The Cultural Revolution A Period Of Loss For China

Katie Zhang Richardson WH-II Research Paper 5 June 2015 The Cultural Revolution was a period of loss for China; 1.5 million lives were lost, but even more lost their property, their dignity, and their culture. The instigator of this period of devastation, Mao Zedong, crippled China (â€Å"Cultural Revolution†). Mao, the most influential man in Chinese history, was able to obtain power through repressive campaigns and his ruthless Red Guard supporters. When Mao Zedong was born in 1893, China was in a terrible state. The Opium War, the Open Door Policy, and the unsuccessful Boxer Revolution left China in widespread devastation. As the Qing Dynasty ended in 1912, new leaders prepared to take power (Gay 16). Two leaders that†¦show more content†¦The Nationalists who sought power over the Communists massacred around five to six thousand Communists in Shanghai on April 12, 1927. A Civil war had broken out (Wertz). Mao fled the Nationalist purges and escaped into the mountainous region of Jianggangshang. There, Mao or ganized a rag-tag army composed of bandits and peasants called the Red Army. The Red Army was ill-equipped yet by using guerilla warfare and Mao’s battle slogans, â€Å"When the enemy advances, we retreat! When the enemy halts and encamps, we trouble them! When the enemy seeks to avoid a battle, we attack! When the enemy retreats, we pursue,† the Red Army was able to gain territory from the KMT from 1930 to 1934 (Gay 36). However, by the end of 1934, the KMT surrounded the Red Army and they were forced to retreat. For a six thousand miles journey from the Jiangxi Province to the Shaanxi Province, the Red Army marched to save themselves from the KMT. This trek was known as the Long March. Out of the estimated one hundred to two hundred thousand soldiers that marched, only seven to eight thousand survived (Gay 39). When the Red Army arrived at their destination at Shaanxi, Japan had taken advantage of the civil war and had invaded and occupied all of Manchuria, a mineral rich land in northern China (Malaspina 57). As Japanese troops moved south, the Red Army temporarily combined forces with the KMT to fight off Japan. Yet even with combined forces, the