“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another” (Mao Zedong). The Chinese Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a social and political movement in China lasting from 1966 until 1976. This movement was spearheaded by Mao Zedong, who was the Chairman of the Nationalist Party. The Chinese Cultural Revolution began in May 1966 when party chiefs in Beijing released a statement saying that the party had been taken over by counter-revolutionary “revisionists” who were plotting to create a “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”. By creating this statement, the party leaders effectively put fear in the hearts of the lower class by suggesting that the upper class was trying to implement policies to suppress them. …show more content…
In the book, Ting’s (Number Four) school undergoes changes rapidly. One day, she comes to school and heard “the school’s loudspeakers blasting long before [Ting-Xing] entered the gates. ‘Fellow comrades, weild your pens as swords and spears and aim your words like bullets against the reactionaries.’ A reactionary was anyone who opposed the Party and government” (Ye 28). One day at school they start handing out materials to make posters and everyone is forced to write accusations about the adults at their school. As well, they criticize each other for past comments that have been made about the government in front of the class. This strategy of encouraging children to turn on their classmates caused a deep mistrust of one another during the ten years that this occurred. Even family members were not exempt from the betrayal of