Media silent 50 years after Cultural Revolution

Exactly 50 years ago, China embarked on what was formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a decade of tumult launched by Mao Zedong to revive communist goals and enforce a radical egalitarianism. The milestone was largely ignored Monday in the Chinese media, reflecting continuing sensitivities about a period that was later declared a “catastrophe.” Authorities have generally suppressed discussion of the violent events, now a couple of generations removed from the lives of young Chinese focused on pursuing their own interests in an increasingly capitalistic society.

On May 16, 1966, the party’s politburo met to purge a quartet of top officials who had fallen out of favour with Mao. It also produced a document announcing the start of the Cultural Revolution to pursue class warfare and enlist the population in mass political movements. The start of the revolution was not widely known or understood and the time, but soon took on a agenda characterised by extreme violence, leading to the downfall of leading officials, factional battles, mass rallies and the exile of educated youth to the countryside. It wound up severely threatening the Communist Party’s legitimacy to rule.

No official events were held to commemorate Monday’s anniversary, although neo-Maoists have been staging private commemorations.

Many are motivated by nostalgia for a simpler time and alienated by a growing wealth gap brought about by the government’s pursuit of market economics and abandonment of the former command economy that provided jobs and welfare to its citizens, even amid widespread poverty. Newspapers monitored in Beijing provided virtually no coverage of the anniversary apart from small articles mentioning demand for antiques dating from the era. Egged on by vague pronouncements from Mao, students and young workers clutching their leader’s famed “Little Red Book” of sayings formed rival Red Guard factions starting in 1966 that battled each other over ideological purity, sometimes using heavy weapons taken from the military. Few sought to oppose them given Mao’s approval and the popularity of slogans such as “to revolt is justified,” and “revolution is not a crime.” .