Mao Zedong

During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's portraits, quotations and thought became ubiquitous. Hundreds of millions of copies of the Little Red Book were distributed, and personal loyalty to the Chairman became an essential political marker.

State of the evidence

Documented

Lin Biao, Defence Minister and Mao's officially designated successor, died with his family in a crash in Mongolia after leaving China hastily. The regime subsequently accused him of planning a coup and an assassination attempt against Mao.

State of the evidence

Disputed

Millions of urban young people, including former Red Guards, were sent to live and work in the countryside and border regions to be "re-educated" by peasants and reduce urban tensions.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated

President Liu Shaoqi, formerly the regime's second-ranking official, was denounced as a "traitor" and "capitalist", stripped of office, detained in harsh conditions and died in custody in 1969. Deng Xiaoping and many officials were also purged.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Political responsibility

Mao encouraged the mobilisation of Red Guards. Teachers, intellectuals, officials and people associated with the old order were humiliated, beaten, imprisoned or killed; temples, books, works of art and cultural property were destroyed in the campaign against the "Four Olds".

State of the evidence

Documented

In numerous provinces, revolutionary mobilisation degenerated into armed clashes between factions, local purges and massacres. The state and People's Liberation Army subsequently intervened unevenly to impose order.

State of the evidence

Documented

Mao launched the Cultural Revolution by denouncing "bourgeois" and "counterrevolutionary" elements within the party and society. He mobilised young people and weakened ordinary party structures to regain political supremacy challenged after the Great Leap.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated

Following a period of economic correction after the famine, Mao renewed his emphasis on class struggle and supported the Socialist Education Movement, targeting officials considered corrupt or insufficiently revolutionary.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated

The Great Leap Forward caused or aggravated a catastrophic famine. Grain requisitions, inflated statistics, destruction of warning mechanisms, restrictions on movement and continuation of radical policies despite information about hunger contributed to tens of millions of deaths.

State of the evidence

Documented

The Great Leap Forward mobilised millions of people to produce steel in small local furnaces, often at the cost of destroying useful tools and objects and shifting large numbers of workers away from harvesting.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated

As part of the Great Leap Forward, Mao launched a mobilisation against rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows. Mass extermination of sparrows removed a predator of insect pests and contributed to ecological imbalances that aggravated agricultural difficulties.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated

The People's Liberation Army entered Tibet in 1950. The Seventeen Point Agreement of 1951 formalised incorporation into the PRC amid a major imbalance of power. Tensions over reforms and the Chinese presence culminated in the 1959 uprising, suppressed by the military, and the Dalai Lama's flight.

State of the evidence

Documented

Following the Hundred Flowers Campaign, critics of the party were labelled "rightists". Hundreds of thousands lost their jobs and status, were sent to forced labour or the countryside, and endured years of persecution.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated

Defence Minister Peng Dehuai sent Mao a letter criticising the excesses of the Great Leap. Mao turned the debate into a test of loyalty, had Peng condemned as a "rightist" and revived an ideological campaign that further reduced the possibility of reporting the famine.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated

Mao encouraged intellectuals and citizens to criticise the party under the "Hundred Flowers" slogan. After criticism intensified in spring 1957, the policy abruptly reversed.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated

Marxist critic Hu Feng, who called for greater literary autonomy, was accused of organising a vast conspiracy against the state. A nationwide denunciation campaign spread to intellectuals and writers associated, directly or indirectly, with his ideas.

State of the evidence

Documented

Following the establishment of the People's Republic, the regime implemented land reform that redistributed land but was accompanied by struggle sessions, detention and executions of landowners classified as "landlords".

State of the evidence

Documented

Mao launched the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries against former Nationalist agents, opponents and people designated enemies of the new regime. Central directives included quantified execution targets, encouraging waves of killings.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated

Campaigns against corruption, waste and bureaucracy, followed by those against economic offences, targeted public officials and urban entrepreneurs. Interrogations, denunciations, self-criticism sessions, heavy penalties and extreme pressure profoundly transformed the private sector.

State of the evidence

Documented