The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was Mao’s last and arguably greatest attempt to bring a spirit of destructiveness and permanent revolution to the party. Beginning as a mass movement among students inspired by Mao’s rhetoric and Lin Biao’s “Little Red Book” of quotations, the Cultural Revolution spread quickly through Chinese society, leading to the persecution… Read more »
Mao was convinced his new government would slip into complacency if the revolution wasn’t made “permanent.” In his first decade in office, he enacted many reforms, including the following: Land confiscation and reform (1950), executing million landlords. Marriage law reform (1950), fundamentally changing the status of women. Joining the Korean War against the United States… Read more »
In response to what he saw at the Olympic Games, Liu put the organizing powers of the internet to use with serious repercussions. In late 2008, Liu and a handful of colleagues released a public letter criticizing the Chinese government. Modeled on Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77, they called their letter Charter 08 and it gathered more than… Read more »