolution: The Full Story (Documentary)

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In this 1Dime documentary, I attempt to provide a relatively balanced historical account of one of the most misunderstood events in modern history: The Chinese Cultural Revolution (The CR), also known as the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" (GPCR) launched by Mao Zedong. In this video, we explore how the Cultural Revolution began, what happened, how it ended, and what Chairman Mao’s goal was with it.

The Cultural Revolution is easily the most misunderstood era of Mao's China and the history of the People's Republic of China as a whole. The Cultural Revolution has had a significant impact on modern China and to this day, the CPC likes to tightly regulate the discourse surrounding it. As we will see, this is because the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard rebellions that it unleashed represented the biggest threat to the Communist Party of China in its history.

Timestamp

0:00 A Complicated History
3:04 The CPC's Official Narrative
4:32 The Popular Western Narrative
8:03 The PRC Before the GPCR
9:48 How it All Started and Unravelled
17:15 The Red Guards
23:19 Anti-Authoritarian Authoritarianism?
29:19 The Four Olds and Mob Justice
32:33 Class Identity Politics
36:55 Mao's Hypothesis
39:00 Attacking the Party
43:20 Depoliticization and Factional Warfare
46:30 Military Crackdown and Mao's Retreat
50:14 Were Mao's Intentions Genuine?
55:45 Education Reforms
58:32 Self-Managed Organizations
1:03:48 Reassessment vs Deng Xiaoping
1:05:21 Conclusion

Credits:
Written, Narrated, and Directed by 1Dime (@1Dimeofficial on Twitter)
Edited by Biodegradable (@BiodeEditable on Twitter)

Big thanks to ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠‪@SecondThought‬ ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠‪@YUGOPNIK‬ ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠‪@FDSignifire‬ ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠‪@JohntheDuncan‬ Paul from ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠‪@Marxism_Today‬ ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠‪@RadicalReviewer‬ , ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠‪@Prolekult‬ , ​⁠​⁠‪@BlackRedGuard‬, ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠‪@ChillGoblin‬, ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠Gokanaru, and ​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠‪@JREG‬ for reading quotes in the video!

Sources/Books where I got my research from:

-The Cultural Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by Richard Kraus
-Mao’s China and After by Maurice Meisner
-Mao's Last Revolution by Michael Schoenhals and Roderick Lemonde MacFarquhar
-Cultural Revolution and Revolutionary Culture by Alessandro Russo
-The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution by Mobo Gao
-The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Life and Change in the Chinese Village by Dongping Han
-Agents of Disorder by Andrew Walder
-The Cultural Revolution at the Margins by Yiching Wu

Check out my original essay in the book Underground Theory with Slavoj Zizek https://www.amazon.com/Underground-Th...

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