Summary of Frank Dikötter's The Cultural Revolution

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 The Great Hall of the People, which is the largest auditorium in the building, was built in 1959 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Chinese Revolution. It is a grand, intimidating structure heavily inspired by Soviet architecture.

#2 Mao was a Stalinist who imposed a harsh communist regime on China in 1949. He was a faithful follower of his master in Moscow, and for good reason. The Chinese Communist Party had been dependent on financial help and political guidance from the Soviet Union since its inception.

#3 In 1956, Mao Zedong began to shift away from his cult of personality. He publicly praised the ordinary man, and sought to test his colleagues’ loyalty. He hinted that he might want to step back for health reasons, but instead they created a new position of honorary chairman for him.

#4 In 1957, Mao began to encourage intellectuals to speak out against the party. He spoke sincerely about examples of the party’s errors, and appealed to the public at large to help party officials improve their work by airing their grievances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669384885

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Insights on Frank Dikötter's The Cultural Revolution

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Great Hall of the People, which is the largest auditorium in the building, was built in 1959 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Chinese Revolution. It is a grand, intimidating structure heavily inspired by Soviet architecture.

#2

Mao was a Stalinist who imposed a harsh communist regime on China in 1949. He was a faithful follower of his master in Moscow, and for good reason. The Chinese Communist Party had been dependent on financial help and political guidance from the Soviet Union since its inception.

#3

In 1956, Mao Zedong began to shift away from his cult of personality. He publicly praised the ordinary man, and sought to test his colleagues’ loyalty. He hinted that he might want to step back for health reasons, but instead they created a new position of honorary chairman for him.

#4

In 1957, Mao began to encourage intellectuals to speak out against the party. He spoke sincerely about examples of the party’s errors, and appealed to the public at large to help party officials improve their work by airing their grievances.

#5

In 1957, Mao’s gamble backfired and people began to demand democracy and human rights. Students had been striking and demonstrating sporadically since the summer of 1956, but now tens of thousands took to the streets.

#6

In the summer of 1959, as the party leaders convened in the mountain resort of Lushan for a conference, Marshal Peng Dehuai and others cautiously criticized the Great Leap Forward. But as the pressure to deliver grain, coal, and other commodities to the state abated, some of the large cities started facing massive shortfalls.

#7

In January 1962, during the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, Mao was publicly criticized for the Great Leap Forward. The very use of the term man-made disaster was a bombshell, drawing gasps from the audience.

#8

Mao was pleased with Lin Biao, but suspicious of everyone else. He put on his best face, acting the fatherly, benevolent elder, and tried to disarm the delegates. He wanted to find out where everyone stood.

#9

Mao did apologize, but he still feared losing control of the party. In the Soviet Union, back in 1934, the Congress of Victors turned out to be a congress of victims. More than half of the 2,000 delegates were either executed or sent to the gulag.

#10

Mao’s secretary said that the book was studied like the holy Bible in the years after 1949, when The Soviet Union’s Today is Our Tomorrow became the motto. The core message of the book was that every significant development was the result of political struggles between the correct line and incorrect positions.

#11

In 1962, as the famine continued to take its toll, several provincial leaders had favored returning small plots of communal land to the farmers. But