Mao's Cultural Revolution

This Intelligence Report develops in broad outline the course of the "Cultural Revolution" in Communist China during 1967. It is written from the point of view that Mao either initiated or approved policies which shifted the direction and intensity of the "Cultural Revolution" during the year, and that he ordered the sharp reversal of policy from revolutionary action to moderation following the high level of economic disorder and violence of August. Mao was not forced, this work argues, to reverse his revolutionary policy by pressure from a "moderate" faction, nor did the period of moderation which followed his August decisions mean that the "Cultural Revolution" was over; rather, it was a pause, a temporary shift in emphasis from revolution from below to revolution from above. Nevertheless, the net effects of events in 1967 were to diminish Mao's power to control developments and to create major, probably long term, political, social and administrative dislocations. This is one of a series of SRS staff studies based on continuing surveillance of the China scene.