60 Years After China's Cultural Revolution: Reflection and Accountability

During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a nationwide campaign to “Smash the Four Olds.” Buddhist statues in temples were mostly destroyed and burned. (Public Domain)

[People News] Recently, while conversing with a young graduate from a prominent university in China, I was struck by how little he knew about the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and its detrimental impact on the Chinese people. He was particularly unaware of key figures from the Cultural Revolution and terms like 'cow shed,' which highlight the CPC's long-standing brainwashing and deliberate evasion of the true historical narrative.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the initiation of the Cultural Revolution and the 50th anniversary of its conclusion. Yet, the Chinese populace has yet to engage in a comprehensive reflection and accountability regarding this tumultuous period, with some even advocating for a return to the ideologies of the Cultural Revolution.

From 1966 to October 1976, the 'Cultural Revolution,' instigated by Mao Zedong and led by the CPC's 'Central Cultural Revolution Group,' was undeniably a disaster. It obliterated traditional Chinese culture and caused extensive damage to numerous cultural relics and historical sites. The intentional destruction during this era far surpassed any previous historical devastation, exceeding even the destruction of the Old Summer Palace and being over a hundred times greater than the damage inflicted by the Japanese invasion of China. More importantly, it severed the ties between the Chinese people and their cultural heritage.

In addition, the CPC inflicted suffering on countless Chinese individuals. According to an article by Epoch Times columnist Lin Hui, Professor John King Fairbank, a leading authority in American sinology at Harvard University, estimated in his book 'China: A New History' that over one million people were persecuted to death. Overseas Chinese scholar Professor Ding Shu, through historical material analysis, concluded that the number of abnormal deaths during the Cultural Revolution was approximately two million.

Professor Su Yang from the University of California, Irvine, has spent a decade gathering data from publicly available county records published by the Communist Party and internal documents. His research suggests that during the Cultural Revolution in China, at least 750,000 to 1.5 million people in rural areas were persecuted to death; a similar number suffered severe injuries from beatings; and at least 36 million individuals experienced varying degrees of political persecution. Notably, this victim count does not include those from major cities.

Renowned genocide scholar Professor Rummel, in his book 'One Hundred Years of Bloody China,' estimates that the death toll during the Cultural Revolution is around 7.73 million.

In an article titled "Road, Theory, System - My Reflections on the Cultural Revolution," Yang Jisheng, a senior reporter at Xinhua News Agency and former editor-in-chief of Yanhuang Chunqiu, noted that senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official Ye Jianying revealed the extent of persecution and death toll during the Cultural Revolution at an expanded meeting of the Central Political Bureau following the 12th National Congress of the CCP. The figures disclosed were as follows: (1) Over 4,300 incidents of armed struggle of scale 3 led to more than 123,700 deaths; (2) 2.5 million cadres faced criticism, over 302,700 were illegally detained, and more than 115,500 died unnaturally; (3) In urban areas, 4,810,000 individuals from various sectors were branded as historical counter-revolutionaries, current counter-revolutionaries, class enemies, counter-revolutionary revisionists, and reactionary academic authorities, with over 683,000 dying unnaturally; (4) In rural areas, more than 5.2 million landlords and rich peasants (including some middle peasants) and their families were persecuted, resulting in 1.2 million landlords, rich peasants, and their families dying unnaturally; (5) More than 113 million people experienced varying degrees of political persecution, with over 557,000 reported missing. In summary, the CCP acknowledges that over 2 million people died unnaturally during the Cultural Revolution.

In the book "Clearing the Innocent - Redressing Wrongful Convictions," co-authored by Dong Baoxun, an associate professor at Shandong University, and Ding Longjia, the deputy director of the Shandong Party History Office, published in 1997, a speech by Ye Jianying, who was then the Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is referenced. In this speech, delivered at the closing ceremony of the Central Work Conference on December 13, 1978, he stated: "After two years and seven months of comprehensive investigation, the Cultural Revolution resulted in the deaths of 20 million people, and the number of individuals persecuted for political reasons exceeded 100 million, accounting for one-ninth of the national population, wasting 800 billion RMB." 

Interestingly, Ye Jianying's speech was not included in the Central Committee's official documents, but it was published in the "Selected Works of Ye Jianying" by the People's Publishing House in March 1996, although the specific figures were omitted. 

According to the "Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping," during an interview with Italian journalist Farachi in August 1980, Deng Xiaoping remarked, "The actual number of deaths during the Cultural Revolution is astronomical, a figure that can never be estimated." Could Deng's reference to an "astronomical number" suggest that the death toll was indeed higher than 20 million? 

In light of such a catastrophe that severed the roots of the Chinese people and harmed countless individuals, the Communist Party of China, at the onset of the reform and opening-up period, passed the "Resolution on Certain Historical Issues of the Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" in 1981. This resolution attributed blame to Mao Zedong as having "three parts responsibility, seven parts merit," asserting that his contributions to the Chinese revolution outweighed his mistakes, and that the Cultural Revolution was merely a "serious mistake" he made.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is unable to deny Mao Zedong because doing so would undermine the legitimacy of its own rule. Consequently, if Mao cannot be disavowed, there can be no critical reflection or accountability for the various movements initiated by the CCP. In order to obscure its historical transgressions, the CCP has engaged in cover-ups in schools, media, and other institutions and, through indoctrination, has made it challenging for the younger generation to grasp the true history.

It is evident that a comprehensive reflection and reckoning of the Cultural Revolution can only take place after the CCP's fall, and we hope that day is not too far away.

(First published in People News)△