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The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

(simplified Chinese: 无产阶级文化大革命; traditional Chinese: 無產階級文化大革命; pinyin: Wúchǎn Jiējí Wénhuà Dà Gémìng; lit. 'Proletarian Cultural Great Revolution'; often abbreviated to 文化大革命 Wénhuà Dà Gémìng, literally "Great Cultural Revolution", or simply 文革 wén gé, literally "Cultural Revolution") in the People's Republic of China was a revolutionary upsurge by Chinese students and workers against the bureaucrats of the Chinese Communist Party. It was launched by Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 to secure Maoism (known domestically as Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought) in China as the state's dominant ideology and eliminate political opposition. Though officially declared by Mao to have ended in 1969, most scholars consider the Cultural Revolution to have lasted until the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976. This dating of the Cultural Revolution is significant and represented a victory for supporters of Deng Xiaoping as it allowed them to portray all of the events between 1966 and 1976 as a single movement under the leadership of the Maoist Gang of Four.

Between 1966 and 1969, Mao encouraged revolutionary committees containing Red Guards to take power from the Chinese Communist Party authorities of the state. In the chaos that ensued, many died and millions more were imprisoned. Although the period after 1969 was less chaotic, the leaders of the Cultural Revolution proper remained in power and this is now widely considered to have been a period of economic stagnation.