Only through the use of propaganda and control could Communism survive in China during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. To what extent would you agree with this statement? Explain you answer.
...this period of time. It is said that perhaps the communes have broken down the Chinese people’s resistance to change. In 1957, Mao launched the “Hundred Flowers” campaign. This invited criticism from anyone. The result was an overwhelming response of negative comments that the campaign was stopped and strong opponents were sent for “re-education” (learning Communism through manual labour” in fields or factories. If this campaign was allowed to continue, I believe that it would have resulted in a massive uprising and thus the government had to control the situation so that Communism would not be overthrown. During the Cultural Revolution, from 1966-1976, although Mao was no longer running China personally but orders were still given in his name. Mao, seeing that his successors were not keen in his view of revolution, appealed to the young people to start the “Cultural Revolution”. He held a rally in Peking and called them to be “Red Guards”, giving them the “Little Red Book”, a pocket collection of sayings from all the writings of Mao. With such propaganda, the young were led to think that Communism was the best way and thus went about attacking the people who opposed Mao’s ideas or also known as “revisionists”. All forms of media – books, plays and films had to be about workers or peasants, or stories with a Communist message. The Red Guards c...