The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Introduction
The Great Leap Forward, the Communes and the Sino-Soviet Split created a division in party leadership and a power struggle between the Rightist and Radical Factions in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The political and social structure during the mid 20th Century underwent dramatic change due to the revolutionary leadership of Mao Zedong. Mao felt that he could no longer depend on the formal Party Organization because it had been permeated with men pushing the capitalist agenda. The cataclysmic events that preceded the Revolution were the agents that made the situation ripe for conflict. The outcomes of these events created a shift to the right in the thoughts and actions of party leaders. Mao launched the revolution with the intent to counteract the influence of the bourgeois. The domestic turmoil that characterized the movement began in 1966 and ended in 1976 at Mao Zedong’s death.

The Great Leap Forward was a campaign launched in 1958 in attempt to both c...