The Cultural Revolution Quotes

“Is there a single political force which has been able to work with him from beginning to end? His former secretaries have either committed suicide or been arrested. His few close comrades-in-arms or trusted aides have also been sent to prison by him . . . He is paranoid and a sadist. His philosophy of liquidating people is either to not do it or to do it thoroughly. Every time he liquidates someone, he does not desist until he puts them to death. Once he hurts you, he will hurt you all the way; and he puts the blame for everything bad on others.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“One of the many paradoxes of the Great Leap Forward was that everything was for sale, as bricks, clothes and fuel were bartered for food. Millions also left the countryside to work in underground”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“Zeng Xisheng began to allow farmers to rent the land. Tao Zhu, a powerful Politburo member, supported the move. ‘This way people won’t starve to death,’ he said, adding that ‘if this is capitalism, then I prefer capitalism.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“Mao wished to purge the higher echelons of power, so he could hardly rely on the party machine to get the job done. He turned to young, radical students instead, some of them no older than fourteen, giving them licence to denounce all authority and ‘bombard the headquarters’.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s second attempt to become the historical pivot around which the socialist universe revolved. Lenin had carried out the Great October Socialist Revolution, setting a precedent for the proletariat of the whole world. But modern revisionists like Khrushchev had usurped the leadership of the party, leading the Soviet Union back on the road of capitalist restoration.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“In communist parlance, after the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production had been completed, a new revolution was required to stamp out once and for all the remnants of bourgeois culture, from private thoughts to private markets. Just as the transition from capitalism to socialism required a revolution, the transition from socialism to communism demanded a revolution too: Mao called it the Cultural Revolution.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976