Publisher's Synopsis
As a major political event and a crucial turning point in the history of the People's Republic of China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) marked the zenith as well as the nadir of Mao Zedong's ultra-leftist politics. Reacting in part to the Soviet Union's 'revisionism,' which he regarded as a threat to the future of socialism, Mao mobilized the masses in a battle against what he called 'bourgeois' forces within the Chinese Communist Party. This ten-year-long class struggle devastated traditional Chinese culture as well as the nation's economy. Following 'Tombstone,' his groundbreaking and award-winning history of the Great Famine, Yang Jisheng here presents the only history of the Cultural Revolution by an independent scholar based in mainland China, and makes a crucial contribution to understanding the lasting influence of those years.
