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Speaker 1: The Stay in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey y'all, I'm Eves and Welcome to the

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Speaker 1: Stand History Class, a podcast that brings you a new

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Speaker 1: tidbit of history every day. Today is May sixteen. The

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Speaker 1: day was May sixteenth, nineteen sixty six. China's Cultural Revolution

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Speaker 1: began when the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee issued a

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Speaker 1: document known as the May sixteenth Notification. The Cultural Revolution

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Speaker 1: was a decade long period of political and social upheaval

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Speaker 1: launched by Mao Zedong. The origins of the Cultural Revolution

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Speaker 1: are complex, but the ten years that ensued were characterized

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Speaker 1: by extreme violence, persecution, and an economic downturn. Mao Zadong,

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Speaker 1: the chairman of the Communist Party of China, proclaimed the

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Speaker 1: founding of the People's Republic of China in nineteen forty nine.

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Speaker 1: Mao set about instituting measures to reform society. Landlords were

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Speaker 1: killed and land was redistributed to peasants. The opposition was

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Speaker 1: violently suppressed, and Mao started the Hundred Flowers Campaign, inviting

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Speaker 1: criticism of the Communist Party of China's policies, but he

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Speaker 1: soon backtracked on it. In night, Mao launched the Great

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Speaker 1: Leap Forward, which was a five year campaign a forced

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Speaker 1: agricultural collectivization and rural industrialization, but implementation was poor and hasty,

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Speaker 1: and ideological purity was emphasized over expertise. The disruption of

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Speaker 1: China's agriculture and natural disasters led to famine and massive

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Speaker 1: economic and environmental destruction. The Great Leap Forward was a

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Speaker 1: failure and resulted in tens of millions of deaths by starvation, execution, torture,

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Speaker 1: forced labor, and suicide. The government began to appealed the

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Speaker 1: program by nineteen sixty, but its failure created tension between

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Speaker 1: party leaders. The campaign was denounced and Mao was blamed.

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Speaker 1: Mao's position and government weakened as Mao attempted to regain

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Speaker 1: his authority. Over the next few years, there was a

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Speaker 1: brief period of recovery and economic stability. Agricultural and industrial

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Speaker 1: production increased, but Mal and his supporters were plotting a comeback.

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Speaker 1: The exact origins of the Cultural Revolution are not clear,

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Speaker 1: but many historians point to the play High Re Dismissed

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Speaker 1: from Office, which was about a Ming dynasty official who

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Speaker 1: criticized the emperor. Mal was convinced that the play supported

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Speaker 1: the Defense minister Pung Dehuai, whom Mao had purged because

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Speaker 1: he criticized the Greatly forward mao supporters also denounced the

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Speaker 1: play as an attack on Mao's leadership. Mal and his

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Speaker 1: supporters began advocating for a cultural revolution, claiming that they

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Speaker 1: aim to restore socialism and take down the ruling class.

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Speaker 1: The Cultural Revolution and also operated as an effort to

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Speaker 1: eliminate people who had went up against Mao. When Ma sixteenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, the Central Committee of the CPC issued

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Speaker 1: a document condemning CPC member Pong Zen and his committee,

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Speaker 1: known as the Five Man Group, for saying that the

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Speaker 1: High replay was an academic issue and not a political one.

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Speaker 1: Pong and other members of the group were purged from

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Speaker 1: the CPC and the Five Man Group was replaced with

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Speaker 1: the Cultural Revolution Group. The May sixteenth notification stated that

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Speaker 1: the enemies of the Communist Party had infiltrated the party,

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Speaker 1: and it outlined the revolution's goal of pursuing class warfare.

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Speaker 1: Though Mao didn't formally launch the Great Politarian Cultural Revolution

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Speaker 1: until August, this day is widely considered its beginning. Schools

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Speaker 1: were closed, intellectuals were sent to the countryside to do

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Speaker 1: manual labor. A cult of personality formed around Mao students

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Speaker 1: form paramilitary groups called the Red Guards and targeted political

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Speaker 1: enemies like elites and others deemed to be anti revolutionaries.

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Speaker 1: They urged people to get rid of the four Olds

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Speaker 1: or old customs, culture, habits, and ideas. They also destroyed

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Speaker 1: historical sites and artifacts. They even carried out mass killings

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Speaker 1: in cities. As the Red Guards became more extreme, the

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Speaker 1: People's Liberation Army was sent in to restore order. Male's

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Speaker 1: death on September nine marked the end of the Cultural Revolution.

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Speaker 1: Death told very greatly from the hundreds of thousands to millions.

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Speaker 1: The economy was damaged. The Cultural Revolution completely upended Chinese

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Speaker 1: politics and society. I'm each Jeff Code and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: And if you have any comments or suggestions, you can

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Speaker 1: send them to us at this day at I heart

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Speaker 1: media dot com. You can also hit us up on

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Speaker 1: social media where at T D I HC podcast. Thanks

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Speaker 1: again for listening to the show in all see you tomorrow.

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