Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Also called: Cultural Revolution · Topic: Comparative Development: India, China and Pakistan · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 8 "Comparative Development Experiences of India and its Neighbours"
Meaning
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was Mao's political campaign from 1966 to 1976. It targeted "bourgeois" (middle-class, capitalist) and traditional elements in Chinese society. Students and professionals were sent to the countryside to work with peasants and "learn from" them. Universities were closed for years, and both education and the economy were badly disrupted. It was launched in 1966, not 1965.
Example
A university student in a Chinese city in 1968 could be sent to a remote village to do farm work instead of studying. Millions went through this. China lost years of trained talent, and this was one reason the new leadership under Deng Xiaoping pushed for reform in 1978.
Don't confuse with
- Great Leap Forward (1958-62): This was an economic campaign for very fast industrialisation, with backyard furnaces and communes, and it ended in a mass famine. The Cultural Revolution was mainly a political and ideological campaign.