__NOTOC__ The Socialist Education Movement (, abbreviated 社教运动 or 社教運動), also known as the Four Cleanups Movement () was a movement launched by

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) ...

in 1963 in the

People's Republic of 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 ...

. Mao sought to remove reactionary elements within the bureaucracy 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), saying that "governance is also a process of socialist education." Chinese researchers have pointed out the movement resulted in at least 77,560 deaths, with 5,327,350 people being persecuted. In the movement, the relationship between CCP Chairman

and Chinese President

Liu Shaoqi Liu Shaoqi ( ; 24 November 189812 November 1969) was a Chinese revolutionary, politician, and theorist. He was Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee from 1954 to 1959, First Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1956 to 1966 and C ...

, Chairman Mao's potential successor, deteriorated. Socialist Education Movement is regarded as the precursor of 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 ...

, during which President Liu was persecuted to death as a "traitor" and "

capitalist roader In anti-capitalist Mao Zedong thought, a capitalist roader (; also ) is a person or group who demonstrates a marked tendency to bow to pressure from bourgeois forces and subsequently attempts to pull the Revolution in a capitalist direction. If a ...

Goals

The goal of the movement was to cleanse politics, economy, organization, and ideology (the four cleanups). It was to last until 1966. What this movement entailed was that intellectuals were sent to the countryside to be re-educated by peasants (see

Down to the Countryside Movement The Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement, often known simply as the Down to the Countryside Movement, was a policy instituted in the People's Republic of China between mid 1950s and 1978. As a result of what he perceived to ...

). They still attended school, but also worked in factories and with peasants.

Aftermath

The campaign is described by Donald Klein in the

Encyclopedia Americana ''Encyclopedia Americana'' is a general encyclopedia written in American English. It was the first major multivolume encyclopedia that was published in the United States. With ''Collier's Encyclopedia'' and ''Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclo ...

2007 (Grolier Online), as a "nearly complete failure." Mao's dissatisfaction over this program's inefficacy set the stage for the

(1966-1976). When the Cultural Revolution began, rural regions had not yet completed the Socialist Education Movement, and the committees in charge of it converted into Cultural Revolution leading groups.

References

The Socialist Education Movement

People's Daily The ''People's Daily'' () is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The newspaper provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP. In addition to its main Chinese-language ...

website, in

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...

{{Cultural Revolution Political repression in China Campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party Maoist terminology Cold War history of China Maoist China Persecution of intellectuals Liu Shaoqi

Goals

Aftermath

See also

References