The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until 1976. Launched by Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Communist Party of China, its stated goal was to preserve Chinese Communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Mao Zedong Thought as the dominant ideology within the Party. The Revolution marked Mao's return to a position of power after the failures of his Great Leap Forward. The movement paralyzed China politically and negatively affected both the economy and society of the country to a significant degree.
Maoism, known in China as Mao Zedong Thought, is a communist political theory derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong, whose followers are known as Maoists. Developed from the 1950s until the Deng Xiaoping reforms in the 1970s, it was widely applied as the guiding political and military ideology of the Communist Party of China and as theory guiding revolutionary movements around the world. A key difference between Maoism and other forms of Marxism–Leninism is that peasants should be the bulwark of the revolutionary energy, led by the working class in China.
The Three Principles of the People, also translated as Three People's Principles, San-min Doctrine, or Tridemism is a political philosophy developed by Sun Yat-sen as part of a philosophy to make China a free, prosperous, and powerful nation. The three principles are often translated into and summarized as nationalism, democracy, and the livelihood of the people. He believed that the economic livelihood of the people, its influence and legacy of implementation, is most apparent in the governmental organization of the Republic of China (ROC), which currently administers Taiwan, Penghu, Quemoy, and Matsu Islands. This philosophy has been claimed as the cornerstone of the Republic of China's policy as carried by the Kuomintang (KMT). The principles also appear in the first line of the National Anthem of the Republic of China.
The United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is an agency of the Communist Party of China that manages relations with various important and influential elite individuals and organizations inside and outside China. These are people and entities are outside the Party proper, who hold social, commercial, or academic influence, or who represent interest groups. Through its efforts, the UFWD seeks to ensure that these groups are supportive of and useful to Communist Party rule. It reports directly to the Party's Central Committee.
The (Chinese) People's Volunteer Army was the armed expatriate volunteer forces deployed by the People's Republic of China during the Korean War. Although all units in the PVA were actually transferred from the People's Liberation Army under orders of Mao Zedong, the PVA was separately constituted in order to prevent an official war with the United States. The PVA entered Korea on October 19, 1950, and completely withdrew by October 1958. The nominal commander and political commissar of the PVA was Peng Dehuai before the ceasefire agreement in 1953, although both Chen Geng and Deng Hua served as acting commander and commissar after April 1952 due to Peng's illness. The initial units in the PVA included 38th, 39th, 40th, 42nd, 50th, 66th Corps totalling 250,000 men, and eventually about 3 million Chinese civilian and military personnel served in Korea by July 1953.
Propaganda in China refers to the use of propaganda by the Communist Party of China to sway domestic and international opinion in favor of its policies. Domestically, this includes censorship of proscribed views and an active cultivation of views that favor the government. Propaganda is considered central to the operation of the CPC government. The common Chinese term xuānchuán (宣传) can mean "dissemination", "propaganda", or "publicity".
The Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, or CCPPD, is an internal division of the Communist Party of China in charge of ideology-related work, as well as its information dissemination system. It is not formally considered to be part of the Government of the People's Republic of China, but enforces media censorship and control in the People's Republic of China.
The history of the People's Republic of China details the history of mainland China since October 1, 1949, when, after a near complete victory by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC) from atop Tiananmen. The PRC has for several decades been synonymous with China, but it is only the most recent political entity to govern mainland China, preceded by the Republic of China (ROC) and thousands of years of imperial dynasties.
Communist propaganda is the scientific, artistic, and social promotion of the ideology of communism, communist worldview and interests of the communist movement. While it tends to carry a negative connotation in the Western world, the term "propaganda" broadly refers to any publication or campaign aimed at promoting a cause and is/was used for official purposes by most communist-oriented governments. Rooted in Marxist thought, the propaganda of communism is viewed by its proponents as the vehicle for spreading their idea of enlightenment of working class people and pulling them away from the propaganda of who they view to be their oppressors, that they claim reinforces exploitation, such as religion or consumerism.
Wang Li, born Wang Guangbin was a Chinese Communist propagandist and prominent member of the Cultural Revolution Group, in charge of overseeing the Cultural Revolution movement of Mao Zedong. Wang joined the Communist movement in his youth and became a specialist in theory and propaganda work. He was one of the leading figures of party propaganda at the outset of the Cultural Revolution, and contributed to the synthesis of Mao's theory of "continuous revolution."
The mass line is the political, organizational and leadership method developed by Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Chinese revolution. The essential element of the mass line is consulting the masses, interpreting their suggestions within the framework of Marxism-Leninism, and then enforcing the resulting policies.
Hu Qiaomu was a revolutionary, sociologist, Marxist philosopher and prominent politician of People's Republic of China. In the age of economic reform that followed the death of Mao Zedong, Hu was one of the reform's most prominent opponents.
Corruption in China post-1949 refers to the abuse of political power for private ends typically by members of the Chinese Communist Party, who hold the majority of power in the People's Republic of China. In the reform era corruption has been attributed to "organizational involution" caused by the market liberalization reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping. Like other socialist economies that have undertaken economic reforms, such as post-Soviet Eastern Europe and Central Asia, reform-era China has experienced increasing levels of corruption.
Thought reform in China was a campaign of the Communist Party of China to reform the thinking of Chinese citizens into accepting Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought (Maoism) from 1951–1952. Techniques employed included indoctrination, "struggle sessions," propaganda, criticism and self-criticism, and a variety of other techniques.
Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience to include another state's government, military, and/or general population. Governments use a variety of techniques to coerce certain actions, thereby gaining relative advantage over an opponent. The techniques include propaganda and psychological operations (PSYOP), which service national and military objectives respectively. Propaganda has many aspects and a hostile and coercive political purpose. Psychological operations are for strategic and tactical military objectives and may be intended for hostile military and civilian populations.
The ideology of the Communist Party of China has undergone dramatic changes throughout the years, especially during Deng Xiaoping's leadership. While foreign commentators have accused the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of lacking a coherent ideology, the CCP still identify as communists.
The organization of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is based upon the Leninist idea of democratic centralism.
The "Peaceful Evolution" theory in international political thought refers to the alleged attempt to effect a political transformation of the Chinese socialist system by peaceful means, primarily by the United States.
Liu Shaoqi was a Chinese revolutionary, politician, and theorist. He was Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee from 1954 to 1959, First Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China from 1956 to 1966 and Chairman (President) of the People's Republic of China, China's de jure head of state, from 1959 to 1968, during which he implemented policies of economic reconstruction in China.
