The Cultural Revolution

One of the important factors that started the Cultural Revolution is power concentrated on one person. In fact from about 1957 to the Cultural Revolution, all power was concentrated on Mao Zedong. However because of the repressive laws he made, nobody was able to criticise him. The people also admired Mao enthusiastically as a hero of the new China. A statue to Mao was built in town and Mao's little red books were distributed to the people. How was this crazy cult of Mao developed, and how did it connect with the Cultural Revolution?

Personality cults go against the basic ideas of Marxism. Past personality cults, such as for Stalin or for Mao Zedong, occurred in countries in the Communist bloc and brought tragedy. The CCP, and Mao himself, had tried to take various measures against personality cults, like prohibiting celebrations for the birthday of Party leaders since the Republic was established.

Despite such attempts, they were unable to prevent a personality cult from developing. Politics in the CCP before 1957 seemed to be relatively normal, but even at that time several problems had arisen. For example, although leaders sometimes made mistakes, exploits tended to belong to one person in the theory and advertisements of the CCP. By ignoring this problem, personality cults grew.

Three factors promoted the development of personality cults.

First was the people's attachment to Mao. The CCP became the heroes of the new China by liberating the people who had been suffering under the Kuomintang rule for a long time. The people concentrated their admiration for the CCP on Mao, top leader of the CCP, and admired him as a benefactor. This feeling of the people was affected by the long-term feudal system in China. The peasants' ideas had been conditioned by the feudal system for a long time, and these could not be changed quickly, and remained a power to promote personality cults.

Second was the connivance and admiration for personality cults. Mao mentioned this at the congress in Chengdu in 1958; "There are two kinds of personality cults. One is a healthy personality cult, that is, to worship men like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Because they hold the truth in their hands. The other is a false personality cult, i.e. not analysed and blind worship." This remark of Mao seems to have elements of truth but it is false. He confuses the worship of truth with a personality cult, despite there being an essential difference between them. But this remark played a role in helping to promote the personality cult that gradually arose in the CCP.

Third were the few ambitious people who were plotting for their own benefit, and had other intentions. They praised Maoism as the greatest thinking on Marxism and Leninism. It was Lin Biao who represents those who were trying to gain power by promoting the cult of Mao. That resulted in confusing many people.

Personality cults never occurred if the person to be worshipped didn't welcome it. Marx, Engels and Lenin showed deep hatred for the admiration to themselves. Therefore the issue around their cults didn't arise in the international communist movement. Mao himself was responsible for an intense cult of Mao in China. When Mao meet with the American journalist, Edgar Snow, he said, " Personality cults are sometimes useful", and " Personality cults were needed for the last five years." Although he tried to prevent personality cults before, he presented personality cults openly at that time.

He had to deal with the problem calmly and objectively soon when his policy was proved to be false and objected to by many people. But he regarded himself as right and boycotted a lot of opposite forces. Through arbitrary decision making and the personality cult many Communists and organisations lost their operation of control and restraint.

A principle that collective leadership and democracy became tied to a single individual leads to that individual dominating the masses. Of course Mao had never denied the principle of collective leadership and democracy. That is the theme, which Mao always thought was most important.

Actually an important decision by Mao was passed to a central organisation where it was discussed and adopted in a congress. But under the abnormal conditions of the CCP, his decisions were always adopted. That produced an atmosphere that concealed the arbitrary decisions by Mao. Seen by an outsider, the truth seemed to be always in Mao.