The Cultural Revolution & The Struggle to Liberate Women

Before the victory of the great anti-imperialist, anti-feudal revolution in China the women of that most ancient of lands were wickedly oppressed by tradition. Prostitution was common, practices like foot binding literally crippled women in order to please aesthetic appetites, marriages were arranged and forced and Confucian tradition bound women to familial men in their lives.The Communist Party under the leadership of Mao Zedong struggled mightily against these patriarchal practices, reaching the height of their efforts during the whirlwind events of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

The Defeat of the Left-Wing in the Cultural Revolution

Hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong Thought to wage the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the end--Revolution is no crime, to rebel is justified

Following up on my posting of the Leading Light Communist Organization’s basic points on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, I am posting this much more drawn out analysis of the defeat of the two principal left-wing factions within the GPCR – Lin Biao’s People’s Liberation Army and the spontaneous mass movements. This piece was written by LLCO member Prairie Fire and was published with the title Two Roads Defeated in the Cultural Revolution.

As I noted in my posting of the LLCO’s basic points, the GPCR and its outcomes, especially the defeat the left-wing, was an a world shaking event and is of key importance for revolutionary communists to understand. Firstly, because Mao and others blazed a path in laying out, and then acting on, the necessity to not only revolutionize the relations of production, but also the superstructure (culture, institutions, political power structures, roles, rituals, and state) as well. 

Some Basic Points on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

This article originally appeared on the home page of the Leading Light Communist Organization (LLCO) with the title Beginning Talking Points on the Cultural Revolution Era. While I have attempted to put forward a critique of the Maoist-Third Worldist politics of the Leading Light Communists from the understanding of African Internationalism/Yeshitelaism, it cannot be denied that they do on occasion produce articles that are thought provoking and worth discussing.

Some of their more interesting work has been on the era of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This key period was paradoxically both the highest advance of the revolution in China and the period immediately preceding the restoration of capitalist social relations and the entrance of China into the camp of imperialism.