An Evaluation of the `Cultural Revolution' Campaigns from the Founding of the PRC to the Cultural Revolution

After the founding of the PRC,and especially after 1958,there was a powerful `cultural revolution' campaign that ultimately flowed into the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution(1966-1976) itself.The earlier campaign provided an important breakthrough point for the Cultural Revolution.This paper attempts to explain the origins,development and consequences of the pre\|Cultural Revolution `cultural revolution' campaign.It traces the origin of the concept of `cultural revolution' in Lenin′s and Mao Zedong′s thought, and it describes the development of the idea in the early 1950s and its elaboration during the Great Leap Forward from 1958.It explains how the concept of `cultural revolution' reflected concerns about the gap between China′s developing socialism and the low level of culture and education of the mass of its population.The paper explains how early `cultural revolution' campaigns developed forms of mobilization and themes that came into their own during the Cultural Revolution itself.