Seizure of power (Cultural Revolution)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The seizure of power (), or power-seizure movement () during the
Chinese Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
was a series of events led by the "rebel groups ()", attempting to grab power from the local governments in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and local branches of the
Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
(CCP). The seizure of power began in the "
January Storm The Shanghai People's Commune () or was established in January 1967 during the January Storm (), also known as the January Revolution (), of China's Cultural Revolution by the Shanghai Workers Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters. The Commune ...
" of
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
in 1967, and rapidly spread to other areas of China. The power seizure usually culminated in the establishment of local revolutionary committees, which replaced the original governments as well as communist party branches, and wielded enormous power that often caused much chaos in the Chinese society.


Brief history

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
launched the
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
in May 1966. In January 1967, the
January Storm The Shanghai People's Commune () or was established in January 1967 during the January Storm (), also known as the January Revolution (), of China's Cultural Revolution by the Shanghai Workers Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters. The Commune ...
in Shanghai marked the beginning of power-seizure movement, which then spread to other areas of China. Shanghai's was the first provincial level government overthrown. Within days, Mao expressed his approval. In the next three weeks, 24 more province-level governments were overthrown. Rebel groups across China, such as those in
Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...
,
Heilongjiang Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
,
Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...
and
Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...
, started their own seizure of power as early as late January. The Cultural Revolution thereafter entered a new phase. Narrative accounts of power seizures frequently describe student rebels forming an alliance with Party and government functionaries within the government at issue. Sociologist
Andrew G. Walder Andrew G. Walder (born 1953) is an American political sociologist specializing in the study of Chinese society. He has taught at Harvard University and Stanford University, where he joined the faculty in 1997 and is the Denise O'Leary & Kent Thiry ...
writes that most power seizures resulted not from popular rebellions, but were instead "organized or unilaterally carried out by government functionaries who worked in party and government agencies." The end product of the power seizure were the revolutionary committees, which were established to wield the power grabbed from local governments and communist party committees. The revolutionary committees possessed enormous power. Power seizures rarely created stable forms of political authority, however. Conflicts and power struggle within the revolutionary committees and the rebel groups often occurred, which resulted in nationwide violent struggles and the persecution of a large number of people. After the Cultural Revolution, the revolutionary committees were gradually abandoned during the
Boluan Fanzheng Boluan Fanzheng () or Poluan Fancheng, was a period in the history of People's Republic of China during which Deng Xiaoping, then paramount leader of China, led a far-reaching program attempting to correct the mistakes of the Cultural Revolutio ...
and " Reforms and Opening-up" period.


Academic analysis

Walder argues that while party cadres are generally portrayed as targets of a popular insurgency during the power seizures of the Cultural Revolution, cadres were themselves a major force in the national wave of power seizures. Walder writes, "The rebellion was a form of bureaucratic politics in a setting characterized by rapidly shifting signals and high uncertainty, in which rebels' motives were generated after the onset of the Cultural Revolution." In his view, "the collapse of civilian political authority in this vast political hierarchy was more an 'inside out' than a 'bottom up' process."


See also

*
January Storm The Shanghai People's Commune () or was established in January 1967 during the January Storm (), also known as the January Revolution (), of China's Cultural Revolution by the Shanghai Workers Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters. The Commune ...
* Revolutionary committee * Six Articles of Public Security * Violent Struggle


References

{{reflist, 2 Cultural Revolution 1967 in China